There were five other individuals sitting quietly in the courtyard of a cafe on Westwood Boulevard (in Tehrangeles). Not a peep out of any of us, as we each were busy reading or writing something, except a group of seven middle-aged Iranian men who were sitting or standing around the two that were playing backgammon.
One of the standing ones, in a voice that could probably be heard in the neighboring stores, was sharing something he had heard somewhere, "There are 60,000 MALE prostitutes in Qom alone, not counting the women whores." (Qom, mind you, with a population of 1,202,000 is considered a HOLY place by the Shia Islam and one of the significant destinations of pilgrimage! The irony was not lost on me, with my calculating mind running on auto-pilot; One male prostitute per every 20 men, women and children living in the "holy" Qom!)
The men started laughing and joking about the number, its accuracy or state of exaggeration and what it means for any city of any size to have 60,000 prostitutes, let alone male ones at that! From then on, the conversation was shifted to the ever-so-growing-nationwide prostitution and "SEEGHEH" (which is some kind of a short-term marriage, or better put, an Islamic version of legalized prostitution), and comparing the current status of sexual behavior in today's Iran to the pre-revolution time. In response, another man added how there are men who travel to Iran just to have sex with very young women, inexpensively, and he even named loudly for all to hear, Mr. so and so as a frame of reference!!!
From a few feet away, their loud laughter, with their mouths wide open, and louder conversation in Farsi, completely laced with sexual innuendos, could have been a scene from a Fellini's movie.
Yeah, today I watched a real movie at the cafe called, "Coffee With Cream, Sugar And A Pinch of Lust!"
