Book Alert / Passionate Uprisings

Passionate Uprisings -- Iran's Sexual Revolution by Pardis Mahdavi, Stanford UP '08, brand new, never read, no clips or marks. 336 pages, ISBN #0804758565. Index, works cites, source notes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

"There is perhaps no place in the world," writes author Pardis Mahdavi, "where the stakes of partying and having sex are higher than in present-day Iran. Drinking and dancing can lead to arrest by the morality police and a punishment of up to seventy lashes. Consequences for sex outside of marriage can be even more severe -- up to eighty-four lashes, or even public execution."

With the extent of current repression against political dissent, Mahdavi says, young people increasingly use their bodies "to make social and political statements." The Pomona College anthropologist argues that the risks inherent in this new sexual revolution aren't limited to political ones but also encompass "increased levels of abortion, HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, and ongoing emotional troubles and mental illnesses, with worrying implications for Iranian youth and Iranian society at large."