When Fariba Met Habib
And speaking of religion and the religiously-inclined and the contortions they can make to save the phenomena…There is this CBC documentary about two Iranian women who survive via prostitution. Homa Arjomand sent me the link. Homa gets busier all the time, with media and speaking engagements. Let’s hope there will soon be more and more women sharing the workload.
For over a year, director Nahid Persson filmed the everyday lives of two young female prostitutes as they eked out a living in a country where the profession is banned. The filmmaker often took great risks to follow Minna and Fariba as they sought out customers-men who would often marry them briefly, so as not to violate the laws of the Koran by having extramarital sex. The two women are good friends and neighbours, who have experienced the widespread mistreatment of women and the double standards that permeate Iranian society today.
That’s nice, isn’t it? Touching. The men marry the women ‘briefly’ (briefly meaning, presumably, for fifteen minutes or so [to allow time for the amenities, and unzipping the fly]) so as not to violate the laws of the Koran against exploiting women. Oh I’m sorry, that’s not what it says, is it. Fancy that.
So is Allah fooled, I wonder? Is he mollified? Does he think this is a good system? Does he sit up there gloating happily, beaming down on darling Iran? ‘Oh look! How pure my beloved Iran is, with no extramarital sex or fooling around. That is so good and heartening and wonderful! No sex outside of marriage! Yay! Of course, the place is full of dirt-poor women being treated like toilets by their hahahaha ‘husbands’ all the same, but who cares about that?! Everybody in Iran who has genital-to-genital contact is spliced! That’s all I give a rat’s ass about!’ Is that what he says? Is that what his submissive subjects think he says? I mean, are they kidding? Or what. Oh who knows. People convince themselves that if they ‘pray’ then God will do what they ask whereas if they don’t he won’t, and at the same time that he is perfect and everywhere and kind and all-knowing, so whatever.
In the ’80s, documentary filmmaker Nahid Persson fled Iran for Sweden. When she returns 17 years later, she finds the divisions between the classes greater than ever, unemployment has skyrocketed…Putting herself at great risk, Persson manages to film Minna and Fariba’s customers…Many of the women’s customers find a way to buy sex and still comply with Muslim law: they marry with the women in what is called ‘sighe’-a temporary marriage legal in Shia Islam. ‘Sighe’ can last from two hours up to 99 years. In the documentary, both Minna and Fariba undergo ‘sighe’ with customers. Habib offers his perspective on temporary marriages: to him, ‘sighe’ is a way of helping miserable women-an act of mercy done in the name of Allah.
Oh, two hours. I was being grossly cynical in thinking they could get away with fifteen minutes. Two hours. Man, that’s some pretty heavy commitment. Pretty good marriages, are they? Do they fit the whole thing into that two hours? Shared housework, visiting the in-laws, sending Ramadan cards, cozy chats over Horlicks at midnight? Doesn’t it sound sweet. But I have a suspicion that’s not how it goes. I’m thinking that actually the guy runs off after fifteen minutes to go hang with his homies, and then comes back when the two hours are up, sticks his head in the door (or the hole in the wall) to say ‘I divorce you I divorce you I divorce you, bye, it was fun!’. I’m just guessing though. Maybe the two lovebirds are really happy together for that two hours. She teases him about always throwing his socks on the floor, he teases her about the way she dresses (you know, like a prostitute and all). Kind of a ‘Mad About You’ scenario but speeded up. Could be cute. Could have legs. Kind of Cary Grant and Kate Hepburn-slash-Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan type thing. Somebody call Hollywood.
Brutal, but you have nailed it. This is the way to avoid accusations of racism or religious hatred. Take a specific example and ask everybody ‘Hey, do you people really think this is OK?’ Well done.
Brutal, moi?
Well, yeah. But the reality is pretty brutal itself.
Thanks, Mike.
As a guest in Iran, I was asked how Westerners could believe the lies in “Not Without My Daughter”, presenting Iran as populated by ignorant muslim hicks and extremists. Not asked by a mullah, but by an educated Iranian of the class of the book’s husband. My take: “After a divorce between friends, do ANY of us believe what is said about the relationship even by our friend we are still in contact with?”
Iran has a huge class of educated people, older ones potentially world citizens who lived and studied overseas. These people are however kept from making change by the power of the mullahs, backed by the poor, rural and militarised religious.
Prostitution may be exploitative, dressed in a seemingly hypocritical marriage, but there is plenty worse to see there.
Women may be swept up in fundamentalist sweeps of fashionable districts because their hair was showing, or wearing jeans and heels under the chador; they can be taken to Revolutionary Guard offices and beaten until they say they are prostitutes, when it is not illegal to rape them, so…
ANd then there are the jailings and interrogations and executions of journalists and students, male and female…
Temporary marriage may be hypocritical but jeez, if these economically desperate women can make this living without facing torture and rape as above, is it just possible that we should also look at some worse features of the place?
Wow. It strikes me that as different as the Iranian people are, they are just the same – ruled by their humanity.
We (the collective “we” meaning, “all humans on Earth”) are the same species, regardless of the societal wrapper placed around us. We act the way we act due to our biology. Men are sperm spreaders. Plain and simple. Once we wrap our heads around this basic fact we can go on with our evolution.
We rationalize our behavior, but it all comes down to our biology. It all flows from there.
Is there some greater purpose than the survival of our species? I don’t think so. The ultimate meaning of “morality” comes down to “that which promotes our survival”.
People will tell themselves lies and self-deceive in order to live within their own skulls, but the truth is transcendent. We are animals. We are animals with a huge brain that has been an advantage to us in the last million or so years of our species’ evolution.
Can that advantage last? And does it really matter in the grand scheme of things?
Brent,
I think you are correct in one way, dead wrong in another. As intelligent creatures we can decide for ourselves what matters, and teach each other and our children to do similar.
Having decided whether a thing is good, do it; or if a thing is evil, prevent it, and you do well. But ‘good’ delivered to others or the overall society is a greater victory.
Of course in most societies, delivering good ideas to the future is as much a contribution as sperm spreading, probably better if a system helps refine them and liberate their benefit. Take the invention of penicillin, abolition of slavery and cheap canned beer as proofs!