In 2000, U.S. author Pardis Mahdavi arrives in Tehran, determined to learn about a country she has only heard secondhand and sometimes sensational accounts of—tales of revolution and of the country as it existed during her parents’ emigration. Her scholarly interest in sexual politics and the emerging feminist movement in Iran leads her to cross paths with young women in the country’s underground who are leading a self-described “sexual revolution” in their open exploration of their bodies and intimate desires—a rebellion against the morally coded impositions and restrictions of a regime that has been in power since the Islamic Revolution […]
To Ride Is to Fall, To Live Is to Fall: ‘Riding’ by Pardis Mahdavi
by Danielle Shi
