Loopholes for Lovers. Thwarting Religion's Repression of Human Sexuality
Earlier this month, I wrote about the sexual violence that occurs in societies which radically repress and restrict relationships between consenting adults. Another consequence is the strange acrobatics one must perform to circumvent the system in place, or to legitimate their actions within the purview of the system.
For instance, in Iran, sex before or outside of marriage is prohibited by law. Indeed, the accusation of an extramarital affair can lead to a 'stoning to death' sentencing by the revolutionary courts. So the rule is serious. But there is another rule, called sigheh, legally known as a "temporary marriage". It's a term used for what most places would simply call sexual intercourse between two people who are not co-habitating marital partners. Sigheh does not even need to be registered and can last as little as five minutes, or up to 99 years. In other words, it's good for a quickie, or for a long-term relationship without a wedding. As Elaine Sciolino writes, "Sigheh legally wraps premarital sex in an Islamic cloak."
So in the same Islamic Republic which obsessively prizes virginity, sneers at clothes that show the shape of a woman's body and purports to be the protector of chastity, it can also be perfectly legitimate to purchase sex from a prostitute, to have a one-night stand, or to engage in a sexual relationship with someone whom you love but cannot or do not want to marry. You simply have to get a kind of permit which says that you are temporarily married, for the period in which the sexual activity is occuring. It's a modest respite from the strict regulation of sexual behaviour, a tiny loophole that gives people a little flexibility and freedom. Should we see it as an example of just how open-minded and tolerant the Islamic Republic really can be?
Well, not exactly. The problem is that even sigheh is yet another command that god must be involved in every aspect of one's life, whether or not one wants it; He's got to be calling the shots even between the sheets. It's a way to say that the government, god's self-appointed spokesperson, gets to sanction what constitutes desire, and that desire must have an Islamic label on it in order to be legitimate. In 1990, the-then president of Iran, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani preached that sexual desire is a God-given trait, but added, don't be "promiscuous like the Westerners;" instead use the God-given solution of temporary marriage. In other words, sex in the West is sinful and dirty; sex in Iran is godly- just make sure you have the license before you hop in the sack.
In another example, Afghanistan's practice of segregating unrelated men and women and keeping women home-bound and banned from the public sphere (purdah), places economic hardship on households without able-bodied male breadwinners; and of course, denies half the population freedom of mobility and of association. The solution? Note that this practice is nonsensical and release women from their domestic prisons, allowing them to become active, contributing members of the community? Wrong. If a female really needs to go outside, dress her up as a boy.
The practice is known as bacha posh, or literally, “dressed up as a boy” and as Jenny Nordberg notes, it "cuts across class, education, ethnicity and geography". Nordberg recently spent months investigating this practice in Afghanistan, discovering young girls whose parents cut their hair short and put them in boys' clothes so that they can move about freely outside, get employment outside the home to earn money for the family, attend school, or otherwise access various freedoms Afghan girls are normally not privy to. The practice evidently stretches far back in time, and people outside of the family such as teachers or neighbours often know that a boy is really a girl, and are accepting of this. Everyone participates in the performance.
And in Catholicism, the very broken priesthood system is awash in evidence that the requirement of celibacy the Vatican claims to be so imperative, simply doesn't work in real life. The evidence is found in the tens of thousands of children who have survived molestation and rape at the hands of Catholic clergy all over the world, to the many priests who take secret lovers. In Rome, there are enough women who have been the lovers of priests that they have formed a support group, there is a helpline in the UK, and numerous websites and online forums for women who are, or have been in secret relationships with priests, to help each other deal with the shame of living what they call a closeted existence. In Italy, some of them have sent an open letter to the Vatican asking for reforms to the rules, that priests be allowed to marry. Their letter went unacknowledged.
Clandestine relationships among clergy go back as far as the founding of the Church. After the the Second Vatican Council in 1962, nearly 60,000 priests left the church to get married. In the US alone, 25,000 priests have left the Church over the last 60 years. On one support group website for those who have left, or are thinking about leaving, a former priest writes,
The sixteenth century reformers were correct when they taught marriage is a divine right that no ecclesiastical law can negate. When you read the arguments against the practice of mandated celibacy these reformers made in 1530, you will find little has changed during the past 500, or so, years.
Whether its sigheh in Iran, bacha posh in Afghanistan, or hidden relationships among Catholic clergy, when religion tries to suffocate love and sex, human beings will gasp for air until they can breathe again. So if these holier-than-thou systems demand cheating or bizarre laws to codify loopholes around them, why not just dismantle them?
Lauryn Oates is a Contributing Writer for The Propagandist
