A Response to "Sex and Iran's Unstoppable Resistance"

Catherine Sameh recently wrote a review of Janet Afary's Sexual Politics in Modern Iran here. Although Sameh gives a wonderfully informative and detailed review, she makes some points which deserve re-visiting, like the use of the hejab by men in the Green Movement and bonds of sisterhood in Iran.

Sameh briefly mentions the use of hejab by men in the Green Movement, most likely referencing Majid Tavakoli. Tavakoli, a prominent student activist in Iran, was arrested on December 9, 2009 after giving a speech at Amirkabir University. Later, government-sponsored media published photographs of Tavakoli in a chador (a large cut of fabric worn on top of clothing by more pious Muslim women in Iran). Although the arresting officers claim they found Tavakoli dressed in a chador, members of the Green Movement were outraged and declared that Tavakoli was forced to wear the chador by officers determined to humiliate him. In a show of solidarity, men began photographing themselves in hejab and chador (again, articles of clothing worn by women in Iran) and posting them on the Internet.

Although these photos were heralded by many as a sign that Iranian men refused to associate feminization with shame, it is clear from the attitude of many of these men that this simply is not the case. Men have donned traditionally feminine articles of clothing to show sympathy for Tavakoli, to show their recognition of his embarrassment. Instead of Green Movement supporters perhaps queering the chador, re-claiming it from the Islamic Republic and utilizing it as a tool for anonymity in the public sphere, they continually cried that Tavakoli was forced into the chador, offered witnesses claiming he was not wearing it as he left, and presented testimony from those who knew Tavakoli and claimed he would never do such a thing. The men wearing hejab in solidarity with Tavakoli have not done so to say they also claim this traditionally feminine article of clothing as a tool for resistance; they have done so to say to Tavakoli that they will not allow him to be “shamed” for being forced into these clothes.

It is impossible at this point to know whether Tavakoli chose to wear the chador or not, but no one has applauded Tavakoli for this rather clever attempt to escape authorities. Instead, his masculinity is continually discussed and defended, and the possibility that he chose to wear the chador is never offered. If this were not enough, many of the same supporters who have donned hejab and chador in support of Tavakoli have photoshopped images of Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad to show them in chador – to shame them through feminization, the same way they feel Tavakoli has been shamed. This only reinscribes already popular understandings of the chador and hejab as feminine and thus shameful for men. The intense reaction from Green Movement members upon the release of Tavakoli’s photos point to the movement’s patriarchal, not progressive, underpinnings (for more information about Tavakoli’s arrest and Green Movement reaction see here and here).

Sameh also mentions Afary’s interpretation of Iranian “bonds of sisterhood,” which Sameh calls “egalitarian homosexual relationships.”Although Sameh’s comment seems appropriate given Afary’s representation of bonds of sisterhood, other historians have discussed these bonds differently. The essay “In Spirit We Ate Each Other’s Sorrow” in Islamicate Sexualities by Kathryn Babayan allows for a more fluid understanding of vows of sisterhood. Babayan juxtaposes Aqa Jamal’s ‘Aqa’id al-Nisa,’ a satirical 17th century book disparaging women and female homosociality, with Safarnama-yi Manzum-i Hajj, a travelogue from a Safavi-era Isfahani widow in which she describes her affective bonds with her “sister.” Although Babayan identifies their relationship as one of “same-sex erotic desire (258),” she still allows room for vows of sisterhood to exist outside the limits of homosexuality. Babayan states “[w]ithin the confines of the practice of sisterhood, a certain female intimacy – whether platonic, romantic, or sexual – emerges outside the countours of Islamic law” (255). Even reading a relationship identified as containing “same-sex erotic desire” as homosexual is incredibly limiting, and it invisibilizes the multitude of rich emotions and desires women experienced in these relationships. Vows of sisterhood are in this unclear and tense space lying uncomfortably between homosociality and homosexuality, and this is exactly where they should be left. We should not continually try to categorize all same-sex relationships and desires in Iran (past or present) as either/or, but instead appreciate the very imprecise nature of relationships like vows of sisterhood. To try to force them into one side of a restrictive binary only does these powerful relations a disservice.

To be clear, I am not motivated by some homophobic agenda, afraid to “admit” to Iranian homosexual relations; rather, I wish to keep these very blurry, permeable and ultimately artificial lines between homosociality and homosexuality as blurry and permeable as possible. It is exactly this ambiguity that I find so fruitful and liberating, especially when juxtaposed with Western identifications that demand one be lesbian or straight. In fact, it is exactly these Western understandings of sexuality that were imposed on Iran beginning in the late 1800s that forced Iranians to begin understanding relations through homo or heterosexual lenses.

Overall, I enjoyed Sameh’s review of Afary’s book, and I think Afary contributes immensely to the growing scholarship on Iranian sexuality. I only hope that within this growing field we privilege Iranian understandings and engagements with sexuality, rather than struggle to fit Iranian relations into categories intelligible to a Western audience.