I am a Scandinavian and I stood witness to what I believe “Paranoid Bigot” refers to here. I live in Oslo, Norway and this summer the media served us with a string of truly horrendous rape cases. These were “blitz rapes,” instances where women were brutally attacked, even in the crowded streets of downtown Oslo.

It is important to note that we are talking about a handful of cases here, maybe eight which came out in the media. Some of the rapes we read about described the assailant as Caucasian. Others were deemed as being “of foreign origin.” I cannot find a single case where the religion of the assailant was specified.

Still, Oslo’s crisis center for rape victims saw a dramatic increase over the summer - their numbers doubled compared to the previous year.

I see that the infamous Norwegian (now ex-) blogger Fjordman is mentioned. I myself took part in the debate that followed when he first published his theory on the “Muslim rape epidemic.” The numbers that led him to claim that Muslim men are at war against Norway by raping white women one by one, is that in 2000, 72 out of 111 persons charged with rape were of non-western origin.

Firstly, we do not now how many of these are Muslims. Secondly, non-western women are also over-represented in the victim pool - which indicates that if Muslim men are, indeed, trying to overthrow the government, they aren’t very goal-oriented when choosing their targets.

Also, when we compare numbers directly in this manner, it is important to remember that “non-western immigrants” and “Norwegians” are very different groups, demographically speaking. It ultimately means that you compare young, city-dwelling, immigrant males to elderly white ladies residing in the countryside. It should come as no surprise that young men of any color commit more rapes than grandmothers do.

I’m not sure my final point is very comforting, but the crisis center that observed the increased rape numbers also reports that 85% of rapes are committed by someone you already know. The sad fact is that, if one is to be afraid of somebody, one should look closer to home than to one’s favorite stereotype.

with the explicit purpose of branding anyone who participates in or supports harassment as a social and economic pariah. Everyone on all sides of the issue would then be forced to care and therefore have an incentive to participate in a real discussion of the real issue

I generalise of course. But the underlying facts remain true.

As for Cairo, see recent mass sexual attacks in all their glorious frenzy.

OK, I've gotta step in here again because this is just getting ridiculous.

First, I'm blonde and I was in Cairo just a couple of weeks ago. I spent most of my time walking in the streets there where I was the only blonde to be seen, not in the touristy areas. Not -once- did I feel threatened or unsafe. No one treated me with anything other than respect.

Second, it's the same here for me in Oslo. I'm so thankful that I live in my area of town. My neighborhood has, if not a majority, then a very visible minority of brown people, mostly Iraqis and Somalians. This place feels like home to me--it provides a island of belonging in the sea of unfriendly Norwegian culture. Sure, some of the men here have hit on me, but I have never felt threatened, and the men hitting on me were never less than polite. Is it now considered harassment anytime a man hits on a woman? You want to talk harassment, the only people who have ever harassed me in my life have been ethnic Norwegians or Americans.

So please, bear in mind that the LW's experiences are her own, and not necessarily congruent with the majority's experiences. All of reality is filtered through our personal consciousnesses, and the LW herself is wondering if she's paranoid. Point being, just because someone says that the world is a particular way, doesn't mean it is. And Scandinavia is objectively NOT a haven for Muslim rapists. I'm seriously disturbed that that's the conclusion that some of the posters here seem to be drawing.

"I can answer with cold authority that any feminist who speaks out about rapes that happen to be interracial, let alone speaks out about the disparate use of hate crime laws, can expect to be pillored by a quite diverse range of people."

Yeah right, it must be tough hanging on that cross. I remember when you lamely tried to spin the facts of the Central Park Jogger case awhile ago. Don't blame other feminists or "a diverse range of people" for not following your agenda.

Ask any blonde woman who has walked the streets of Cairo, Amman, or Jeddah (Jeddah HAH). We won't even mention Dubai, because on Dubai's streets blonde women are a commodity. The average Arab male perceives any western woman as sexually active (ie a whore). To him she is fruit ripe for the plucking. That is not to say that he'll rape her, but he will harass her.

If you don't trust the racist Scandinavians ask any Arab woman. She'll confirm. Make sure that you ask her

to use as her benchmark a cabbie, not a westernised Arab man. And if she insists on using the westernised Arab, ask her if she thinks a westernised Arab would marry her if he knew she had lost her virginity (even to him). Because the westernised Arab man is a hypocrite and the westernised Arab woman knows it.

The Arabs are very keen on honour and shame which sit most snugly in the vagina. Don't let their beards and bushy moustaches fool you... they are defined not by their facial hair, but by their sisters' and second cousins' hymens. I would say that the single most important issue to an Arab man is his sister's virginity.

That mentality should tell you something about the culture you're dealing with.

It's not unreasonable to assume that when this man immigrates to Sweden, or Denmark, he brings these things with him. You are importing cheap labour and one of the purest forms of misogyny in the world today. Does Arab misogyny mean a greater propensity to rape? In the west probably. Because a woman without a hymen is a woman without honour is a woman without value is a piece of meat who should have no problem accepting another piece of meat. Even if by force.

This is how they think. It's a fact. Not to mention that she has no tribe that will hunt him down, and that he has a legal system to protect him should he get caught.

Sex in their neck of the woods is a strange and sometimes loathsome creature. I am not surprised that my 'fellow' Arabs could be capable of causing a national increase in rape cases. They're pigs. Ask any Arab.