October 17, 2008

Titillation in Tehran; Syrian Seduction

By EVAN R. GOLDSTEIN

"Take a deep breath," Pardis Mahdavi's male companion whispered to her when they arrived at the party. Most of the revelers were gathered around a large swimming pool that had been drained. "As we walked closer to the pool," Mahdavi recalls in her new book, Passionate Uprisings: Iran's Sexual Revolution (Stanford University Press), "I realized that a full-blown orgy was taking place inside it."

According to Mahdavi, an assistant professor of anthropology at Pomona College, the carnal