What a country - again

I was Googling around looking for photos of the shopping mall at the Riyadh Kingdom Centre which featured in a post a couple of days ago [checking out the similarity of shopping malls in wildly disparate parts of the globe is an interest of mine - so sue me] when I stumbled across some 2012 news from Saudi Arabia   which I had missed:

I didn't realise that not only women suffer from not being to do things they've done in the West for, oh, like forever (such as being able to travel alone without being presumed to be a prostitute), but that the society also had such an intensely infantilising attitude towards single men too.   "No no no, you may be an adult but we know we cannot trust you to control your sexual urges when you are confronted with the alluring sight of a mall full of scenes like this:"

And yet, even the married men had gone all Stockholm Syndrome with talk like this:

So this is a society where young men cannot drink, cannot go to a cinema (apparently, they get one movie every 30 years, but there is a rumour that the government might be about to allow cinemas to be built).  Cannot (until recently) go to a mall because there might be a lot of women there. So what does the young man of Saudi Arabia do for entertainment?   Well, by the looks of this photo from the NYT in 2008 - go on a desert picnic with his best (male, of course) friend:

A thrilling day was had by all.

That NYT article's actually pretty interesting, by which I mean appalling, in the attitudes quoted by one of the young male subjects:

“One of the most important Arab traditions is honor,” Enad said. “If my sister goes in the street and someone assaults her, she won’t be able to protect herself. The nature of men is that men are more rational. Women are not rational. With one or two or three words, a man can get what he wants from a woman. If I call someone and a girl answers, I have to apologize. It’s a huge deal. It is a violation of the house.”

Enad is the alpha male, a 20-year-old police officer with an explosive temper and a fondness for teasing. Nader, 22, is soft-spoken, with a gentle smile and an inclination to follow rather than lead.

They are more than cousins; they are lifelong friends and confidants. That is often the case in Saudi Arabia, where families are frequently large and insular.

OK, so how do you sum up gender politics in this society:   women don't trust men; men don't trust men; men don't trust women; all men think women are stupidly pliable;  but - I don't know, I'm looking for an upside here - everyone likes camels?