The East Is Blue is an essay by Salman Rushdie about the subversive potential of pornography in Asia and the Muslim world. It was published in 2004 in Timothy Greenfield-Sanders' book XXX: 30 Porn-Star Portraits.
In this article, Rushdie argues that the Islamic world in the East is closed and very ashamed of sex. Examining the impact of globalization, he states that in the context of Islamic societies, pornography consumption is a kind of political rebellion. By presenting examples from Pakistan, Iran and India, Rushdie shows that the struggle of government officials with pornography in daily life has failed. Rushdi does not consider pornography a political matter; Rather, it considers its consumption as a sign of political or social discomfort.