The current depiction of Tunisian politics and society as divided between the binary poles of secularism and religion grew easily from the pre-revolutionary state’s dichotomy of modernity vs. traditional religion. While the division was developed by the state, it has also been supported by some anti-state forces for whom it provided a totalizing form of categorization. Women’s bodies played a crucial role in this binary distinction, with a particular fascination with hijab. However, in the realities of daily life in Tunis, the meaning and understanding of hijab has been, and remains more complex. Drawing on ethnographic data prior to and following the 2011 revolution, this presentation examines the way both men’s and women’s practices undermine the clear distinction made by the state between secular and religious identities, particularly with regard to hijab. Hijab has long standing ideological associations with the control of sexuality, and yet young men on the streets of Tunis do not view hijab as an impediment to their desire or as a marker of religious status. For them hijab signified not the religious categories of piety or purity, but interest in acquiring a husband. Women in hijab were acceptable objects of desire and the targets of flirtation. This undermining of the assumed nature of hijab has been carried farther in post-revolutionary Tunisia, with the very category of hijab itself called into question. With the relaxation of clothing standards following the revolution, women may more freely wear clothing that had been associated with hijab. Prior to the revolution there was a shared understanding that hair and body coverage was intended to signal hijab. Now, however headscarves and long gloves may not signal religious conviction as much as sun screen. A woman who might at first glance appear religiously conservative, may create a very different impression when she takes off her head and arm coverings on entering a public building. While this behavior on the streets of Tunis is not overtly political, it calls into question the clear categorization that so many aggressively political groups are pursuing. It rejects the efforts to reduce issues of gender and the body to simplistic partisan politics and religion becomes marked more by internal conviction than external signification.