Let no one ever say that Dubai is not well-endowed.

A Norwegian woman recently received a 16-month prison sentence in Dubai. Her crime?

Ms Dalelv says she had been on a night out with colleagues on 6 March when the rape took place.

She reported it to the police, who proceeded to confiscate her passport and seize her money. She was charged four days later on three counts, including having sex outside marriage.

Her alleged attacker, she said, received a 13-month sentence for extra-marital sex and alcohol consumption.

(Emphasis added.) I’ll just let that sink in.

It appears both the woman and the rapist were convicted of the same offense, and she got the longer sentence.

The sentence for having sex outside of marriage, a/k/a being a rape survivor, is worse than the one-month sentence given to the married Pakistani couple that had sex in their car in Dubai—and who successfully appealed the conviction and sentence.

It is also worse than the one-month sentence given to the British couple who violated Dubai’s “decency laws” by kissing each other on the mouth in public. They lost their appeal.

An Indian man and woman each received three-month sentences for exchanging “sexy texts,” after a judge ruled that the texts indicated that they intended to “commit sin.” This was a reduction from the original six-month sentences.

Another UK couple, who was in Dubai celebrating their engagement, was arrested and charge with extramarital sex in 2010, although authorities later dropped the charges.

Dubai seems to be conflicted about whether it wants to be a world-class destination, which pretty much means Westerners are going to come there and, because they are spending money, expect to be able to kiss each other in public; or whether it wants to keep doing what it is doing. I get not wanting them to fuck in public, but c’mon. I’m not sure how much of the administrative resources are spent policing “decency,” but the BBC reported that police made over 6,000 stops on Dubai’s beaches for “infractions rang[ing] from ogling women, to kissing, to people swimming fully clothed or in their underwear.”

You could get a mandatory four-year prison sentence for having codeine or certain cold and flu medications.

But at least you won’t have to see people kissing. It’s like 1987-era Fred Savage wrote that law.

Photo credit: vikas54217 on stock.xchng.