foucault-and-the-iranian-revolution-janet-afary

292 Notes to Pages 1 54-1 62
24. See also Freeland 1998. Martha Nussbaum points out that according to Aristotle
the basic needs of all human beings had to be provided for in an ethical social order, a
notion that she says is entirely absent from Foucault's work (1998, 249).
25. We do not have much information about homosexuality in the Middle
Eastern/Muslim world, since scholarship on this subjea is in its very early stages. Therefore
we have had to rely at times on materials by writers who are not specialists in this field.
Our statements about homosexual praaices in these societies are thus highly tentative, and
much more work is needed in this area.
26. According to the texts, these are (1) the man is not fulfilling the Biblical
commandment to procreate, (2) he is not fulfilling his sexual duties to his wife, and (3) he
is indulging in a praaice whose sole purpose is the gratification of his desire (Eron 1993,
115).
27. In the manner of Eve Sedgwick (1985), Afsaneh Najmabadi suggests that even
some heterosexual Persian poetry, where an older women expresses desire for a younger
man, reflects homoerotic attraaion between the male reader and the object of his desire
in the literary text, a desire that is expressed via the mediation of a woman (Najmabadi
2000).
28. One indication of the historical link between this region and ancient Greek
culture is that, after centuries of Muslim rule, Kandahar retains its original name, based on
a local pronunciation of the Greek word for Alexandria.
29. Khalid Duran discusses the colonial subtext to these sex tours (1993, 189).
30. Keyvan Khosravani was an architea, a painter, and a designer. He had a
famous boutique in Tehran called "Number One" and was the designer of Queen
Farah's Bakhtiari and traditional dresses. His companion was Bijan Saffari. Although the
ceremony was ostensibly in jest, the feelings of the partners were apparently sincere. After a
photojournalist took pictures of the event and sold .thernto the newspapers, however, the
public outrage became too much to handle. Saffari denied 'any homosexual relationship
and ended his friendship with Khosravani, who left for Italy soon after the revolution.
(Thanks to Houman Sarshar and Homa Sarshar for this information.)
31. Some of this information is based on an e-mail exchange with Goudarz Eghtedari
(Iran). For a discussion of this issue, see Sanasarian 2000 and various issues of the
journal Homan (1999-2001). For more information on the Iranian GLB movement, see
the website for Homan: The Group to Defend the Rights of Iranian Gays and Lesbians,
www.homan.cwc.net. For literature on Iranian lesbians, see www.geocities.com/khanaeyedoost.
According to Duran, "homosexual assault is frequently used by the police of
repressive regimes, such as the SAVAK during the reign of the Shah ofIran or its successor,
SAVAMA, the dreaded security organ of the Khomeini government" (1993, 1 87).
32. Comments by Norma Moruzzi on her visits to Iran at the Trans/national
Sexualities Symposium, University of Illinois, Chicago, November 18, 2002.