The body, the vessel of reproduction, is also the seat of desire and sensual release. The religious vision, which yearns for purity and is wary of the flesh, oscillates between veneration of and contempt for the body, which may be both a receptacle for the divine and a place of perdition. How do religions regard love, desire and sexuality ? What are the consequences for our freedom and dignity ?

AXELLE RED

Musician Axelle Red, born in 1968, released her first album aged 15. She got a degree in law at VUB and her international career quickly turned political. She denounces violence against women and children and is linked to Unicef and Handicap International. In her newest album, "Exil," she returns to the themes of love and sensuality.

DJEMILA BENHABIB

Somewhere between Algeria, France and Canada, Djemila Benhabib continues to resist those who try to silence her. In her essays, Benhabib fights for freedom of speech, women’s rights, secularism and social equality. As an author, after standing up to the movement trying to convert Algeria to Islamic rules ‘by fire and blood,’ she has received multiple awards for her political engagement for women, minors and the press.

SYLVIE LAUSBERG

The commitment of historian and psychoanalyst Sylvie Lausberg is present throughout all of her work. She strives for accessible scientific knowledge for everyone and uses her own background to make the contemporary conflicts as available to the public as possible. Apart from that, she is head of the department of Studies & Strategies of the Secular Action Center, president of the Council of French-speaking Women in Belgium and member of the Federal Council for Equal Rights between men and women.

Flagey, Le Soir, RTBF, ULB, VUB