Desert romances – mass-market romance novels featuring a sheikh or desert prince as the hero – are exemplary materials with which to explore the romanticized narrative of globalization and the ways this narrative serves to obscure the violence that a neoliberal securitized regime installs. Though they are mostly set in fictionalized Middle Eastern countries, the countries invented by romance authors closely resemble the “new Middle East” – the Gulf countries (especially the UAE) that have come to be associated with glitz and glamour. They therefore coincide with an image of the Gulf that fosters the hyper-optimistic narrative of neoliberal globalization as a process that has brought prosperity to all, creating the happy and liberated consumer-citizen. Desert romances draw on this romanticized narrative of globalization through the figure of the sheikh-hero, who seeks to modernize his country by integrating it into the “new global economy,” despite opposition from backward (i.e., terrorist) elements of his society. The sheikh-heroes in these novels therefore serve as agents of a particular narrative of globalization, one that disavows the kind of state violence necessary to uphold the economic and social realities (especially the increasing inequalities) that neoliberalism installs. Much like in the UAE, though the sheikh often hails from a newly oil-rich country, his means of integrating into the new global economy and of allying with global powers are through an emphasis on security. Desert romances demonstrate how important the process of securitization is to the romanticized narrative of globalization. In this respect, the figure of the sheikh can be understood through the metaphor of the gated community – he serves to signify the inevitability of ever-present (yet inexplicable and evil) threat at the same time that he becomes a beacon of safety, as long as one succumbs to the regime of security he represents. As a native to the region, the sheikh gives credibility to the move of displacing the violence of neoliberal imperialism onto the decontextualized figure of the terrorist while simultaneously providing a safe point of identification. In short, he demonstrates just how sexy security can be. Through the romanticized narrative of globalization as fostering benevolent alliances between the sheikh-hero’s country and the U.S., desert romances do the important cultural work of crafting the subjectivity of the good sheikh, a necessary purveyor of security as a technology of imperialism.