Early
in Passionate Uprisings:
Iran's Sexual Revolution,
an Iranian woman
tells Iranian-American
anthropologist Pardis Mahdavi that growing up in Iran isn't really any different
from the U.S.: "When you go to your parents' house you speak
Persian and wear proper clothes, and when you go out with your friends, there you speak English and
wear sexy clothes, right? Well, for us it's the same; it's like drinking water." Mahdavi's book underlines how life in one of the most
repressive Islamic republics in the world marks
its residents, particularly
the urban Tehrani women who allowed her incredible access into their private
lives.
In spite of Iran's public face, its young population (70 percent of which is
under 30) is frustrated over the government's emphasis in cracking
down on their behavior through the komite, or morality police. The underemployed,
financially stable children of the middle and upper classes flout sharia-influenced laws in choices as subtle as
unbuttoning their coats or wearing open-toed shoes in the street, and as brazen
as having casual
sex in their cars while
listening to Western pop music and illegal DJ tracks. What they can't do outdoors, young people do
at house parties where imported booze
and local opiates mix as freely as the men and women who aren't allowed to encounter
each other in public. The thrill of being caught is part of their social
reality, as women apply extra layers of makeup so the komite's commands won't completely destroy
their look, and partygoers munch
on cucumbers to cleanse their breath in
case of a raid.
Conservative morals and youthful rebellion are constantly colliding, as in the
double standard that exists between single and married women, since it's
expected that husbands rather than the police will punish wives.
Mahdavi
herself finds it necessary
to claim an absent husband to avoid a traffic-related arrest, one of many near
misses she describes
in the seven years she spent visiting Iran to
research Passionate Uprisings. While she points
out that not every Iranian woman who dons a translucent headscarf means to disavow
her beliefs, Mahdavi's observations
are so keen that her portrait of a subculture, desperate for change but viewing
political activity as completely worthless, is balanced by the fascinating counter-narrative
of her by turns horrific,
hopeful, and revelatory experiences as a woman in Iran.