My cultural awakening: a Rihanna song showed me how to live as a gay man in Iran

My cultural awakening: a Rihanna song showed me how to live as a gay man in Iran

My sexuality had to be hidden from my friends, my parents, not to mention the authorities. Then I found freedom at house parties and one song that sums up me finally being able to be myself I was raised in Tehran, under the Ayatollah’s sharia law and daily watch of Basij – the “morality police”. My parents fell in love with the Islamic Revolution when I was a baby and welcomed life under its strict religious rules. The Ayatollah’s face stared down from the walls at home, a daily reminder of w...

By Majid Parsa; as told to Deborah Linton