On Sep 25, 2007, at 8:28 AM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> In Iran, too, some people, especially younger urbanites,
> have adopted the aforementioned sexual categories whose origins Michel
> Foucault traces back to nineteenth-century bourgeois culture of the
> West.1 But a majority of Iranians, apparently including their
> President, have not adopted the idea of sexual orientations, nor have
> much of the rest of the Third World.
I know you're trying to get your boy off the hook for saying something so transparently ludicrous, but if even a minority of Iranians have adopted the "Western" identity, then Ahmadinejad's statement is factually wrong. There *are* Western-style homos in his country, whether he likes it or not.
The passage that followed on women is especially uplifting:
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/24/ AR2007092401042.html>
> AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Women are the best creatures
> created by God. They represent the kindness, the beauty that God
> instills in them. Women are respected in Iran. In Iran, every
> family who is given a girl -- is given -- in every Iranian family
> who has a girl, they are 10 times happier than having a son. Women
> are respected more than men are.
>
> They are exempt from many responsibilities. Many of the legal
> responsibilities rest on the shoulders of men in our society
> because of the respect, culturally given, to women, to the future
> mothers. In Iranian culture, men and sons and girls constantly kiss
> the hands of their mothers as a sign of respect, respect for women.
> And we are proud of this culture.