The fantasies generated about South Pacific islands situated in Romantic ideals like the uncorrupted man—the noble savage—emerged out of environmental determinism. In colonial accounts of Otahiete (Tahiti), beautiful men and women frolic in turquoise lagoons, greet foreigners with garlands of flowers, and have large sex orgies in public. The desire for Tahitian women resulted in the growing value of nails from European ships as an important commodity traded for sexual favors. In contrast to the numerous depictions of Polynesians as perfect, unspoiled humans, Arabs were seldom represented as noble savages.

XREF: This connects to Orientalist scholarship on how Western representations selectively romanticized some colonized peoples while demonizing or ignoring others.

Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imag…, loc. 374