JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) – A divorced Saudi man with four children has shocked Saudi Arabia, one of the most conservative countries in the world, with details of his sexual exploits on an Arabic television show.
Mazen Abdul-Jawad, 32, has gone into hiding after appearing two weeks ago on Lebanese channel LBC -- mainly owned by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal -- where he spoke to camera from his bedroom in the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah about how couples can spice up their sex lives.
"Everything happens in this room," he said on an episode of the salacious show "Ahmar Bilkhat al-Areed" (Wide Red Lines), before launching into descriptions of foreplay techniques and tricks for cruising women on the streets of Jeddah.
Clips of the racy confessions from the TV show, which can be seen via satellite in Saudi Arabia, have had nearly half a million hits on Youtube.
Saudi Arabia follows an austere form of Islam where religious police patrol the streets to enforce a strict moral standard including no mixing of unrelated men and women, as well as no drugs and alcohol.
Public beheadings are regularly carried out for a range of crimes, from murder to rape, witchcraft or insulting Islam.
But many young Saudis find ways around the draconian system to make contact with each other, and the clerics have tried in vain to limit mobile phone and other technology.
Men have been prosecuted for taking pictures of young women with phones in malls and many reports say such photographs are often used as blackmail.
STARTED AT 14
Abdul-Jawad said sex became an important part of his life at age 14, following his first sexual encounter with a neighbor.
He demonstrated how he would cruise girls in his red convertible or in supermarkets, often making use of Bluetooth mobile phone technology, and produced sex toys and lubricants from his bedroom cupboard.
"While I'm driving I turn my Bluetooth on. It has the description of my car and my mobile number... I get calls from girls... and in some cases I call back and she goes out with me," he says in the Youtube clips.
Newspapers and bloggers have said the young man should face legal action for spreading vice in what has been dubbed by media as the "frank with filth case."
"He confessed before the world that he committed fornication and continues to fornicate," an anonymous user wrote on al-Medina newspaper's web forum this week.
"It is for that reason that he deserves to be stoned to death, as Islamic law stipulates."
Hashim Adnan, a 24-year-old from Jeddah, said Abdul-Jawad deserved at least some form of censure. "He must be punished and become an example for all. We Saudis are not used to and will not accept such behavior," he said.
It was not possible to contact Abdul-Jawad who has made only one public comment since the controversy erupted.
"I offer my apologies to everyone and I am ready to accept the consequences," he said in an interview with the daily Okaz last week. It carried a photograph of him in traditional Saudi robes but with his face concealed.
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