Abstract
The chapter addresses the intersection of sexuality, gender, and bodies in terms of HIV/AIDS, which, during the last decades, has increased in Iran, particularly in Tehran, due to high numbers of IDUs (injecting drug user). It explores how the discourses on HIV/AIDS have evolved within Iran and how those bodies, who live outside of what can be considered culturally intelligible in terms of seropositivity, sexuality, and gender, are constructed. It draws on the Foucauldian analytical framework, as well as Butler’s writings on abjection. The Foucauldian concepts of biopower and biopolitics are employed in order to analyze the various power dynamics at work in relation to sexuality, gender, and HIV/AIDS.
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- 1.
Two years before the Newsweek article was published, The New York Times had published an article titled “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals,” which can be defined as one of the first news coverage related to the AIDS epidemic. However, The New York Times did not feature the epidemic prominently until after the Newsweek article/paper (see Altman 1981, July 3).
- 2.
Sources do not agree on when exactly HIV/AIDS was first reported in Iran. Montazeri (2005) states that AIDS was first identified in 1985, Ramezani Tehrani and Malek-Afzali (2008) maintain that it was in 1986, whereas Fallahzadeh et al. (2009) and Tavoosi et al. (2004) claim that the first case of HIV was diagnosed in 1987.
- 3.
Gayle Rubin has written about hierarchy of sexual practices, which can be applied with regards to “barebacking” versus use of condom. According to Rubin’s arguments, heterosexual sex in a monogamous relationship is considered to be a “good” sexual practice, whereas other sexual practices, such as non-heterosexual sex, are assumed to be “bad” (see Rubin 1984).
- 4.
Morteza, in a Telegram conversation with the author, 11.25.2017.
- 5.
Morteza, in a Telegram conversation with the author, 11.25.2017.
- 6.
The Family Health Association (FHA) was founded in 1995. It is an NGO which has two main aims: Firstly to provide information to the public, media, religious, and political leaders about family planning, as well sexual and reproductive health. Secondly, to promote sexual and reproductive health needs of young people and adolescents (see IPPF (n.d.). Family Health Association of Iran).
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Kjaran, J.I. (2019). The “Sick Gay”: Being HIV-positive in Iran. In: Gay Life Stories. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12831-9_7
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