Iran is in the throes of an unprecedented sexual revolution (2013)

http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/29/erotic-republic/

by Vigier • 11 years ago

56 47 11 years ago

Retric• 11 years ago

I remember seeing plenty of pictures of Iran in ~1960 that looked like the us in the 60's. So, plenty of people living in Iran recall a much more liberal time period.

ex: http://izismile.com/2014/02/26/a_look_at_life_in_iran_during...

I suspect the current regime is in many ways a backlash in the first place.

wsc981• 11 years ago

Iran is only a very "young" country (by which I mean lots of young people) while at the same time the ruling class seem to be mainly the older people. So I wouldn't be surprised if there is a very big disconnect between the rulings of the state and the desires of the general populace.

For Dutch people the VPRO documentary "Onze Man In Teheran"[0] (Our Man In Teheran) might be interesting. It's a documentary about a Dutch reporter that married to an Iranian woman and emigrated to Iran.

---

[0] http://www.vpro.nl/programmas/onze-man-in-teheran/onze-man.h...

lotsofmangos• 11 years ago

Not that surprising given that for most of the time, back when it was Persia, the culture of the region was considered practically synonymous with hedonistic pleasure and luxury.

pluma4• 11 years ago

When someone mentions Iran, what images leap into your mind? Ayatollahs, religious fanaticism, veiled women?

No, that's Saudi Arabia you're thinking of. You know, the "good" theocracy that's one of our biggest business partners. Despite the foreign politics a few years ago, Iran is reportedly rather moderate in practice.

adventured11• 11 years ago

Isn't Iran still backing numerous terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah, while proclaiming it their goal to essentially kill everyone in Israel?

What's so moderate about having an extremely oppressive theocracy as the foundation of your political leadership? One need only look at the revolts of a few years ago and how Iran dealt with that, to see exactly how non-moderate they are in practice.

And before you jump to saying: but America does X, and Saudi does X - yes, and such things do not alter or justify the terrible things that Iran does.

ancap5• 11 years ago

Isn't Iran still backing numerous terrorist organizations, including Hezbolla

source?

while proclaiming it their goal to essentially kill everyone in Israel?

source?

pluma4• 11 years ago

Islam is a bit more complex than "Iran supports Hezbollah, so they support terrorists". Look into the Sunni vs Shia split some time and then look at which organizations and countries identify with which side of that split.

Saudi Arabia is far worse than Iran. While Iran's strict theocracy is slowly falling out of favour with its population, Saudi Arabia is quite effective at perpetuating its theocracy thanks to its wealth and international relationships.

It's not just that Saudi Arabia does some bad stuff. It does the same bad stuff as Iran -- and worse -- yet we (and in this case I mean us, Germany, in particular) sell weapons and military equipment to the Saudis and buy their oil while sanctioning Iran.

I'm an atheist, so I'm strictly opposed to any form of religious influence on politics (be it Muslim, Christian or Jewish). But you have to acknowledge that Iran is taking a turn towards the better while Saudi Arabia sits comfortably in a Bronze Age form of government and legal system (with full access to the Post-Space Age technology we are selling them).

acqq3• 11 years ago

Just two details:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijackers_in_the_September_11_a...

"The hijackers in the September 11 attacks were 19 men affiliated with al-Qaeda, and 15 of the 19 were citizens of Saudi Arabia."

http://www.economist.com/news/international/21640325-interna...

"THE Middle East is a black spot for free speech. Its countries come near the bottom in rankings of press freedom, and most criminalise blasphemy and apostasy (renouncing Islam). But even by such dismal standards, Saudi Arabia stands out. Penalties for transgressing its religious and political strictures, even in word, include hefty fines and jail sentences, beatings and beheadings. Human Rights Watch, a monitoring group, notes a surge in executions since August. By some counts at least ten people have been put to death so far this year."

pekk4• 11 years ago

Of course it's no real controversy that the Islamic Republic is radical, it is a Revolution which always had radical aims and its power has always been founded on violence.

Bearing in mind that Hezbollah is a terrorist group according to the US State Department because it is engaged in military conflict with Israel, the Islamic Republic has many reasons to maintain its patronage of Hezbollah, most of which relate to Hezbollah's ability to make war whether or not we consider that terrorist.

Iranian national interest is not to try to cozy up to the US or Israel. Iranians legitimately fear reprises of the traumatic Iran-Iraq war. They have defense interests in the region. The US is not offering to defend Iran. The US can't defend anyone in the region even if it wanted to - look at what happened to poor Georgia and now Ukraine, which are not even majority Muslim countries. So we are asking Iran to cut off Hezbollah, but not replace it - there are no established alternatives. Who can offer them reliable allegiance, the bones of PLO?

The political class needs to maintain popular focus on external enemies to maintain the internal cohesion of Iran itself in spite of relatively brutal restrictions enforced with secret police and gulags. They need to feed their religious base, after all their whole legitimacy is based on religion. They also need concessions to Iranian nationalists who like to see Iran being a regional power. It also buys a certain amount of goodwill in the Ummah to make noise about helping Palestine fight Israel. When the majority of the Ummah is Sunni and a very large and important segment is Arab, that kind of goodwill is a little harder to buy for a Shiite theocracy dominated by ethnic Persians. Anyway, Iran is so entrenched in its proxy war with Israel that it can't really back out. So it needs Hezbollah.

If you are worried for Israel and you want Iran's threat to Israel to end, then Israel has to make good with Palestine with significant concessions, and then the Islamic Republic's position will be correspondingly eroded. Unfortunately it looks like Israel's political class has become dominated by an intransigent ultranationalist wing which decided to intentionally and permanently cut off any possible basis for conciliation by fragmenting any possible territory into a completely indivisible foam, which ultimately just feeds the Islamic Republic.

mirimir• 11 years ago

In the 60s, many Western hippies went through Iran on their Hippie Trail (Silk Road) tours. Many minds were bent. See Magic Bus: On the Hippie Trail from Istanbul to India by Rory MacLean (2008, Penguin).

user9756• 11 years ago

And how does this relate to US foreign policy? Or any foreign policy? Or how about HackerNews?

I'd like to comment though on the awfulness of the sign up pop up (popsign?) and the clunky website. It's awful.

will_brown2• 11 years ago

Coincidentally, I recently meet a group of 5 Iranian women (all here on student visas) while at happy hour in Miami. When I asked if there was any comparable night life in Iran, I was informed that in Iran nightclubs where men and women to commingle are non-existent and more generally women may not consume alcohol. There is a thriving underground scene of house parties where young men and women interact (and drink socially), but these too are illegal gatherings that are often broken up and lead to multiple arrests.

Declining birth rates, for example, signal a wider acceptance of contraceptives and other forms of family planning

I would theorize the declining birth rates is not a signal of a wider sexual revolution, including, the adoption of contraceptives, rather a signal that State suppression of socializing of the sexes is succeeding. This would probably also account for the increase in average age of getting married.

adventured11• 11 years ago

"I would theorize the declining birth rates is not a signal of a wider sexual revolution, including, the adoption of contraceptives, rather a signal that State suppression of socializing of the sexes is succeeding. This would probably also account for the increase in average age of getting married."

That conclusion does not follow. The US for example saw a substantial decline in its birth rate over 40-50 years, and it was not due to State suppression of sexuality or socializing. In fact the exact opposite occurred, sexuality was drastically liberalized in the 1960s and 1970s. Women acquired a lot more freedom when it came to divorce, joining the work-force, contraception, and abortion. Divorce rates climbed substantially. I suspect many countries in Europe saw the exact same general trend line as the US during that time.

ars• 11 years ago

declining birth rates ... suppression of socializing of the sexes

I can see why you would think that, but it's actually the opposite. The sexes do not need to socialize to have children - instead they marry.

It's really the other way around: Once you have contraception, you can have socialization, and a low birth rate. So easy socialization is an indicator, not a cause.

discodave• 11 years ago

Errr... a high birth rate is usually due to women having multiple children. i.e. they are married.

Also, people marrying late is not usually due to 'suppression of socializing of the sexes'... in western countries the opposite effect has been seen. If I were to follow the logic of your argument then we should expect western countries where teenagers mingle freely to have people marrying early... that is clearly not the case.

will_brown2• 11 years ago

If I were to follow the logic of your argument then we should expect western countries where teenagers mingle freely to have people marrying early... that is clearly not the case.

That is not a logical extension of my position.

Logic:

if the government does not allow commingling of the sexes, then people will get married at an older age (if p, then q)

You are extending that to:

The US government does not prohibit commingling of sexes, therefore we should expect people getting married earlier (not P, therefore not q)

That is a logical fallacy.

I think we can both agree the US average age of marriage is increasing, and certainly it can be for different reasons. To follow my argument is very easy, there can be other explanations for decreased birthrates and increased average age of marriage, than a sexual revolution, especially if the government is prohibiting men and women from socializing (something I don't think other western countries ever did)

jcampbell1• 11 years ago

Prosititution is technically semi-legal in Iran. There is a temporary marriage / dowry arrangement where you can be "married" for as little as 15 minutes. I think it is also okay to have an actual wife in addition to the temporary wife. I have no idea how much this loophole is used in practice.

smnrchrds2• 11 years ago

Almost never. The part about temporary marriage most westerners seem to oblivious about is after the end of marriage (for any reason: death, divorce or end of the term of temporary marriage), the woman cannot get married for 4 months and 10 days. It makes "legal" prostitution impractical, as the cost for a "15 minute" sexual encounter should be high enough to cover 4+ months of unemployment.

That and the fact that it's the most socially unacceptable thing around here.

There is only one situation where temporary marriage is acceptable, maybe even expected. Because of the economic realities of the recent decades, young people may stay engaged for more than a year before they can afford to get married. So, many people "temporarily marry" their fiancé/fiancée upon engagement in order to be able to hang out without offending social and religious values.

(Even with temporary marriage, it's still taboo for engaged people to move in together or have sex, but this is different from family to family and from town to town.)

esfandia• 11 years ago

There's a big difference between Tehran and the rest of the country though. I wonder how much of what is said in the article is true in a city like Esfahan, for example. In fact, there's even a big difference between the North and the South of Tehran itself.

joosters• 11 years ago

Definitely! I don't think these cultural freedoms will have reached Qom, for example...

I'd recommend anyone to visit Iran and explore the country. It's not all ayatollahs, you know...

beloch• 11 years ago

I know at least two Iranian women who came to Canada on education Visa's in the last decade and have refused to go back, even to visit their families. I worked with one of them from when she first arrived. Initially she wore a head-scarf and was extremely nervous working with and even just talking to men. She gradually became more relaxed and one day the scarf went in the bin. The other considered her relatives "dead to her" from the moment I met her. Not surprisingly, she was not from Tehran.

Studying abroad is an important thing for Iranian students, but this presents some huge problems for a theocracy where sexual discrimination is so firmly entrenched. For every student that leaves and never returns, there are probably several who go home and try to change things for the better.

The fact that Iran allows students, especially female students, to study abroad suggests that things are not as dire there as one would expect from consuming U.S. media. The U.S.'s policy of confrontation with Iran's leaders is, strangely enough, probably one of the few things keeping them afloat. Fear of foreign powers is a powerful tool, as anyone in the U.S. should now know. The best course of action over the next few years may be to reduce the level of confrontation with Iran's leaders and let the Iranian people, who are increasingly at odds with their country's policies, take care of their leaders on their own.

jkot• 11 years ago

That website is broken, I had to use links to read it.

Mz• 11 years ago

When someone mentions Iran, what images leap into your mind? Ayatollahs, religious fanaticism, veiled women?

Having been friends for a time with an Iranian, the thing I think of is politeness: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taarof

The second thing I think of is that Farsi is a genderless language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_genderless...

I knew this person well and I learned that Persian culture, unlike American culture, has concepts for sucking up to female authority figures as well as male. The expressions I learned were pretty sexually explicit and I don't know if I remember them well. But I was very struck by the fact that the culture had egalitarian qualities my own culture lacks. For me, it was a growth experience and provided much needed mental models for my own life.

No culture is a monolith. The modern government in Iran is being transposed over a culture that is thousands of years old. It is a rich culture and has many fine qualities.

tim3332• 11 years ago

I was surprised when I visited Iran years back how different it was on the street to what you might imagine from TV news. I'd just come from Pakistan where all the women are covered up or mostly kept at home and in comparison Iran felt a bit like France, modern and with women wandering about fairly normally, maybe with some head scarfs. The Iranian people I think are pretty normal and modern. It it the dictatorial government that is all 'death to apostates' and hardline Islamic and quite different in outlook to the populace.

hackertux• 11 years ago

"The cure for poverty has a name, in fact: it's called the empowerment of women. If you give women some control over the rate at which they reproduce, if you give them some say, take them off the animal cycle of reproduction to which nature and some doctrine - religious doctrine condemns them, and then if you'll throw in a handful of seeds perhaps and some credit, the floor of everything in that village, not just poverty, but education, health, and optimism will increase. It doesn't matter; try it in Bangladesh, try it in Bolivia, it works - works all the time. Name me one religion that stands for that, or ever has. Wherever you look in the world and you try to remove the shackles of ignorance and disease stupidity from women, it is invariably the clericy that stands in the way." — Christopher Hitchens

Iran is in the throes of an unprecedented sexual revolution (2013)

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