Muj?n (ribaldry), in both its heteroerotic and homoerotic dimensions, remained a legitimate mode of discourse, in prose or poetry, until the 19th century. One of its last expressions is probably Shidy?q’s Al-s?q ‘al? l-s?q (1855), remarkably in a purely heteroerotic declension. At the turn of the 20th century, not only will new editions of the classics of the Arabic literary lore be emptied of any material deemed unsuitable for a refined audience and for the new public created by the development of public education, but no modern ad?b would consider dealing with bodily functions, desire, sexualities and the transgressions of social and religious norms in the way pre-modern authors did. This marks the disappearance of the “space of transgression” allowed within the realm of classical adab. The vanishing of muj?n is not a mere consequence of Arabic literature’s confrontation with the Western model during the colonial age, or of the imposition of prudish norms seen as a token of modernity. The gradual relegation of the crudest forms of muj?n cannot be merely analyzed as a loss of freedom or a moral restriction imposed by modernity. It is precisely because of its outrageously misogynistic tone and its mainly homoerotic flavor that this part of Arabic literature becomes, during the 19th century, at odds with the evolution of societies which aim at redefining the role of women as essentialized abstract entities now defined as exclusive objects of male desire. When a strictly homosocial world opens itself to the mixing of genders in the public space, even if limited, the norms of literary production has to be modified. The ways in which literature, among other cultural productions, is consumed explains the new refusal of obscenity and this new awkwardness felt towards the excesses of the desiring body, for the written work now circulates freely, without the long education of textual consumption, formerly provided by the shaykh to his pupil. Paradoxically, the progress of women’s status and rights in Arab societies throughout the 19th and 20th centuries imposed new rules and conventions for literature. One century later, now that the heteronormalization of Arab societies has been gradually achieved, can muj?n reappear in new forms in Arabic literature, and can its homoerotic dimension be brought back to life? Various modern texts are examined to answer this question, including Salw? al-Na‘?m?’s Burh?n al-‘asal, Mu?ammad Shukri’s al-Shu???r, and ?amd? Ab? Gulayyil’s Lu??? mutaq?‘id?n.