In this column, Sa’ad al-Sowaiian is being nostalgic about the good ol’ days of innocence. Even sexual innocence. Well, “sexual innocence, and not sexual freedom,” he says. I think our society was more simple and more innocent in the past, but with all this overwhelming amount of media and propaganda of all kinds (religious, ideological, etc.), it’s hard to maintain this innocence anymore. The age of innocence is over. (I know someone who has been calling me “innocent” in the past few days won’t agree on this, but it’s ok because I love it when I can disagree with the people I love.)

“The Saudi music concerts business is located in Cairo,” Mohammed Abdu, the most famous Saudi singer, told Asharq al-Awsat. Huh? Weird? Well, not here in Saudi Arabia, where the number of music concerts is very limited and concerts are restricted to men. So, if the rest of family members wanted to attend a concert of their own traditional music, they should leave the country to Egypt, Beirut or Europe. The Supreme Commission for Tourism always talk about their attempts to support domestic tourism, but obviously, they are willing to ignore such issue because they don’t dare to enrage the religious establishment.

Husein Shubukshi wrote a good column today. He says, if the government said the absence of women from the municipal elections was due to technical and logistical problems, and they are not against the principal of women’s participating in elections, they should take an “important and rational” decision by choosing women to be included in the other half of the municipal councils that will be installed by the government.

The directive of the Labor Minister, Dr. Ghazi Al-Gosaibi, that all employees in shops selling women’s lingerie and clothing should be Saudi women is producing some debates around here. Of course, this decision, like any other decision, has its disadvantages. Arab News calls this, a “Solution with problems.” The problems include late working hours, and “finding girls in conservative towns such as Onaiza and Buraidah, who are not ashamed to work as saleswomen,” said a human resources employee at the company that operates the well-known Body Shop stores. I think we can get over such problems.

However, I was amazed by the statement of a young salesman. He says:

“Why didn’t they let women take part in the elections? Why aren’t they letting them drive? Let’s be honest — they didn’t and they don’t because it’s all about Saudi women being out in the open, in public. People don’t want it, the culture won’t accept it so what’s the difference between letting women drive or having them working in shops that are on the public streets?”

Is this true? People don’t want Saudi women to be out in the open? Well, I don’t think so. But what about you Saudi girls? What do you think? Have your say.

The WSJ has a survey on the sex lives of Europeans. Some of the results were surprising to me, but one thing is for sure and easily expected: Italians are hot!

BBC: “How schools can get free software.”

Does bisexuality even exist? “You may be mostly interested in women but, hey, the guy who delivers the pizza is really hot, and what are you going to do?”