Give that man a cookie!

*sarcasm alert*

All thanks and praise to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who yesterday announced that he would pardon a female rape victim.

Pardon the victim? Yes, you read that correctly. According to various news accounts, a 19-year-old woman and a male friend were riding together in a car when they were kidnapped, taken to a remote location and raped by up to seven men (both the woman and the man were raped). The woman, who had recently married, says she was with the male rape victim to retrieve a photo of them together. The Saudi government says the two were having an affair.

Me, I could give a sh*t why they were together. But in Saudi Arabia, apparently the fact that an unmarried, unrelated man and woman were riding in the same car is as big a deal, if not more, than the fact that both of them were kidnapped and gang-raped. (Let me pause for a moment to give thanks for the fact that I live in a country that punishes its rape victims figuratively, rather than literally.)

So both the man and woman were sentenced to six months jail time and 90 lashes for breaking Saudi Arabia's strict laws against mingling with non-relatives of other genders. After the woman's attorney objected to this blame-the-victim punishment, her sentence was more than doubled to 200 lashes and the court revoked her lawyer's license. Wow, the Saudis don't really do dissent well, huh?

Yes, it's a good thing that the so-called "Qatif Girl"'s case received so much attention. I'm heartened by the number of her fellow Saudis who decried the draconian sentence. And above all I'm thrilled that this woman who has been through so much physical and emotional trauma has gotten a reprieve.

But, lest we forget...Conservative Saudis are livid that outside influence (including a tepid finger-wag from the U.S.) may have contributed to the pardon. The woman has gotten death threats even from her own family. The laws themselves haven't been changed - it's still a place where criminals can target unmarried couples, knowing that their "illegally mingling" victims will now be even less likely to report an assault. This could happen again tomorrow. And very well might, considering that the Saudi government keeps insisting the sentence wasn't wrong.

But the main thing that bothers me is that today is the first time I'd read about the male rape victim, because it was the first time I'd read about this case on something other than an American news outlet's Web site or feminist blog. At the very end of today's BBC.com story, there's an "oh, by the way" coda saying that they counldn't confirm that his 90 lashes would be dropped as well. Maybe not, since he didn't get the publicity. Shame on the people who've left someone - who was just as victimized - out of this story.

Good for King Abdullah, for dropping this medieval horsesh*t, even if it was only a one-time thing. But pardon me if I skip the victory parade.

[BTW, a special thanks to the Saudis for yet another glimpse of what life in a theocracy is like. Anyone still think this is a swell idea?]