to forget things. This is just how kids
are built. It’s the reason you have to punish them, the reason you have rules, but
it’s also the reason they’ll keep breaking them, over and over, and the reason your
punishments can’t be uniformly brutal. Like the day I went to school in a short-sleeved
shirt.
The day was warmer than usual—beautiful, but hot. I forgot short sleeves were banned,
I really just did.
The schoolmaster yelled like a dragon. I saw the fire come out his nose. He called
me into his office, saying I needed to be taught to behave. He said I was a no-good,
trouble-making Arab. His frog-like lips always made me giggle inside.
He opened up his filing cabinet and pushed me inside. My shoulders touched the edges;
my head crammed against the roof.
At recess and lunch I was so hungry, I wanted to ask for my lunchbox, but I didn’t
dare. He didn’t let me out until long after the last bell rang, and everybody else
had long ago gone home. I was so scared in that dark box I peed my pants.
Masturbation is a sin
Dad thought I was destined to become a cleric to lead the people, so he’d take me
with him to the hawza to complete my schooling. It sounds grand, but in practice
this meant sitting under the pulpit for endless hours, listening to lectures delivered
by the white-bearded imams.
One such lecture, imaginatively titled ‘Masturbation Is a Sin’, prompted me to join
the circle of young men who always gathered afterwards to ask the imam questions.
‘What if I have this friend who masturbates but does not reach climax. Is that still
a sin?’ asked a horny teenager with pimples on his nose.
‘Yes, son,’ preached the imam. ‘Any form of self-pleasure is a sin.’
‘What if this person, like my friend, is in bed and he doesn’t really know if he’s
dreaming or awake? Can he keep rubbing against the bed?’
‘No, son,’ the imam firmly said. ‘Unless it is entirely and solely a wet dream, then
it is a sin to continue to rub oneself against the mattress or any part of the bed
thereof.’
Another boy raised his hand. ‘What if a guy I knew inadvertently bumped into a girl
at the mall, by complete accident, got an erection, and then tried to do the gentlemanly
thing by pushing the erection into his pants, using his hand, and in doing so, reached
climax?’
You had to hand it to the imams. They always answered questions like these systematically
and resourcefully. And although their faces were as wrinkly as old paper bags, it’s
one of life’s great mysteries how they kept straight faces at times like these.
Dad’s struggle to keep his cool
While the boys kept up their best attempts to find some religious loophole that would
allow them, definitively, to masturbate without guilt, Dad came in and excused me
from the imam question time.
‘You’re too young to sit in these lectures,’ he said. To make up for it, he promised
to take me to my favourite juice bar, and then to the bookstore, where I’d be allowed
to pick any three books of my choice. He also told me he’d enrolled me at the Kanoon
Parvaresh Fekri—Iran’s leading arts institute—for the fourth year running.
All of this news was uniformly excellent. At the Kanoon, I learned literature and
was able to write poetry; I went there to express my rage, and was encouraged to
do so. It was more exciting than the illegally imported poster of Pamela Anderson
my cousin had shown me under cover of darkness one night, and it definitely gave
me a higher high than the imam’s masturbation seminars.
We walked towards the rusty gates of the hawza to collect Dad’s motorbike. Dusk was
sneaking down on Qom; the moon had just crept into the sky, getting ready to take
over for full-blown night shift. In its low light, we spotted two policemen ordering
a tow truck to take away Dad’s motorbike. Dad ran towards them, which wasn’t easy
in full religious garb.
‘Lieutenant! Please! I’m here!’
‘Cleric, Your Reverence, is this
are built. It’s the reason you have to punish them, the reason you have rules, but
it’s also the reason they’ll keep breaking them, over and over, and the reason your
punishments can’t be uniformly brutal. Like the day I went to school in a short-sleeved
shirt.
The day was warmer than usual—beautiful, but hot. I forgot short sleeves were banned,
I really just did.
The schoolmaster yelled like a dragon. I saw the fire come out his nose. He called
me into his office, saying I needed to be taught to behave. He said I was a no-good,
trouble-making Arab. His frog-like lips always made me giggle inside.
He opened up his filing cabinet and pushed me inside. My shoulders touched the edges;
my head crammed against the roof.
At recess and lunch I was so hungry, I wanted to ask for my lunchbox, but I didn’t
dare. He didn’t let me out until long after the last bell rang, and everybody else
had long ago gone home. I was so scared in that dark box I peed my pants.
Masturbation is a sin
Dad thought I was destined to become a cleric to lead the people, so he’d take me
with him to the hawza to complete my schooling. It sounds grand, but in practice
this meant sitting under the pulpit for endless hours, listening to lectures delivered
by the white-bearded imams.
One such lecture, imaginatively titled ‘Masturbation Is a Sin’, prompted me to join
the circle of young men who always gathered afterwards to ask the imam questions.
‘What if I have this friend who masturbates but does not reach climax. Is that still
a sin?’ asked a horny teenager with pimples on his nose.
‘Yes, son,’ preached the imam. ‘Any form of self-pleasure is a sin.’
‘What if this person, like my friend, is in bed and he doesn’t really know if he’s
dreaming or awake? Can he keep rubbing against the bed?’
‘No, son,’ the imam firmly said. ‘Unless it is entirely and solely a wet dream, then
it is a sin to continue to rub oneself against the mattress or any part of the bed
thereof.’
Another boy raised his hand. ‘What if a guy I knew inadvertently bumped into a girl
at the mall, by complete accident, got an erection, and then tried to do the gentlemanly
thing by pushing the erection into his pants, using his hand, and in doing so, reached
climax?’
You had to hand it to the imams. They always answered questions like these systematically
and resourcefully. And although their faces were as wrinkly as old paper bags, it’s
one of life’s great mysteries how they kept straight faces at times like these.
Dad’s struggle to keep his cool
While the boys kept up their best attempts to find some religious loophole that would
allow them, definitively, to masturbate without guilt, Dad came in and excused me
from the imam question time.
‘You’re too young to sit in these lectures,’ he said. To make up for it, he promised
to take me to my favourite juice bar, and then to the bookstore, where I’d be allowed
to pick any three books of my choice. He also told me he’d enrolled me at the Kanoon
Parvaresh Fekri—Iran’s leading arts institute—for the fourth year running.
All of this news was uniformly excellent. At the Kanoon, I learned literature and
was able to write poetry; I went there to express my rage, and was encouraged to
do so. It was more exciting than the illegally imported poster of Pamela Anderson
my cousin had shown me under cover of darkness one night, and it definitely gave
me a higher high than the imam’s masturbation seminars.
We walked towards the rusty gates of the hawza to collect Dad’s motorbike. Dusk was
sneaking down on Qom; the moon had just crept into the sky, getting ready to take
over for full-blown night shift. In its low light, we spotted two policemen ordering
a tow truck to take away Dad’s motorbike. Dad ran towards them, which wasn’t easy
in full religious garb.
‘Lieutenant! Please! I’m here!’
‘Cleric, Your Reverence, is this
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