Of Yellow Babies and Khamenei's Catamite

We had a great day walking a lot between lifts, first on the parched heights of the mountains around the city, then in the verdant green valley that was our destination. We arrived in the first of its khaki-coloured, stepped villages right at friday prayer time, when the streets were solemnly swept empty of life, except for a stray dog or two. Soon though the mosque emptied itself, and the men of this and all the surrounding villages who had gathered for the occasion streamed out and down the narrow streets in their wide shalvar trousers tied together with cummerbunds. Quite some of them were of the most beautifully furrowed respected elders. One teethless, completely white-haired old man heaved himself on his completely white donkey, clutching onto the saddle pommel with gnarled, fragile hands, sitting slumped as he rode home.
As the village emptied again, we decided to walk on. By the end of the afternoon we had been given handfuls of sour cherries and plums by people along the road, we had had lunch in one house, tea in another, and fought off several other invitations. A man who invited us for tea in the shade of his orchard’s trees offered to spend the night in his family’s house, and for me that seemed like the logical consequence of the lovely day I had had.
Maher however had to trek back home. He openly admitted to me that, as for his family, if he was a girl he would not have been allowed to come and spent the day away in a village somewhere with a foreigner. In the same vein, some restrictions also apply to him as a guy – it was okay to come and show a girl around, but the night he would have to spend in his family’s house. Believe it or not, in these countries men also are considered to have some sort of honour as concerns sexual matters, although one much less fetishized than that of women.
How much easier would it be if Maher could just come out to his family and confide to them that he is gay anyway?
But in this Iranian provincial town none of his support group’s friends are out to their families or even their closest friends, except the ones who are gay, too. “I could never tell my sister!”, Maher explained to me, “ In Iran having a gay brother is the sort of thing you wish for your worst enemies. Not that they get a terrible disease, or that they bear a one-eyed, yellow baby, no -that their brother is gay!”

The day before he and his friends had shown me pictures of members of their group, some of them wearing pink T-shirts, and some of them in seductive poses, throwing kisses or hugging each other, in the town’s parks or on its squares. “These are Iranian gay”, they said to me, as if it was a joke. One picture was a group picture, taken in an office. Maher pointed to a poster of the country’s spiritual leaders Khomeini and Khamenei hanging on the wall and said to me: “These are the most famous Iranian gay." Jadi completed the information: "Yes, it is common knowledge Khamenei and Khomeini had a relationship before Khomeini died." And we chuckled at the implication hanging in the air that Khamenei only really got nominated as Khomeini's successor because of sexual favours.
“Anyways, this one", eighteen-year old Ferhad put his finger on grand-daddy Khamenei, "he was my boyfriend for a year, but then he ditched me for someone younger”.

“And do you like Ahmadinejad?”, they asked me about their country's ultra-conservative president of army general background who famously claims that Iranian gays don't exist. I negated, for various reasons. “We do!”, Jadi exclaimed, “we think it’s obvious he is gay, too. He and everyone in the military!"