Too Much Emoting For Saudis

I confess. I've never seen Sex in the City or Deperate Housewives. I just don't think they're positive influences on our socieity.

Yet I delight when some version of these shows befuddle the powers that be in places like Riyadh or Beijing. It makes me feel hypocritical, rooting for the diminishment of their moral systems, but there's healthy morality and repressive morality, so I forgive myself and let the glee flow when I read stories like this:

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- It's hardly "Sex and the City," but by Saudi standards "The Girls of Riyadh" is a bombshell.

The fictional tale of the loves, dreams and disappointments of four young women in the capital has, not surprisingly, drawn criticism in a country where women are not supposed to date or have a love life until married. More striking, however, is the degree of support being voiced for 24-year-old author Rajaa al-Sanie and her first novel.

In the novel, Sadeem's husband divorces her because she's too sexually bold for his liking. Qamra discovers soon after her wedding that her husband is in love with a Japanese woman. Mashael's boyfriend cannot marry her because her mother is American. Only Lamis finds true and lasting love. ...

In Saudi Arabia, where the sexes are strictly segregated, authorities haven't decided whether to approve its sale, but pirated editions are circulating in photocopy form.

The book has no sex in it; just emotions of young women. That's dizzying enough for the leaders of a religion that is noted for its singular obsession with keeping women from realizing their God-given potential.

The world's best hope for peace is the reformation of Islam. Highly visible social phenomena like the publication of "The Girls of Riyadh" are tiny steps on the thological scale, but they're necessary. It may well be a generation before we see reform-minded senior clerics leading Islam -- and when that happens, I'll wager they're the ones who read "The Girls of Riyadh" while in their 20s.