This Might Be the Last Place in the World You'd Expect a Sex Shop to Open

A halal sex shop is opening in Mecca, according to the International Business Times, which references a report from Alayoum 24.

Huge crowd of pilgrims gather in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Image credit: Exotica.im/Getty Images

The news comes as quite a surprise to those who have read reports of Saudi Arabia's "morality police" arresting individuals for dancing and listening to music, or trapping 15 schoolgirls inside a burning building because they were not properly covered.

Mecca is one of the holiest cities in Islam, where millions of Muslims gather every year to perform the hajj.

The shop is reportedly owned by Abdelaziz Aouragh, who also has a halal sex shop called El Asira in the Netherlands. He reportedly stated that the shop was approved because it could lead to "the improvement of the sexual relationship between husband and wife."

"Our products [do] include products that increase feelings of sensuality and improve the atmosphere between the couple in the sexual relationship between them," Aouragh stated.

More on the story from the International Business Times:

Contrary to popular assumptions that Islam is repressive about sex, there are ample dictates in Quran and hadith (a record of the sayings of the Prophet Mohammad and his companions) that encourage sex within the confines of marriage, Hamza Yusuf - an American Islamic scholar and co-founder of Zaytuna College in Berkeley - told Foreign Policy.

There are also instances in Quran where Prophet Mohammad tells men not to leave their wives for more than six months so as to avoid sexual neglect, and there are even some well-known references to foreplay in the hadith, he added.

The first halal sex shop in a pre-dominantly Muslim country opened in Turkey in 2013.

Read the whole story here.