We tend to associate Iran with repressive morality police hunting down women for wearing loose hijabs. We think of 22-year-old Jina Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody a year ago after being caught wearing an “improper” headscarf — and the young Iranians who risked their lives in protest. What doesn’t spring to mind are gay sex scandals. And yet, that was the story of last summer in Iran.
It all started in July, when a video was leaked of an official in the Ministry of Islamic Guidance having sex with another man. He was sacked soon after. A month later, a second video surfaced of a cleric having sex with the husband of his wife’s sister. Both affairs gripped Iranian society — and both have since come to symbolise the hypocrisy of the regime’s Sharia laws regarding sexual conduct, which even members of its pious elite don’t adhere to. The gap between the illusion of public piety and what really goes on in people’s bedrooms has been mercilessly exposed.
To some extent, sex scandals are nothing new in Iranian society. In 2008, Reza Zarei, the former police chief of “vice crimes”, was caught in a brothel with six prostitutes whom he demanded pray naked in front of him. In 2016, Saeed Toosi, “Khamenei’s favourite Quran reciter”, was charged with sexually abusing his students when they were aged 12 and 13. He was later acquitted — an outcome seen by many as related to his close connections to the Supreme Leader.
In a country where sexual expression is severely punished, the hypocrisy of regime officials has started to burn. “For them, everything is allowed,” says Amir, a gay literature student in Tehran. “It’s only forbidden for us. They are comfortable, but they’re inflicting suffering on us.” Amir has experienced first-hand the hypocrisy of regime officials. Once, he was sexually harassed in public and had his phone stolen. Upon reporting the incident to the police, the officer took his number only to call him later in an attempt to persuade him to spend the night with him. Another time, a cleric chatted him up in the subway by reciting the poems of Saadi.
Despite the vibrant LGBT+ scene in Tehran, growing up gay can be a lonely experience in the Islamic Republic. And for much of his life, Amir has struggled with his mental health. Sex education in Iran doesn’t amount to much beyond a cleric telling students that masturbation is a sin and to stay away from the opposite sex. As a result, Amir only discovered the concept of homosexuality after an unorthodox psychologist took him under his wing. Until then, he had suspected that he was a woman trapped in a man’s body and needed gender-reassignment surgery. Indeed, the Iranian government believes that homosexuality is an illness that can be cured through such medical intervention. It harshly persecutes LGBT Iranians, but permits and subsidises gender reassignment, which pressures many queer Iranians to undergo surgery.
On those dating apps where LGBT people tend to seek each other out, Amir is always on his guard. Iran’s cyber forces are known to conduct undercover activity on the platforms to gather incriminating evidence. “They not only reveal and report the identities of gays, but sometimes they even engage in sexual relations and exploit them first,” he says. “The only means we had to meet each other has been made unsafe too.”
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SubscribeIt’s relevant to note that Iran is a very young country. 60% of the population is under 30. That’s a lot of young people to police. So they can probably slip under the radar for their sexual experimentation without getting caught.
Once all these young people mature and start running things, what then? Will the mullahs have to retreat with as much grace as they can muster?
Tellingly, the Iranian regime prefers young people to undergo gender reassignment surgery rather than embrace their homosexuality. Doesn’t this just point to the authoritarian mindset in Western transactivists who’d rather see young people’s bodies butchered rather than allow them time to develop sufficient maturity to help them determine whether they are, indeed, gay or wish to transition.
The similarity in dogmatism is striking.
Such people support radical Islamists in their political aims, much like the Marxist-Leninist gangs in the 1970s. They had to hold back somewhat in declaring support for Islamic State, but time has moved on a little and the violence of these gender beliefs is now a good match with the barbarism of groups like Hamas.
Excellent essay. Informative and thoughtful.
Sexual liberation doesn’t have such great societal and often personal consequences/outcomes either.
Uninhibited sexual promiscuity is definitely something that should be opposed. The Islamic Republic is just bad at it.
Especially when one considers the top half of its national flag has a barely-concealed symbol of female genitalia.
I suggest you never try a Rorschach test.
Very good!
So was the Irish Republic up until about 1995.
I’m pretty sure things like co-ed swimming, dinner dates, and the consumption of alcohol were allowed, even way back in the 90s.
I was thinking more of ‘Laundries’ the Christian B*ggers, and the Tuam baby extermination scandal to name but a few.
I completely agree, for once, which is how it should be. How dull it must be for those who only speak with those who agree with them completely, it must be hellish to only ever sing hosanna’s.
It’s ridiculous to suggest that young people will not try if they can to have sexual experiences, and surely some experience is a good thing before settling down to the (supposedly) lifelong relationship of marriage. There is a balance.
I imagine the Islamic Republic is actually pretty good at repression of sexuality on the whole; if the state tries to enforce this this is the way it goes – with a lot of double standards to boot.
Exactly right.
A gap between the illusion of public morality and what really goes on in people’s private lives is no bad thing if the alternative 9which has been our experience) is almost uninhibited sexual promiscuity
It is about money and power. Religion is used to justify holding onto power. That power is then monetised. Dissidence is assaulted by turning human existence into ‘crimes against God’. Power imbalances are then manifested as sexual relationships where one is dominant and the other submissive.
Very interesting. The idea that there is a vibrant gay scene in Teheran is astonishing.
Morocco was once a favorite destination for Allen Ginsburg, William S Burroughs, and Paul Bowles. Bowles there with his boyfriends from the 1950s until his death a few years ago.
Lawrence of Arabia and the guy who wrote “Papillon” both commented on the frequency of same sex relationships in Muslim countries. Soldiers who served in Afghanistan will often mention noticing those tendencies among the natives.
It reminds one a bit of men who are in prison, locked away from female companionship.
We gays are a resourceful and cunning lot.
No pretty boy is safe in any Muslim country — especially the religiously fanatical countries of Pakistan and Afghanistan. They define homosexuality as sex between bearded men, and abhor it. Sex with a beardless boy is viewed indulgently, as just a harmless respite for men with little or no access to women.
Girls for babies, boys for pleasure as the ancient Greeks put it!
Is Islam such a violent religion because it creates sexual repression ?
By comparison with the late, lamented, polytheistic Classical world, both contemporary monotheistic Semitic cults are very neurotic indeed when it come to nudity, sex, gays, etc.
Must be something to do with the sand?
If the west is still at least nominally Christian, it still can’t be unnoticed that there is no Muslim equivalent of Charlie Sheen.
When I was in Iran in the 70s,l and the Shah was still in power, things weren’t very different from what’s described here. Strong separation of genders mainly cultural-social thing, any political reinforcement is extra. And strong gender separation entails mainly covert homosexual interaction, accepted as long as it’s covert and doesn’t impede fulfillment of heterosexual procreation. That’s not unique to Iran either.
I suspect things were at least somewhat different, though, comparing clothing choices in 70s era photos to what we see today. Reza Pahlavi boasted that the mini skirts in Tehran were shorter than the ones in Paris.
The “Rich Kids of Tehran” sites on Instagram and FB also suggest there are very much two sets of rules, and that the wealthy & powerful can essentially ignore the diktats of the Ayatollahs. Or perhaps sexual rules are simply less important to the financially secure.
Naturally, this wouldn’t be a uniquely Persian sort of hypocrisy, exhibit A being Hunter Biden.
‘‘Twas always thus.
Despite the vibrant LGBT+ scene in Tehran, growing up gay can be a lonely experience in the Islamic Republic.
I’ll be the resident pedant and say that the Gs and Ls are not at all like the Ts, and it doesn’t help to consider the lot of them as gay. Just ask lesbians how they’re treated for not wanting relationships with transwomen who are not women at all. It’s as if ‘lesbian’ if some new term with an unknown meaning.
It is interesting, however, how Iranian leadership would rather see children mutilated than turn up gay. One wonders if the rest of the trans movement doesn’t harbor a similar motivation. It’s already proven itself to be radically anti-woman, so why not add one more group to the mix.
Thanks Alex. I was about to register my objection to the use of the term LGBT these groups are utterly distinct with few characteristics in common. I’d also suggest Iran’s schools are sex segregated not gender segregated this obfuscation of terms is part of the problem!!
I think you are right, but unfortunately the use of LGBT (etc) is now pretty ubiquitous. It’s considered polite.
Not by anyone I know it isn’t. LGB describes sexuality. T describes someone who wants to change sex. Conflating them is fake. And is certainly what not is happening in Iran, which persecutes same-sex attracted people and supports trans (in fact gays) to become trans. You cannot disguise that by sweepingly describing them all as having a tough time.The ones having a tough time are Gays.
“City of Lies” by Ramita Navai is an excellent book on the above.
As the old Jewish saying goes: “The bigger the front, the bigger the back.”
If they are repressed we have clearly gone down the wrong path! No morality, and trying to force irreversible gender changes on children. Disgusting. Children should be protected. All the left want is more sexual freedom, and liberation to follow their perversions.