Inside modern Iran, where porn and prostitution are rampant

To live in Tehran, writes British-Iranian journalist Ramita Navai in this collection of true stories, requires one essential skill: lying.

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“Morals don’t come into it,” Navai writes. “Lying in Tehran is about survival . . . when the truth is shared in Tehran, it is an act of extreme trust or absolute desperation.”

“City of Lies” features eight sprawling tales (all names have been changed, as have certain details, and several characters are composites). Each focuses on an individual, but Navai uses these personal stories to observe how people live, love and survive in a society ruled by fundamentalists.

Iranian youth read “Harry Potter,” watch Hollywood films like “The Bling Ring,” smoke joints and listen to Metallica and Radiohead — all the while knowing that one misstep can ruin their reputations and lives, including the possibility of prison or death. For women, sex outside marriage could mean “up to 100 lashes.” If convicted of adultery, a woman could be executed.
Crystal meth, ‘dog sweat’ and divorce

“Somayeh” (each story is named after its central character) concerns a 17-year-old girl, her father, Haj Agha, and her mother, Fatemeh.

Somayeh and her classmates were virgins, but “a handful had experienced illicit encounters, mostly with their cousins, who were the only males they were allowed to be in contact with,” Navai writes.

When the conservative Somayeh met her 26-year-old cousin Amir-Ali, a well-built young man with a surgically perfected nose (according to Navai, plastic surgery is remarkably common in Tehran), the attraction was instant and mutual.

For the most part, Amir-Ali and his friends hung out with prostitutes and spent their weekends smoking pot and “sheesheh” — or crystal meth, the country’s most popular illegal drug after opium.

There were attempts at sex with regular girls as well, with varying degrees of success.

“Sometimes they would have ‘la-paee,’ ‘between the legs’ thigh sex, [where] he would pump vigorously between a girl’s clenched thighs,” writs Navai. “La-paee sex was the most popular form of sex among teenagers and girls in their early 20s from religious families.”

Occasionally, the boys would “get lucky,” but it was “nearly always anal sex so the girl’s hymen would remain untouched and she would still be a virgin for her wedding night.”

Navai says that marriage between cousins is “considered lucky and heaven-sent, a strengthening of families that brought unity.” Amir-Ali’s mother caught him looking at his cousin, pulled him aside, and warned him not to mess around with family unless he was serious. He said that he was, and a wedding was planned.

But Somayeh’s mother, Fatemeh, was dubious and sought the guidance of her favorite mullah for “Koranic divination.” Navai’s description of the business of professional advice-givers is reminiscent of our own psychic-hotline industry.

“There were cowboys out there, as there were in any business — turbaned charlatans riding on the wings of people’s misery and pain,” Navai writes. “These were the clerics who charged a fortune for their divination services. Some even offered magic spells at premium rates.”

But Fatemeh had a mullah she trusted — one who would actually spend time with her and didn’t charge, although he did accept gifts — and he neither blessed or trashed the union, saying only, “It depends on the purity of their hearts.”

In arranging the marriage, Somayeh made Amir-Ali promise to allow her to attend university. Soon after they married, Amir-Ali changed his mind.

After the first year of marriage, Amir-Ali “got bored.” He spent more time with his friends smoking sheesheh and drinking “dog sweat” — home-brewed vodka made of raisins. He suddenly had hot new Facebook friends, spent time at a gambling den and stopped coming home.

Along the way, Somayeh noticed that Amir-Ali, when he did return, had a combination-lock briefcase that seemed important to him. Eventually opening it, she found love letters from Amir-Ali to a mystery woman expressing sentiments of love and lust he’d never expressed to her, along with a box of condoms, photos of a chesty blonde and “half a dozen scratched DVDs in a Bambi sleeve.”

She played one of the DVDs and was repulsed when she saw “a woman on her knees being f—ed from behind.” This was her first exposure to porn, and it left her “sobbing and praying.”

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Photo: Getty Images
She told her mother everything, and Fatemeh listened intently, as she had also had a recent experience with heartbreak.

While looking for some old paperwork, Fatemeh found Haj Agha’s passport and discovered that all of his supposed pilgrimage travels had actually been to Thailand. As she knew nothing about the country, she asked her favorite mullah, who informed her that, “Thailand is a country of prostitutes. All the women there are for sale.”

Fatemeh eventually forgave Haj Agha — the truth could have destroyed both of their reputations. Her daughter, however, was still young, and had a chance at a better future. While divorce had long been considered shameful, and even just recently would have been considered unthinkable by Fatemeh, several couples they knew had recently divorced.

“You must get a divorce,” she told Somayeh, telling her it was “the only way you can be happy.”

Fearing the ramifications of his own proclivities going public, Amir-Ali granted the divorce, and Somayeh received the sort of second chance many Iranian women never get.

New York Post