“Their Beastly Manner”: Discourses of Non-Binary Gender and Sexuality in Shi’ite Safavid Persia

Abstract

The Safavid dynasty ruled Persia between sixteenth and eighteenth centuries and is known as a turning period in the political, social and religious trajectories of Persian history. The ethnographic literature about the Safavid Persian culture written by Western travelers is an indication of the forming relations between the West and the Orient. The travelogues indicate that Safavid discourses of sexuality were different from their counterparts in the West. These non-binary discourses were not based only on gender and sexual orientation, but also on social factors such as age, class and status. Relations of these factors to different forms of “masculinities/femininities” were focal for gendered and sexual categorization. Nonbinary sexual/gendered identities and expressions were explicit, and a sexual continuum was prevalent. The fundamental differentiation of masculinity and femininity were not valid, and sexual relationships were not confined to heterosexuality. This study uses historical sources to explore the discourses of gender and sexuality during the Safavid era. Drawing on criticisms of Orientalism, implications of Western narratives on our understandings of sexuality and gender in the Safavid era are discussed.

Keywords

• gender
• orientalism
• persia
• safavid
• shi’ism
• sexuality