Living Dangerously: What It’s Like to Be Gay in Iran..

Tehran's coffee shops are relatively permissive, and popular haunts for young Iranians who spend hours here socializing, smoking and flirting.

It is possible to be gay and live under a repressive regime that is always threatening to out you, or worse. But it's a lot like walking a tightrope: scary and fraught with risks.

Tehran's parks are always crowded, and particularly around dusk, many of them become popular cruising spots for gay men.

Private parties are some of the easiest places for middle class Iranian gays to hook up for one-night stands.



Saeed was 20 years old when he sat his father down and told him he was gay. Trembling, he recounted how, as a child, he hid cutouts of male underwear models from foreign magazines under his pillow, and would gaze at them for hours when he was alone. His mother, sitting speechless in a chair next to her husband,went pale.

A retired colonel in the Iranian Air Force, Saeed’s father looked at him with a straight face, not moving a muscle. “Affirmative,” he said. He had spent three decades in the military, and had been shaped equally by its rigorous discipline and his religious upbringing. “I always knew you were different from my other children. I always used to say that to your mom. Right?” he said, turning to his wife, then added: “Saeed, this is your nature. This isn’t your choice. You should have told us earlier.”

Saeed burst into tears, relieved. His mother took his hands and nodded, “What can we do to help?”

In a different country, this coming out story might not be considered out of the ordinary. But Saeed, a pensive, handsome 25-year-old with a faux-hawk and meticulously groomed stubble, lives in Iran, where Islamic law criminalizes same-sex relations. Coming out is simply something very few do, even in capital city, Tehran, where Saeed grew up.(For security reasons,Saeed asked to be referred to by his first name only.)

Until recently, consensual sexual intercourse between men was a capital offense in Iran. After a change in the country’s penal code, the “active” person in the act can now be punished with up to 100 lashes, but if he’s married, the death penalty may apply. The “passive” person can still be sentenced to death, regardless of marital status. Sexual interaction between two women is punishable by flogging.