nation of pleasure

bargeboo: for a while now i have been looking at the more controversial side of iranian/persian webslogs. i am talking about those who write adult content. in the wake of the boom in persian blogs in the last two years, and the relative rare freedom of speech for the masses, there has been thousands of weblogs created with as diverse range of content as could be expected. the whole idea of being able to publish anything you want, however mundane is in itself a revolutionary concept in iran. however, there are two kinds of weblogs that raise a lot of controversy in particular: political blogs and those with adult content. sites in both these categories are regularly banned which often reappear in another name or in a different blog provider. word is spread quickly, readers flock and then they are banned and cycle begins again.

to focus on adult blogs specifically (those with sexual content) they range from erotic stories and everyday sexual escapades to links to various free porno sites as well as x-rated images. do i need to go into the significance of these weblogs when it comes to today’s iranian society? in the west obviously we are used to sexual imagery in the public, from bikini clad “babes” in automobile ads to “sex and the city” and of course porn websites. not so in iran, which primarily remains a religious society, where sex remains a taboo or rather covert topic.

often the comments are just as interesting as the posts. ranging from inflammatory words and threats to gleeful applause. many also try to kindly direct the sinners in the true path of righteousness and virtue.

to follow the mission of this website, my intention is to bring to you the diverse presence of iranian culture as seen on the internet. if i don’t cover the adult content, the job is not complete.

bellow is a post by hellen. the post in itself is not that extra ordinary, if anything, it is quite mundane. and in that, i see its true significance. it describes the change in tehran’s society, during the war years and after through the eyes of a women who has left iran to live in us for many years. she wrote the following post as a guest in one of the oldest and more notorious persian weblogs, “tootfarangi” (strawberry). in his blog, mohsen describes his own sexual encounters in detail and then comments on relationships between the sexes. he also has many many bitter words directed at girls in particular which add to the controversy.

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<< source: www.tootfarangi.persianblog.com >>
by hellen, july 14, 2003

… i have been missing iran and iranians and anything that has even a whiff of iran i read eagerly and enjoy it a lot … one of the sites i read often is this “tootfarangi” website … i enjoy it and have learned a lot about the people’s relationships in iran. i feel a little sad though that there seems to be so much distance now between girls and guys. i can clearly see the loathing that they all feel for each other from comments and posts on this site. i think most of it is our own fault, the girls’. please don’t get me wrong. i think boys are also responsible for this mess. in one sentences you can summarize the relationship between guys and girls in iran: “some do it for money and some for free and at least the second is better than the first.”

“the worm is from the tree itself not the apple” (bargeboo: weak translation of persian proverb. if you know the equivalent in english, please let me know)

when i left iran i was 16 and back then there was always talk of “love” and none of these stuff existed. these days if a girl’s boyfriend does not spend money on her (mobile, car, presents, clothes, etc. ) then its goodbye!! and when a nice guy who is into romance comes along he is taken advantage of and is soon drowned in expenses. so what happens then? that guy says to himself: “forget love! i can spend $x on a hooker who neither plays games nor needs extra expense!” it’s then that we girls realize that we ourselves are the fools and understand why guys don’t have the patience for girlfriends and love. and when guys don’t want to deal with love, then there is no place for us because if no one makes “love” to us and it is taken away from us, we will fill up with hate, don’t you think?

i came back to iran after 13 years (yeah you have guessed right, i am 28). anyway … when i came back i realized iran has changed a lot. when i was there war was on and there was a lot of destruction but now the city has had a facelift. but i felt sad about something. i had never seen an iranian prostitute, and this young too. but now they are everywhere. on every street there were a lot of these little ladies waiting for men young and old. for how much? (10 or 20 dollars, more or less). this is really painful. what is even funnier is that many of these girls don’t do it traditionally but because of “modesty” or whatever … they only do it from the back!!! [anal sex]. now their modesty is what really kills me…

but now, here is my story: poor me, i had no idea about these things and one day after shopping i had two large bags and needed to catch a cab to go home. bad luck, there were no cabs around but there were many private cars which would stop at my feet. and i was finding it really strange, not really knowing what was going on. nothing like that happens in us of course. if you try to stop a car for a ride people would think you are crazy and would drive away fast. but that day i kept thinking: kudos to iranians! how kind they are when they see a girl with two heavy bags standing on the sidewalk and can’t find a cab so they stop to help her ….yeah right!

so in my mind i was swearing at americans for being so selfish and how they should really come and learn from these good people of iran … so there was a huge line of cars in front of me and i picked one and as i went to sit down … the guy goes: “niccccccccccce…. yummy … how much?” i almost blacked out! i closed the half opened door hard and yelled: “shut up you old geezer, you are almost my dad’s age!” in the middle of this a taxi came about and i jumped right in and said: “i will pay you anything you want, just take me home and don’t pick up anyone else.” (taxis are shared in iran). the driver at first got a little scared and asked:” whats wrong?” and then i explained everything to him. he laughed and said: “it seems like you don’t live here?” i felt offended and said:” how come?” he said: “ahh come on … look over there … see those young girls who’d just kill for some one to pick them up.” so i asked the driver to drive over to them so i could see if they would take the taxi or not. but he was right since none of them seemed happy when the cab got close. the driver being a little naughty kept breaking in front of their feet. there were 2 young girls and i swear one of them was maybe 14 and had tried to look older with tons of makeup. they kept turning their heads away every time he came close so to pretend they don’t see the cab.

so after this, i figured things out and every time i tried to leave the house i tried to not look nice and presentable so no gentleman would think of me as something else. i am not sure whos fault all this is. you can’t blame everything on the government. its true that there are no jobs and all the young are unemployed and this brings around thousands of perversions and loose behavior but i also think the tree itself must have a worm or two also, and not just the apple.