I wish I had never read this,

[flaine]

Looking at the Wikileaks today I ended up on wikipedia "Womens rights in Saudia Arabia".

I am beyond sickened by what I have just read.
Never mind the gender segregation, mutilation and discrimination against girs/women, just check out the section on 'breast feeding sons'

Perversion beyond belief.!!!!

How can these people behave like this.

Link?

Christ I just read it, its just so bizarre it doesn't seem like it could be real. Frightening that it is.

well, what did it say ?

Link

it IS wikipedia though...

The page in question

And yes, theocracies have crazy laws. There's equally stupid stuff in the Bible.

Legalism gone mad.

My friend lives in Saudi and b/feeds her son (she is Jordanian, married to a Saudi)

She also goes out without her hair covered before lunchtime

But yes, hard-line wahhabi clerics are keraaazeee

How very bizzare.

fuck, MrM

I am no fan of The Bible either, but have you read that link ???

Do you mean this bit?

Breast milk sons
In order to reduce the difficulties of strict sex segregation in modern life, some clerics issued a fatwa encouraging women to provide breast milk to any man with whom she comes into regular contact. Abdel Mohsen Obeikan, a renowned Islamic scholar, an adviser to the royal court and consultant to the Ministry of Justice, said in 2010: "The man should take the milk, but not directly from the breast of the woman. He should drink it and then becomes a relative of the family, a fact that allows him to come in contact with the women without breaking Islam's rules about mixing."[52] Breast milk kinship is indeed considered to be as good as a blood relationship in Islam and this way, for example foreign drivers can mix freely with all members of the family without breaking the Islamic rule which does not allow mixing of genders.[52] Another cleric disagreed, saying the man should take the milk straight from her breast. The issue moved one female Saudi blogger to ridicule: "The whole issue just shows how clueless men are. All this back and forth between sheiks and not one bothers to ask a woman if it's logical, let alone possible to breastfeed a grown man five fulfilling breast milk meals. Moreover, the thought of a huge hairy face at a woman's breast does not evoke motherly or even brotherly feelings. It could go from the grotesque to the erotic but definitely not maternal."[53]
The "breast milk" fatwa became a rallying point for right-to-drive activists. They have threatened to start breastfeeding professional drivers, so that they can travel without violating segregation laws: "We either be allowed to drive or breastfeed foreigners."[52]

You find that 'beyond sickening'? Perverted? No, it's a bit odd, but I actually think it's more about subverting the patriarchal nonsense than an actual practice that happens...I highly doubt that women are actually breastfeeding adult men on a regular basis!

Yes, AFFAMP, I read it.

It does sound odd at first, but consider the context and it makes more sense.

The gender-mixing laws are so ridiculously strict that they have to find weird loopholes to get around them. This is just a loophole around a stupid law, not some sexual thing.

How about fathers refusing to let their daughters marry into their 40s so they can collect their wages?

The point is that gender segregation rules are so restrictive that normal life can barely function, hence the resort to extreme ways of getting round the rules such as breastfeeding grown men.

Fgs, women are not allowed to drive OR use public transport OR 'take taxis or hire private drivers'...What does that leave them? Housebound.

MrManager, we cross-posted - but you expressed what I was trying to say more eloquently :)

I think you are right EricNorth, its a crazy rule but probably not happening a great deal in practice. I just find it scary that the rule exists in the first place and could be used against a woman in that country because it exists.

shocking but is the same link op is talking about as she says breast feeding sons?

That's the title of the section in Wikipedia, so I think so

if this really happens, do you think the men don't see it as a "sexual thing"

I'm not sure if it is the same thing that the OP is talking about...seems a lot of outrage over somethign quite daft.

Preggers - have you interpreted this right? It's not a rule, it's advice - it's a way that has been suggested for women to be allowed to be alone with non related males, because in islam if you breastfeed a child you become 'related' to them, and so are your children, so marriage between 'milk siblings' is forbidden. Women in SA are forbidden from being alone with unrelated males, so if they breastfeed a man they can be alone with him because they wouldn't be able to have sex with them. It's bonkers, misguided and inappropriate, but hardly dangerous.

Forty lashes for having your bread deliverd by a man.

So you're not only housebound, you couldn't shop online / by phone / mail order unless the delivery person was female - impossible when women mustn't drive.

Clearly, you should express large amounts of breast milk and leave it outside your locked door, for later consumption by the baker's boy and Tesco drivers.

What happens if you're not lactating?

AF - can you really imagine a religious muslim woman breastfeeding an adult man? believe me, this doesn't happen! It's a fatwa (advice) issued by some bonkers man who thought he was being helpful, possibly. Or possibly has a breastmilk fetish.

I am best leaving this thread I think

my blood pressure can't stand it, and I am likely to say something that will get me banned

Not sure why people are getting so hot under the collar about this. Saudi is a fucked up, horrible place to be a woman. This kind of highlights it, i guess, but did we not know this already? Nobody is forcing women to breastfeed anyone, or stopping women from breastfeeding sons, or anything....this is just a piece of advice from one cleric, not a generally accepted practice...

No I think I understood it. I find it scary that its considered only possible for women to spend time with men they are unrelated to if they b/f them. So if they don't take the advice, what then? Do they have other useful 'suggestions' or are there more serious consequences??

I can't speak for anyone else, Eric, but I get quite warm under the collar about almost every piece of information that emerges from Sharia-ruled places. The entire concept is so alien to me, I cannot anticipate any of it and am serially shocked.