Just when you think you’ve heard it all, along comes something new. Saudi Gazette/Okaz report that pervy entrepreneurs in the northern city of Hail who, as part of their jobs, receive calls from women, are bundling the women’s phone numbers to sell on to other pervs. And so it follows that they guys start harassing women through their phones.

There’s a crass American expression about what these guys need to ‘get’. But clearly, that exactly what they’re not ‘getting’. Instead, they bother women while seeking to quench their desires. I know that there’s a tradition, Islamically based or otherwise, that characterizes women as the succubae, female demons bent on slaking their sexual lusts on innocent men. Can we agree that the guys packaging and buying women’s phone numbers have enough demonic thrust of their own?

Good job, guys… You’re helping that stereotype of Saudi males as oversexed abusers of women.

Hail women drowning by numbers
Sattam Al-Jemai’ah

HAIL – Women in Hail are being urged to avoid using their personal mobile telephones to call restaurants and taxis after a surge in complaints over nuisance calls believed to be the result of their numbers being revealed to men for prices ranging between SR100 and SR500.

The prices are said to rise if the restaurant or taxi firm employee also provides the willing buyer with the woman’s name and address.

Nawwaf Al-Jeday’i of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (the Hai’a) in Hail says his organization has responded to increasing complaints from women who have received nuisance calls after contacting restaurants or taxis.

“These young men barrage the women with amorous messages, and we have made some arrests in such cases,” Al-Jeday’i said.
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Incidentally, while I tend to believe that the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has become an overbearing nanny, too often enforcing the opinions of the ill-educated, here’s an instance where they’re doing some actual good.