a propagator of the corrupt culture of the West. . . . She [wears] too much makeup, too short a skirt, too tight a pair of pants, too low-cut a shirt. [She is] too loose in her relations with men, she laughs too loudly and smokes in public” (Najmabadi 1991: 65). One way to control her is to constrain her sexuality by veiling.11 A woman who has been denied both her sexuality and her individuality is assigned to the single recognized role of motherhood, a role celebrated in soap operas and textbooks.12
ETHNOGRAPHIC VIGNETTE
Actress Gohar Kheirandish (in her fifties) kissed the forehead of Ali Zamani (in his twenties) as he received the top director’s prize at a ceremony in the central Iranian city of Yazd in October 2002. The clerical leaders organized protests after the kiss and the pair were accused of harming Islam. Kheirandish and Zamani were charged with immoral behavior and could face a jail sentence or up to 74 lashes for their actions but were more likely to be fined. The pair apologized for the kiss and said that it was a spontaneous, maternal gesture by Kheirandish.
The Science of Sexuality in Iran
In Iran, the suppression of sexuality has likewise extended it. In the Islamic Republic sexuality started to become repressed, that is, condemned to prohibition, nonexistence, and silence. Only one single and utilitarian locus of sexuality was acknowledged, the fertile heart of every household: the parents’ bedroom (cf. Foucault 1990: 3). But turning sexuality into “sin” did not make it disappear. On the contrary, it was reinforced and became something to be observed everywhere. The repressive fascination with sex resulted in an explosion of discourses—in medicine, psychiatry, and education—about sexuality. It has resulted in a pervasive discourse on sex that is a form of power/knowledge. As Foucault points out, the repression of sex in nineteenth-century bourgeois society demanded a science of sexuality, scientia sexualis (Foucault 1990: 58), in order to understand, catalog and identify the very perversion that needed to be controlled or eradicated.
Its focus [was] not the intensification of pleasure, but the rigorous analysis of every thought and action that related to pleasure. This exhaustive articulation of desire has produced a knowledge which supposedly holds the key to individual mental and physical health and to social well-being. The end of this analytic knowledge is either utility, morality, or truth. (Dreyfus and Rabinow 1983: 176)
Since the Revolution a huge market for manuals, instruction booklets, and educational guidance on sexuality and sex life has emerged. A large part of these publications are published by the state, but individual clerics and religious institutes are also producing them. Publications by the “Parent-Teacher Association” (Anjoman-e Uleá va Murabian) and by the “Cultural Foundation of Islamic Message” (Bounyad-e Farhangi Payam-e Islam) aim to teach young people how to have “proper” (monaseb) and “healthy” (salem) sex. Numerous blogs and websites deal with sexual issues. One example is Weblog of Temporary Marriage,13 which, based on religious sources, aims to “configure sexuality in society.” The blog offers “information” on sex and sexual relations, such as “how to stop sickly [sexual] behavior”; “the harms of masturbation”; “ethics of sex”; “advantages of temporary marriage.”
Furthermore, every ayatollah is supposed to have published his own Towzihoule Masael (Practical Treatise), a comprehensive guide to life in general and religious/juridical matters in particular. Sexual life is a major theme in these books. What follows is an excerpt from Ayatollah Mosavi Ardebili’s Towzihoule Masael (1380/2001), which deals with rules of the senses.
ETHNOGRAPHIC VIGNETTE
Rules of Look, Touch, and Voice
Article 3032. It is haraam [unlawful] for man to look at the body of the namahram [unrelated] woman, regardless of whether it is with the intention of pleasure or not. It is also haraam to look at the faces and the arms, up to the wrists, of such women with the intention of pleasure. Similarly, it is haraam for a woman to look at the body of namahram man, without the intention of deriving any pleasure.
Article 3032. It is haraam to look at the private parts of another person, even if it they are seen through glass or reflected in a mirror, or clean water, etc. As an obligatory precaution, it is also haraam to look at the genitals of a child. However, a wife and her husband can look at the entire body of each other.
Article 3039. If a man and woman, who are mahram of each other, do not have the intention of sexual pleasure, they can see the entire body of each other excepting the private parts.
Article 3040. A man should not look at the body of another man with the intention of sexual excitement, and also, it is haraam for a woman to look at the body of another woman with the intention of sexual excitement.
Article 3043. If a man has to look at or touch the body of a namahram woman for the sake of treatment, there is no harm. But, if he can treat her with looking and without touching, he must not touch her, and if he can treat her with touching, he must not look at her.
Article 3044. If one is obliged to look at another person’s private parts for treatment, he must look in a mirror, but if there is no way but looking, then there is no harm.
Article 3045. A woman is allowed to speak loudly before namahram men unless her voice makes the men sexually excited.
Article 3046. Women and men are allowed to hear each other’s voices if they do not have the intention of sexual pleasure.
In 2005 a “Marriage Calendar” (Taqvim-e zanashoui) was published by a religious publisher in Qom. Printed in 100,000 copies, the Calendar contains sex instructions and quotes from religious leaders about sexual issues. Each day is marked as an “appropriate” or “inappropriate” day for sexual intercourse. For instance, according to the Calendar, sexual intercourse in a standing position is improper because it resembles animals’ sexual intercourse. Based on quotes from religious texts, men are recommended to do foreplay before penetration.14 Another example of expansion of “the science of sexuality” is shown in the aims and plans of the government National Youth Organization.15
National Youth Policy
Article 36: Hygiene of adolescence
• Being aware of physical and mental health, physical changes and mental developments during the period of maturation and directing sexual instincts toward preserving physical health and reproduction.
•Providing suitable grounds to obtain the youth’s trust in expressing their problems arising from adolescence with parents and teachers.
•Planning for physical and mental activities to moderate the adolescents’ sex instinct up to their marriage time.
Article 37: Rites of maturity
•Learning the rites of maturity and responsibilities of becoming an adult on the basis of religious laws & understanding the reasons of impermissible premarital affairs between boys and girls.
•Guidance of the youth to acquire restricted useful & necessary sex knowledge and prevention from acquiring unnecessary and perturbing information.
•Immunization of the social environment and removal of probable backgrounds of the adolescents’ sexual abuse in their mutual relations.
•Expansion of the sex hygiene and individual cleanliness among girls and boys.
