Drawing on ethnographic encounters with self-identified gay men in Iran, this book explores the construction, enactment, and veiling and unveiling of gay identity and same-sex desire in the capital city of Tehran. The research draws on diverse interpretive, historical, online and empirical sources in order to present critical and nuanced insights into the politics of recognition and representation and the constitution of same-sex desire under the specific conditions of Iranian modernity. As it engages with accounts of the persecuted Iranian gay male subject as a victim of the barbarism of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the book addresses interpretive questions of sexuality governance in transnational contexts and attends to issues of human rights frameworks in weighing social justice and political claims made by and on behalf of sexual and gender minorities. The book thus combines empirical data with a critical consideration of the politics of same-sex desire for Iranian gay men.

Presents ethnographic narrative in concert with theories of space, sexuality, sexuality governance, and victimhood

1. Introduction.- 2. Reading Foucault in Tehran.- 3. The Historical Contingencies and the Politics of Same-Sex Desire in Iran.- 4. The Construction of the Iranian Gay Subject Outside of Iran.- 5. Ethical Relationality and Accounts of Gay Iranian Men.- 6. Iranian Gay/Queer Activists and Activism.- 7. The "Sick Gay": Being HIV-positive in Iran.- 8. Gay/Queer Spaces in Tehran: Intimacy, Sociality, and Resistance.- 9. Conclusion: Gay Livability in a Queer Dystopia