Harem

Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks is a 1976 sexploitation women in prison film, the first sequel to Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS.

Aurora Nilsson, also known as Rora Asim Khan (Västerhaninge 1 January 1894 - Södertälje 1972), was a Swedish writer who became known for her autobiographical novel, Escape from Harem, about her experiences in Afghanistan during her marriage to an Afghan diplomat, Asim Khan, in the 1920s. A novel is based upon her story, as her work gives a valuable insight in the life of a harem in 1920s Afghanistan. Her divorce (1927) was at the time unique in Afghanistan.

Concubinage is an interpersonal and sexual relationship between two people in which the couple does not want to, or cannot, enter into a full marriage. Concubinage and marriage are often regarded as similar, but mutually exclusive.

A harem is a domestic space that is reserved for the women of the house in a Muslim family. A harem may house a man's wife or wives, their pre-pubescent male children, unmarried daughters, female domestic servants, and other unmarried female relatives. In the past, during the era of slavery in the Muslim world, harems also housed enslaved concubines. In former times, some harems were guarded by eunuchs who were allowed inside. The structure of the harem and the extent of monogamy or polygyny have varied depending on the family's personalities, socio-economic status, and local customs. Similar institutions have been common in other Mediterranean and Middle Eastern civilizations, especially among royal and upper-class families, and the term is sometimes used in other contexts. In traditional Persian residential architecture, the women's quarters were known as andaruni (Persian: اندرونی, 'inside'), and in the Indian subcontinent as zenana (Urdu: زنانہ).

An odalisque (Ottoman Turkish: اوطه‌لق, Turkish: odalık) was a chambermaid or a female attendant in a Turkish seraglio, particularly the court ladies in the household of the Ottoman sultan. In western European usage, the term came to mean the harem concubine, and refers to the eroticized artistic genre in which a woman is represented mostly or completely nude in a reclining position, often in the setting of a harem. It was part of a fascination with Orientalism, particularly in Great Britain and France.

In the Kingdom of Kandy in Sri Lanka, the Kings maintained a harem that consisted of a chief queen and one or two secondary queens. In addition to the queens, the harem also included concubines, who were divided into three categories based on their rank. The highest-ranking category was Randoli, which consisted of consorts of royal blood who held the position of chief queen. The second category, Rididoli, consisted of consorts from either noble families of royal lineage or sisters of Randoli. The lowest ranking category was Yakadadoli, who were from the Radala (Elite) castes.

Some Girls: My Life in a Harem, a book published in 2010 and written by Jillian Lauren, is an autobiographical account of her experiences as one of the paid young female "guests" of Prince Jefri Bolkiah, brother of the Sultan of Brunei, between 1992 and 1995.

The Harem Years (ISBN 978-0935312706) is a firsthand account of the private world of a harem in colonial Cairo.

Tales from the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey (Turkish: Türkçe Sevmek) is a nonfiction anthology by 32 expatriate women about their lives in modern Turkey, published by Seal Press in North America (2006, ISBN 1-58005-155-3) and Doğan Kitap in Turkey (2005, ISBN 975-293-381-5 Turkish edition, ISBN 975-293-372-6 English edition).

A seraglio, serail, seray or saray (from Persian: سرای, sarāy, 'palace', via Turkish, Italian and French) is a castle, palace or government building which was considered to have particular administrative importance in various parts of the former Ottoman Empire.