Raping is the norm.

“The way a Saudi would think is ‘What is this girl doing here alone?’ If you are with a man, you better be his sister or his wife.”

That was Fahd’s explanation. He was 26 years old. He was seated on one side of the fire, the glow of the flames dancing across his face.

“Quiet, you are scaring them,’’ said the friend who took us to the desert.

Perhaps this was a bit of male bonding, of young guys showing off to the foreigners. But the tone was casual, the looks casual, the whole conversation amazingly casual. The Egyptian woman asked how he would treat us if we had not been introduced by our friend.

“What would you do if we were with someone else?’’ she asked.

“I would get rid of him and try something with you,’’ he replied. “Not rape, I would try to do something, to get you to do something.”

“And if I said no?” she asked.

“Then I would rape you.”

That was it. None of the other young men seemed surprised, or sounded an objection. Would he really do it?

Such fine upstanding young men. So very religious.

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