On April 21, the capital of Iran, Tehran, the crowds seemed to be gone, and the panic caused by Israeli missile strikes in the previous days seemed to be gone. However, although the situation in the Middle East has slowed down with the appeasement of the Iranian authorities, the residents of Tehran still have to seek another day of subsistence in the midst of the dire situation of monthly income of more than 100 million yuan and super inflation.
"I'm ashamed of what I did, but what choice do I have?" said Neda, a resident of Tehran who is also a divorced woman, to visiting reporters.
Neda is an ordinary barber during the day. However, when night falls, she will put on a sexier outfit and start her "second job" as a sex worker.
Neda is a woman who grew up after the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and her original low-income family also made her not know much about modern civilization and women's independence. He was a devout believer – in Iran, the poorer the family, the more devout Muslims became.
But the scriptures do not bring bread, and the Iranian regime, which cries out for anti-Americanism, is deeply under the stick of US sanctions in the midst of repeated hard mouths.
"I am a single mother and I have to take care of my son. And if I just rely on the job of a barber, I can't take care of my son. ”
"Sex workers earn a lot of money and now I'm planning to buy a tiny house in the city centre. Although this is the sad reality of my life. ”
"I felt more like I was selling my soul. Neda often repented, but the income from illegal work made it impossible for her to give up her current life.
Iran is a theocratic state, governed by the rule of law. Not only are Iranian women restricted, but they also have many ceilings in their career planning.
The richest and most powerful group in Iran is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a complex of clergy, military and businessmen, which controls the vast majority of Iran's military power, economic rights, and the right to interpret Shariah, and completely controls and rules Iran from all corners of society.
In terms of control over their own society alone, the US military-industrial complex is a small Karami compared to them.
The IRGC, on the other hand, is largely insulated from women, and only a few affiliated companies have female members.
In fact, Iran, as a country that "teaches the rule of law", also completely bans the sex trade, and launched a series of plans to combat illegal sex trafficking as early as 2012.
But people who can't make ends meet take to the streets, and Iran has a degree of democracy. Therefore, under the bottom line of "maintaining power", the Iranian government has also maintained a "blind eye" to the sex trade in the dark corners of society.
In fact, as U.S. sanctions intensified and Iran plunged into a near-endless inflation, "legitimacy deals" began to erupt across Iran.
In Iranian Shari'ah, there is a type of marriage called a "muta marriage", or "temporary marriage", which does not require a grand wedding or a witness. All it takes is a man and a woman to announce that they are married.
Nowadays, there are many Iranian sex workers under similar banners, especially in the holy city of Mashhad, Iran.
However, the gray "sex trade" has also brought some potential problems, such as in 2016, an international organization found that 12-year-old girls in Iran were involved in the sex trade. According to a 2019 NGO report, there may be more than 10,000 female sex workers in Tehran, the capital of Iran, of whom about 35% are married.
Amir Mahmoud Hariq, a professor of social welfare at the University of Tehran, said that the number of sex workers in Tehran could be more than twice as high.
Now, five years later, sex work in Tehran is not only increasing, but also not limited to women.
Kamyar is a 28-year-old supermarket cashier who has been living with his parents, but due to the high cost of living in Tehran, relying only on the salary of the cashier profession is far from satisfying his desire to get married, have children and live independently.
So, Kamyar also began to engage in sex work.
"I mostly find my clients through social media accounts, but there are also new clients who are introduced through word of mouth from friends. ”
"They're usually women, in their 30s and 40s, and the biggest client I've ever seen, 54. They were very nice to me, paid me a lot of money, and always spent the night at their house. ”
Kamyar earned a lot of money by serving the wealthy, but he was not satisfied with such a life. Because he studied engineering in college, he always hoped that one day, he would be able to get a decent formal job.
"I've always wanted to be an engineer, but there's no job here in Iran that suits me,"
"I loved a girl, but we couldn't get married because I didn't have a formal job. I'm not proud of what I'm doing now. Sleeping with strangers for money wasn't my wildest dream growing up. ”
"I feel ashamed, but it pays the bills. In my country, suffering is the only thing I can imagine about the future. ”
It's no surprise that Kamyar was forced to become a male sex worker. Because although today's Iran has frantically expanded its influence in the Middle East through the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and even has been provoking Israel and the United States, it is impossible to hide that Iran's declining national fortunes are now getting worse.
According to the latest available black market exchange rate for Iran's free exchange, on April 14, 1 US dollar could be exchanged for 700,000 Iranian riyals in the black market in Tehran. It is about 17 times the official exchange rate (1:42,000).
An average person who wants to live in Tehran needs a minimum of $400 per month and $500 if he wants to rent an apartment. An average Tehran resident earns about $200.
It is precisely because of Iran's nuclear issue and anti-American stance that it has brought about US sanctions.
Between 2010 and 2020, Iran was plunged into a "lost decade," with about 10 million Iranians in desperate poverty, according to the World Bank.
(The picture and text are unrelated, from April 2024, a real photo of a foreign blogger traveling in Tehran, Iran)
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