Allowing women drivers in Saudi Arabia will be 'end of virginity'

The UK's Telegraph and many other papers are reporting this story. A link to the Telegraph story is here, and the text is pasted below.

Allowing women drivers in Saudi Arabia will be 'end of virginity'

Allowing women drivers in Saudi Arabia will tempt them into sex, promote pornography and create more homosexuals, according to some conservative Muslim scholars.

By Andy Bloxham - 8:15AM GMT 02 Dec 2011

Academics at the Majlis al-Ifta' al-A'ala, which is Saudi Arabia's highest religious council, said the relaxation of the rules would inevitably lead to “no more virgins”. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where women are banned from driving.

The academics, working in conjunction with Kamal Subhi, a former professor at the conservative King Fahd University, produced the conclusions in a report for the country's legislative assembly, the Shura Council. It warned that allowing women to drive would "provoke a surge in prostitution, pornography, homosexuality and divorce".

Within 10 years of the ban being lifted, it claimed, there would be "no more virgins" in the Islamic kingdom. It pointed out that "moral decline" could already be seen in those other Muslim countries in which women are allowed to drive.

In the report Prof Subhi described sitting in a coffee shop in an unnamed Arab state where "all the women were looking at me".

"One made a gesture that made it clear that she was available,” he said. “This is what happens when women are allowed to drive.”

Women caught driving in Saudi face corporal punishment.

In September, Shaima Jastaniya, 34, a Saudi woman, was sentenced to 10 lashes with a whip after being caught driving in Jeddah. There has been strong protest in the country about the sentence, which was later overturned by King Abdullah, and about the law generally but resistance to reform remains strong among the traditionally conservative royal family and clerics.

The Saudi government is currently considering a proposal to ban women – already forced to cover up most of their body in public – from even displaying their eyes, if they are judged too “tempting”.