According to Dr. Fredrick Toben:

Iranian democracy is like living in a large extended family where dozens of individuals relate
to one another at all levels of human interests – always accompanied by open emotional
contact. Hand and body touching, hugs and kisses is the norm whenever individuals meet.
Naturally this happens in total segregation of males and females. The somewhat ‘impertinent
familiarity that westerners have towards the opposite sex does not exist – at least not publicly.
There is no slobbering old fool making his way to an innocent babe in the woods!
The contact between men and women is made through subtle but penetrating eye contact,
and not as is common in western democracies where a woman merely has to open a couple of
buttons on her blouse to gain attention! The less crude and more subtle and intense way is
through eye contact. Eye penetration reveals the workings of the brain and through it the
beauty of the soul. After all, as one Iranian said to me, has a woman not also a brain?
This civilized method of communicating has somewhat fatal consequences in our western
materialistic consumer world. Iranian men who venture into western society are amazed at the
uncivilized forms of behaviour that are found even at university level. Primitive western man
responds by noting that Iranian men appear to be all ‘gay’. Not so! The fact that the ideal of
love, marriage and family still firmly control Iranian behaviour means that men need to attune
to women’s psyche, and that means developing a sensitivity which to a western woman may
not be appealing because it lacks the ‘macho’ factor.
Primitive western woman has also been subverted by the Marxist-feminist mindset that
operates on a perverted Hegelian dialectic where women pretend to be men, and men pretend
to be women. That such a life-style ‘choice’ will bring actual physiological changes is a fact.
And so the physical-mental divide widens and a world of tragedy arises where medical help is
sought in the hope of achieving gender re-alignment, etc.
Unlike in the west, in Iran such matters are still locked in that proverbial cupboard where it
will not offend the normal healthy Socontinuity of the body politics.
That the current younger generation of Iranians ns of the post ١٩٧٩ Revolution era are like
anywhere else in the world experiencing their period of Sturm and Drang – storm and stress -
is a given and need not be elaborated upon. However, instead of visiting a psychiatrist and
thus paying him money for listening to their personal problems, the Iranians teenager seeks
out for counsel their uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents, and anyone else within their
extended family. Inevitably there will be someone who can offer valuable life-experience
advice to a developing mind that has to learn to cope with the increases of yearnings and
desire.
The traditional Iranian family still imbues its young with basic values as embodied in such
concepts as TRUTH, HONOUR, JUSTICE, DUTY, etc.
Such a moral value system does not encourage an excessive development of the victim
mentality, nor does it open the flood gate to hedonism where individuals are encouraged to
‘experience everything’ in life. On the contrary, one is encouraged to know about everything in
life but one need not have done/experienced everything in life. Restraint is thus the guiding
moral principle that is so evident in Iran . Add this to the absolute quest to serve God and the
Prophets, then we see this physically manifest itself where material concerns are not overrated.
With the exception of the various shrines and mosques, functionality rather than ornate
expressions seems to be the guiding principle controlling human endeavour.

منبع : asra human rights research center