Gender and Sexual Organs: An Exploration of Iraj Mirza’s ‘Arif Namah and Hajviyat

For the past two hundred years, numerous state-instituted sexual traditions including normative monogamy, polygamy and heterosexuality have been deployed to regulate and control individuals.  Throughout this period, even Iran’s Islamic traditionalists, did not oppose sexuality; instead, as Foucault stated in regards to Europe, they deployed it as a means to regulate and control individuals. More specifically, sexuality was deployed through what rightly should be considered “invented traditions.” This paper will specifically examine Iraj Mirza’s poem, “Arefnameh,” as it relates to how the poem resisted and continues to resist such deployment.