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Following are excerpts of an Iranian program showing how young Iranian men pick up girls in the streets of Tehran. The program aired on Channel 1 Iranian TV, on July 18, 2007:
Young man I: We know most of the girls, and so we drive around with them.
Reporter: After you pick them up – what then?
Young man I: Nothing. We go for a drive, and then they get out.
Reporter: You go for a drive?
Young man I: Yes.
Reporter: What do you do during this drive?
Young man I: We don’t have anywhere else to hang out. Where could we go with them? If we went anywhere with them, we would be arrested.
Reporter: Fine, but what do you talk about when you are sitting in the car, driving around?
Young man I: Nothing. "What's your name?" "How are you doing?" That's all.
Reporter: That's it?
Young man I: Yes, that's the sort of thing we talk about.
[...]
Reporter: How do you spend your spare time in the afternoons in the summer?
Young woman I: How do we spend it?
Young woman II: After class, we hang out in our neighborhood. We meet our friends, and...
Reporter: What friends?
Young woman II: Our friends from the neighborhood. We meet them in the park, outside, in class, or at the gym.
Reporter: Let's say a really cute guy comes along with a new shiny car, and he honks and flashes the car lights at you.
Young woman I: If it's a nice shiny car, I would.
Young woman II: But if it's not, I would not.
Reporter: Let's say it's a well-dressed, good-looking, polite guy with a good car. If he flashed his lights at you, and said: "Hop in" – would you do so?
Young woman I and II: Yes.
Young woman II: It's a way to pass the time. Anyone who says she wouldn't is lying. Besides, that way you may find a boyfriend.
Reporter: How many of the guys who honk, flash their lights, and stop the car for you – and I saw someone opening his car door very gallantly for you...
Young woman II: Yes.
Reporter: How many of them could really be what you are looking for?
Young woman I: None of them, not a single one. It's just to pass the time. It's in order to get something out of them and to pass the time.
Reporter: So it's in order to get him to drive you where you want to go, or you might say: "Tomorrow is my birthday, buy me a present."
Young woman II: No, it's just in order to get where I want to go.
[...]
Young man II: Alnaz, hello. Forget about her, she is a snob.
Reporter: Maybe she doesn't know you.
Young man II: Alnaz? She knows me all right.
Reporter: Who is she?
Young man II: She just said hello to me. She's gone now.
Reporter: So why didn't she come here? How long have you known her?
Young man II: She's a friend of one of the guys, not me.
[...]
Maykord, young man III: The guys sit in the park smoking pot. That's what they do best. Another one sits over there, smoking a pipe made of glass.
Reporter: What's your name?
Maykord: Maykord.
Reporter: What?
Maykord: Forget about my name, blur my face.
Reporter: What other ways are there to pass the time?
Maykord: Some people shoot up into their veins. Do you know what that means?
Reporter: Seriously now, what do you get out of this?
Young man IV: I swear to you, this is all we do. We give our phone numbers to girls so they can call us. Then we talk, and the next day we fight and break up. Then, we move on to the next one.
Maykord: We've got nothing else to do. If we had, we wouldn't be doing this. They become addicted, smoke cigarettes, or do stuff like this. There's nothing else to do.
[...]
Reporter: Hello, sir. Don't hide your face. We will blur it. If you'd known you could get two years in jail, would you still do what you just did?
Young man V: I swear by the Koran that I wouldn't. By the name of Ali, I closed my shop at 21:30, and just got here. I swear to you that I am ashamed.
Reporter: Are you aware of the legal consequences of what you just did?
Young man V: I swear to God that I was not.
Reporter: Now that you know, will you continue to do this?
Young man V: I swear by the Koran that I won't, just don't film me.
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