Saudi Arabia’s answer to religious sex segregation
The mixing of unrelated men and women in Saudi Arabia has been a giant no-no for quite a long time. This of course in turn creates social problems.
Unless chaperoned it’s generally frowned upon for a female to be in the company of any unrelated male friends or acquaintances. This particular example as you can appreciate presents great difficulty in environments where unrelated males and females are bound to mix.
Take for example the workplace. Despite making up 70% of all university enrolments, women in Saudi Arabia constitute just 5% of the workforce. However with such high enrolment numbers this will no doubt increase over time.
Clerics running the country are thus presented with the dilemma of enforcing Sharia law in an increasingly liberal environment. Well a dilemma until now.
Recently, two Saudi Arabian Islamic clerics issued a fatwa declaring a solution to the problem.
Instead of selling out your religious beliefs and running the risk of irking the local religious police, those working with unrelated females can now rest easy. The solution to sex segregation is to simply establish ‘maternal relations‘ between yourself and any unrelated females you come into contact with.
This is achieved by drinking the breastmilk of any unrelated female you regularly come into contact with.
This consumption thus forms a maternal bond between the drinker and uh… supplier which allows the two people to come into contact with each other freely.
Now I know what you’re thinking, ‘hello sexual repression much?! And at least one cleric agrees with you. Cleric Abi Ishaq Al Huwain openly called on the women of Saudi Arabia ‘to allow the men to suckle the milk directly from their breast‘.
Take away the lactation part and aren’t we just talking basic foreplay here?
Hows that going to work?
‘Hi there, we’ve just hired a new floor manager. Could all lactating female staff who work in sector 7G please report to HR.’
‘Ok ladies, flop them out. Bob, start drinking’.
‘…what?’
‘Sorry mate, company policy. You’re going to be working directly with these women so we need to establish maternal relations.’
‘what on earth for?’
‘well you see under Sharia law unrelated males and females coming into contact with each other is deemed to much of a temptation. By making you suck on the nipples of these women, we hope to prevent any sexual temptation occuring’.
‘…so I get to see a whole bunch of naked breasts, suck on them… and this is supposed to sexually repress any urges I might have towards these women I’m going to regularly be in contact with?’
‘…right.’
‘…’
‘…PRAISE ALLAH!’
Thankfully it seems not everyone has jumped off the deep end. Sheikh Al Obeikan, an adviser to the royal court and consultant to the Ministry of Justice, adopted a much more realistic position and suggested the milk not be taken directly from the breast.
Now obviously this removes the physical contact between the drinker and supplier but again how’s it supposed to work?
What, you apply for a job and the boss opens up a fridge containing breast milk samples of all the women who work for the company that you then have to drink?
And that’s just in the workplace. Acquaintance wise I can’t think of anything more awkward then a cultural requirement that I drink the breast milk of any female friends I might have.
For its intended purpose of ensuring the safeguarding of Islamic law, is sucking on the nipples of your female friends and co-workers really the best way to go about it?
I’ve been part of more then my fair share of sexual tension experiences in the workplace. Despite thinking long and hard about it, I can’t think of one situation where throwing some nipples into my mouth would have helped the situation.
And even though it does nothing for me, surely there’s at least one guy in Saudi Arabia who’d get off drinking the breast milk of his female colleagues or friends.
Although I seriously doubt this fatwa will ever come to fruition it’s interesting that it’s been brought up as a viable solution to the religious sex segregation issue present in Saudi Arabia. In what is arguably one of the most sexually repressed countries in the world it’s amusing that their solution to stopping mixing of the unrelated sexes is so grounded in potential eroticism.
Not surprising I guess when you live in a country run by old men who’ve spent most of their lives repressing any sexual urges that ever crossed their mind. What you can’t get out of your system will eventually consume you.
Case in point, stupid fatwas like this.
June 9th, 2010 at 12:29 pm Leper(Quote)
It’s nice to see Saudi Arabia joining the western world by instituting ridiculous policies which seem like they were plagiarised from The Onion.
I’m imagining that the orientation process ends with the new male staff member being presented with a large milkshake by a bearded cleric and surrounded by other male workers, who are chanting “Chug!” loudly.
This makes it less sexual, although more like a creepy hazing ritual.
June 9th, 2010 at 1:33 pm lemmiwinks(Quote)
Never mind the fact that a woman who isn’t breastfeeding isn’t going to be lactating! Further demonstrates how dumb Sharia law is.
I’m sure it was fine in the 14th century when everyone knew the earth was flat and the sun revolved around it, but things have moved on. It should therefore come as no surprise that most of those countries with Sharia law (and a good few without) are, in many ways, a glimpse back in time.
Evolve or become a suicide bomber I guess.
June 9th, 2010 at 2:23 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
@Leper
I think I saw a movie like that onc-….
…oh wait you said male staff member.
I just can’t get over how on one hand you’ve got thou shalt not enter or exit rooms via the same entrance, thou shalt wear loose fitted drapes from head to toe to preserve modesty and thou shalt not talk to unrelated persons of the opposite sex, and then you’ve got thou shalt drink the nipple juice of aforementioned unrelated persons.
It’s like proof that despite repressing open sexuality it’s still on their minds. Proof I guess that even righteous Islamic clerics are filthily human like the rest of us.
June 9th, 2010 at 9:05 pm LC(Quote)
Perhaps this will see a boom in early marriage and pregnancies. If you don’t have a child you can’t start lactating, so it would become necessary to have a child in order to lactate, supply your breast milk to colleagues, allowing you to mix with those colleagues to then further your career.
Well I guess it beats sleeping with the boss to rise up the corporate ladder.
So if a young women goes to a careers counsellor, the first thing she will be told is finish your degree, have a baby and keep that milk coming. Interesting.lol
June 9th, 2010 at 10:02 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Imagine being the newly wed husband.
‘Honey I want kids.’
‘Cool, I love you so much! I thought you wanted to focus on your career, what brought this on?’
‘Well I need to interact with men at work and to do so I need to feed them my breast milk. I don’t produce breast milk without having children.’
‘…’
‘…for the record I just want to say I’m totally not cool with this.’
‘listen here. We’re going to have kids or I’m going to start wearing a burqa to bed.’
(insert whimper of emasculated husband here)
(insert cheering of male co-workers here).
June 10th, 2010 at 6:14 pm Elbowgrease(Quote)
Can i have mine in my morning coffee please? O yeh and No fat chicks.
Seems like the Suadis have come up with a pearler this time. They sound as crazy as Tonze, Bananaby, shrek and co.
No, thats just insulting those nice Saudi religious police.