I think they take a different approach though, where women are guarded by the family from being in situations where males, who are known and accepted to be violently sexually aggressive, might harm them. Then women who end up in such situations anyway are considered fair game, more or less.

I imagine, though, that while the numbers for various rape types are probably relatively high compared to other countries, those crimes still affect a tiny minority of women and wouldn’t move the broader needle on HIV rates. I would guess that date rape is also extremely lower than in the west due to courtship practices being very different (which would work against high HIV rates).

There is no evidence to support the assertion that rates of rape are “relatively high” in those countries. You can assume the statistics are vastly underreported—and they certainly are—but you’d have to multiply them by 100x or 1000x to reach the rates of the US. At that point you’re speculating.

The (frankly kind of bigoted) assumption here is that being well intentioned and having the “right” attitudes towards female sexuality is somehow more effective at preventing rape than strict social separation of the sexes.

And you’re correct that non-consensual sex is a relatively small factor in HIV rates compared to widespread consensual sex with multiple partners.

Yeah I actually have no idea about the stats, just assumed GP wasn’t completely making things up. I would not be surprised if you are correct though, brute forcing the problem does seem like it would work (no pun intended).

> Then women who end up in such situations anyway are considered fair game, more or less.

Would you say this part is accurate?

Incidents of those things are an issue in the sense that they happen and shouldn’t. But rates of rape overall are vastly lower than in the U.S. Female homicide, a related crime that’s harder to cover up, is ten times higher in the U.S. than in Saudi Arabia.