The Iranian government has launched an official dating website, amid fears that birth rates could fall.
The launch of the website comes with official figures showing more than 11 million young Iranians are single in the conservative Islamic state. (Find Your Equal) allows singles to post their details, and describe what they are looking for in a potential spouse.
Interestingly, more females (61 %) supported the importance of a female’s virginity compared with the importance of males’ virginity (48 %).
Similar to other countries in Asia (India, China, Philippines; Thailand; Malaysia, Viet Nam and others), Iran has experienced significant social and attitudinal changes over the past decades [7, 8, 24, 25, 49, 55, 58].Despite the aforementioned emerging changes, sexual intimacy and sex is only acceptable within the institution of marriage within Iranian society.Premarital sex is considered sinful according to the Islamic religious perspective [5, 30, 61].These results might reflect a socio-cultural transition in the sexual attitudes of different age groups of participants - a phenomenon that will need empirical studies to unpack in the Iranian socio-cultural context.According to the World Health Organization (WHO) individual sexuality is, to a large extent, determined and influenced by social norms and family values [73].