Sexual Politics in Modern Iran [Paperback]

This book charts the history of Iran's sexual revolution from the nineteenth century to today.This book charts the history of Iran's sexual revolution from the nineteenth century to today. The resilience of the Iranian people forms the basis of this sexual revolution, one that is promoting reforms in marriage and family laws, and demanding more egalitarian gender and sexual relations.This book charts the history of Iran's sexual revolution from the nineteenth century to today. The resilience of the Iranian people forms the basis of this sexual revolution, one that is promoting reforms in marriage and family laws, and demanding more egalitarian gender and sexual relations.Janet Afary is a native of Iran and a leading historian. Her work focuses on gender and sexuality and draws on her experience of growing up in Iran and her involvement with Iranian women of different ages and social strata. These observations, and a wealth of historical documents, form the kernel of this book, which charts the history of the nation's sexual revolution from the nineteenth century to today. What comes across is the extraordinary resilience of the Iranian people, who have drawn on a rich social and cultural heritage to defy the repression and hardship of the Islamist state and its predecessors. It is this resilience, the author concludes, which forms the basis of a sexual revolution taking place in Iran today, one that is promoting reforms in marriage and family laws, and demanding more egalitarian gender and sexual relations.Part I. Pre-modern Practices: 1. Formal marriage; 2. Slave concubinage, temporary marriage, and harem wives; 3. Class, status-defined homosexuality, and rituals of courtship; Part II. Toward a Westernized Modernity: 4. On the road to an ethos of monogamous, heterosexual marriage; 5. Redefining purity, unveiling bodies, shifting desires; 6. Imperialist politics, romantic love, and the impasse over women's suffrage; 7. Suffrage, marriage reforms, and the threat of flsŠ