ABSTRACT

This is a story about the children of the Islamic Revolution who now occupy a particular social, cultural, political and sexual space in urban Tehran. The study, conducted between 2000 and 2007, focused on emerging Iranian young adult culture in Tehran, describing and analysing the meaning and significance of young Tehranis’ ‘transgressive’ sexual and social behaviours in relation to Iran’s current sociopolitical climate. Research focused on sexual and social practices, as well as the daily experiences of young people (aged 18-25) in contemporary Iran. How do young adults understand and enact their erotic and sexual lives within the laws and restrictions of the Islamic Republic? Findings suggest that urban young adults in Tehran are constructing and embodying what they call a sexual revolution2 in response to social and political changes. Iran has experienced major economic, demographic, political and social changes in the last 30 years. The young people that this study focused on are literally ‘children of the revolution’ as they were born to a nation in the throes of revolution (Islamic), war (with Iraq) and shifts in economic power (oil boom followed by sanctions). According to scholars such as Janet Afary (personal communication 2006) or Kaveh Basmenji (2005), the nation’s younger generation has been affected by the Islamic Republic’s free education policies and its successful national literacy

campaign. Ironically, these education policies have created an educated and highly politicised youth with voting rights (age 16 currently) many of whom are ready and willing to express their dissent. The body has become a major battleground in the Islamic Republic, seen in legislation and heavy punishment regulating Islamic dress and death sentences for ‘sexual deviants’ (those convicted of adultery or homosexuality). Many young adults argue that they are now using their bodies and sexualities to speak back to what they view as a repressive regime; they refer to their behaviour as a sexual revolution (enqelab-e-jensi). Consequently, a new sexual culture is emerging among Iranian young adults that requires further investigation. Urban young adults who comprise the majority of Iran’s population (70 per cent of Iran’s population is under the age of 30) (Esposito and Ramazani 2001) are highly mobile, highly educated (84 per cent of young Tehranis are currently enrolled in university or are university graduates with 65 per cent of these graduates being women) and underemployed (there is a 45 per cent unemployment rate among this age group) (Basmenji 2005). Many are also highly dissatisfied with the current regime. Through in-depth research that looks at often overlooked elements such as style (Hebdige 1991), daily lives, sexual practices and health and education infrastructure, it may be possible to illuminate the ways in which young people in Tehran interact with their social, political and economic environment and express their dissatisfaction with their current situation. Can current changes in sexual behaviour among the young people of Iran be seen as an alternative form of substitution for the forbidden political activism?