In recent weeks, Iranian newspapers have published several reports about single Iraqi men visiting Mashhad in eastern Iran, and taking advantage of their stay in order to have sex with local women. The flourishing sex tourism in Mashhad was first described three years ago in a report published by the British newspaper, The Guardian. That report attributed the rise in the number of Iraqi tourists visiting the city to the deterioration in the security situation in their own country, and the low price of tourist packages to Iran.
Moreover, visas are no longer required for Iraqi tourists. They exploited the reports to attack and ridicule conservative clerics, especially the Friday preacher in Mashhad, Ayatollah Ahmad Alam al-Hoda.
He opposes concerts but he has no problem with young women covertly selling their bodies to pilgrims because of poverty. The latter is considered both religiously prohibited and a criminal offense. In recent years, Iranians, especially the younger generation, increasingly see the clerics as detached from the people.
When the authorities and the religious establishment are unable to offer solutions to the economic and social hardships of the Islamic Republic, relatively marginal phenomena succeed in creating strident public discourse. Last accessed 30 August Raz Zimmt.
Raz Zimmt discusses the phenomenon of flourishing sex tourism in Mashhad in eastern Iran, which is presented as evidence of the worsening economic and social problems in the Islamic Republic, but which also has led users to publicly oppose the institution of temporary marriage.
