Gonads: not to be trifled with
I don’t drive because it might harm my testicles.
I’ve been told this by a female officer in the Organisation for the Promulgation of Modesty and the Protection of Evildoing, though she doesn’t provide any evidence for it, offering only the soothing platitudes that I should rely on my morals, and not on science.
This officer from the OPMPE, who appeared domineering and threatening despite only “wanting the best for me”, also mentioned that my intestines might be punctured by my shifting pelvis, though she didn’t mention whether this would occur simply by sitting in a car without my wife or my aunt, or if I drive (alone) down a particularly bumpy street.
Two years ago a number of my brothers were arrested by officers of the OPMPE for driving. It’s unsure whether their testicles were checked, but it seemed a little unfair given god never wrote anything down as a prohibition against my testicles being left unattended in a motor vehicle (or any other vehicle for that matter).
If my testicles had indeed been violated in a Prius, or even a Toyota Hilux, I doubt my wife would have written the note needed to attend correcting surgery.
All my own fault, I suppose. They’re only looking out for me, after all.
I jest, of course, but I fear Sheikh Saleh al-Lohaidan of Saudi Arabia was not when he insisted, contrary to any kind of sanity or sense, that women who drive do damage to their ovaries and pelvises.
"If a woman drives a car, not out of pure necessity, that could have negative physiological impacts as functional and physiological medical studies show that it automatically affects the ovaries and pushes the pelvis upwards," he told Saudi website Sabq.org.
al-Lohaidan sits on the Senior Council of Scholars , paradoxically a collection of conservative hellfire-preaching imams bound not by dignity and reason but snake oil and misogyny, who issue fatwas and edicts and advise the Saudi government on policy.
Popular thinking encourages us to stand back and observe with our arms folded, the non-statement of “respecting others’ beliefs” dribbling from our lips.
For shame! And so say the women of Saudi Arabia, bold enough to announce their intentions online (in an age of constant surveillance, no less) and protest the driving ban enforced by their solely male rulers who, by the way, have very little interest in the wellbeing of the womb. 12,00 petition signatures is nothing to snub one’s nose at.
al-Lohaidan’s ridiculousness will be allowed to continue under the guise “respecting other people”, and so too will the blanket ban on female drivers (whatever silly judgment one might make about women behind the wheel), and so too will the restriction of movements – both literally by the religious police, and figuratively by the full-body veil that is not supported at all by the Koran.
Gladly, I take the side of a Muslim woman’s right to choose her own curiosities, and against those who approve the enforcement of archaic, nonsensical, and philistinistic rules.
It once again demonstrates that the oppressed find no relish or comfort in their chains.
Follow James on Twitter: @James_ARobins
