Saudi Arabia Reportedly Deports Men for Being 'Too Handsome'

[Raj30]

Saudi Arabia Reportedly Deports Men for Being ‘Too Handsome’ | TIME.com
It's a good problem to have, but it's still a problem for three men who have reportedly been deported from Saudi Arabia for being "too handsome."

The men were visiting Saudi Arabia from the United Arab Emirates to attend the annual Jenadrivah Heritage & Cultural Festival in Riyadh. They were apparently minding their own business when members of Saudi Arabia's religion police entered the pavilion and forcibly removed them from the festival. Their offense? They were considered "too handsome" to stay for fear that women would find them irresistible, according to the Arabic-language newspaper Elaph.


"A festival official said the three Emiratis were taken out on the grounds they are too handsome and that the Commission [for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vices] members feared female visitors could fall for them," Elaph reported this week, as quoted on the website Arabian Business. The Emirati men were subsequently deported to Abu Dhabi. In Saudi Arabia women are largely prohibited from interacting with unrelated males.

After the incident, the UAE released an official statement indicating that the religious police may have been on high alert due to the unplanned (and, we assume, unnerving) presence of an unnamed female artist, reported the Telegraph. It's unclear whether the men were evicted in relation to that incident, however.



Read more: Saudi Arabia Reportedly Deports Men for Being ‘Too Handsome’ | TIME.com

 

[pmaitra]

Re: Saudi Arabia Reportedly Deports Men for Being 'Too Handsome Read

Health is wealth. No matter how much money you have, if you are not healthy, . . . , you are not desirable.

 

[sorcerer]

Hilarious read..

 

[Ray]

How more idiotic can a Nation get?

 

[hit&run]

They want to save their wenches from being screwed by outsiders. The whole sharia works for the same purpose. Mullah can ox around aroused searching for pussy all over the world. But for their women the ''religion is always in danger''.

 

[Ray]

In Saudi Arabia to be handsome is dangerous, not only from women, but also as a man.

However, it worse fate is to be a Camel!

 

[AVERAGE INDIAN]

no wonder they love their camels

 

[tramp]

Probably dispute broke out between the Emiratis men's admirers among the Saudi moral policemen and they decided it was best to send them packing for the sake of unity within the force.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

They want to save their wenches from being screwed by outsiders. The whole sharia works for the same purpose. Mullah can ox around aroused searching for pussy all over the world. But for their women the ''religion is always in danger''.

The 3 were probably gay.

 

[sorcerer]

It's really not easy being a handsome devil – Telegraph Blogs

Being this good-looking can be a burden (go on, take another peek at my byline picture). Other men hate you for it and women treat you like a piece of meat. I have to live with the constant worry that any job or promotion I am given is not due to my talent, but entirely down to my unnatural beauty. And I suspect that just as many employers have declined to make me an offer purely because they don't want the hassle of dealing with the sexual harassment charges that I'll inevitably have to bring against my colleagues.

Few understand my predicament. Try telling the man in the dole office that you haven't worked for two years because you're too good-looking. In my experience, he'll just laugh in your perfectly formed face.

Now being too handsome for your own good has, bizarrely, become a human rights issue in Saudi Arabia. This week, three men visiting from the United Arab Emirates were forcibly removed from an annual culture festival in the kingdom and deported from the country because they were deemed simply irresistible.

According to the Arabic language newspaper Elaph, "the three Emiratis were taken out on the grounds they are too handsome and that the Commission [for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vices] members feared female visitors could fall for them".

This is an example of the ultra-conservative reading of a particular tradition of Islamic law that says if A desires B, the fault lies not with A but with B – the tempter always has to take responsibility for the temptation that they cause. That's why Saudi women have to cover themselves up from head to toe, lest their recklessly pretty eyes or shapely ankles cause a poor innocent man to do something he might regret.

It's quite a twist to see this absurd rule finally being applied to men and it raises a number of questions. Why, for instance, has no man been deported from Saudi Arabia before for being too darn handsome? Does this mean that hitherto the country has only been visited by ugly chaps and, if so, what is it about the kingdom that appeals to those lacking in masculine pulchritude?

Alas, if the kingdom is going to open itself up to the rest of the world then it is going to have get used to the import of male beauties. Across the globe, menfolk have undergone a revolution in style that has thrown out the hairy, big-bellied ugliness of yesteryear and replaced it with something altogether more sculptured and feminine.

The model of masculinity in Great Britain used to be George Best: swarthy, 5ft 8in and probably not too pleasant to smell after a night on the town. By contrast, today's idol is the godlike David Beckham: clean shaven, 6ft tall and so beautifully aromatic that he's lent his name to a bottle of cologne.

These days, British men spend almost as much as women do on cosmetics. There was a time when a man's bathroom shelf held only a bar of soap and a bottle of Old Spice. Today it overfloweth with moisturiser and facial scrub.

Saudi Arabia, therefore, is behind the times if it thinks that the only socially acceptable kind of man looks like a shaved monkey in a suit.

But, then, the kingdom is behind the times in most regards when it comes to sexual politics. In February, we learnt that a Saudi preacher who raped and killed his daughter was released after agreeing to pay "blood money" to the mother. He coughed up just £31,000 – half of what would have been demanded if the victim was a boy. It was an appalling case that tells you all you need to know about the sexism in a society where women are often segregated in order to reduce the "risk" that they pose as tempters of men.

The distaff inhabit separate colleges, restaurants and entrances to buildings, and the authorities recently floated plans to build all-female cities to reduce sexual tension. Reform is in the air, however. The kingdom might be the only country in the world where women are banned from driving, but Prince Alwaleed bin Talal recently said that he was open to the idea of letting them get behind the wheel. That's the Saudi version of progress.

The predicament of the three stunning fellows who were deported is really just the tip of the iceberg in a country that applies perverse double-standards in its imagined war between the sexes. If the Saudis really are concerned about the effects of Westernised male beauty polluting their kingdom, there is an obvious solution: force men to wear the veil, too.

I for one would welcome both the liberation and the financial savings from no longer having to soap, perfume and pluck so hard every morning. In the words of the great Dolly Parton, "it costs a lot to look this cheap".

 

[GPM]

Does not speak much for the morality of their women. Loose ones??

 

[MAYURA]

Does not speak much for the morality of their women. Loose ones??

They are really loose.