کونی

What it means

کونی (kuni) is a homophobic slur for a homosexual man, specifically the receptive partner. Built from کون (kun, anus) plus the suffix -i. The word names a person by an act, and treats that act as the insult. We document it as a slur. We do not normalize it.

Where it comes from

Pure Persian. The root kun is ancient; the slur form is centuries old in spoken Persian and continuous through the modern era. What changed in the Islamic Republic is not the word but the regime that pairs the word with state-administered execution: Article 234 of the Islamic Penal Code prescribes the death penalty for “lavat,” consensual same-sex acts between men.

Who deploys it

Iranian men in conflict, on football pitches, in male schoolyards, in family arguments. State media, when it wants to delegitimize a male target. The slur is not formally state-sanctioned, but the legal architecture above it (Article 234, the executions documented by OutRight Action International, IGLHRC, and HRW) makes the slur the soft end of a hard regime.

Who it targets

Gay Iranian men, who hear it from family, employers, the state. Effeminate-presenting straight men, who get the slur for not performing masculinity correctly. Any boy who stepped wrong in a locker room. Any man another man is angry with and wants to humiliate. The slur is portable, the wound is specific.

The mechanics

Read the construction carefully. The slur is built from the assumption that being penetrated is degrading. That is itself a misogynist assumption. Every homophobic slur in Persian (and most languages) is misogyny wearing a homophobic mask: the “insult” of calling a man kuni only lands if you accept that being treated like a woman is a downgrade. Same logic, different victim. Pull on the homophobic thread and the misogynist root comes up with it.

Editorial note (in our voice)

This is not negotiable on our pages: do not use this word. The slur’s existence is part of why the Islamic Republic executes gay men under Article 234. The language and the gallows belong to the same project. Calling a straight man “kuni” because he likes ballet is the same machinery, scaled down. The dictionary entry is a teaching tool, not a permission slip. If you want to insult a man, find a way that does not require selling out an entire population to do it.

Why it’s in the glossary

Because the word is everywhere in male Iranian conversation and silence about it would whitewash a slur whose victims are still being executed. We document it AS a slur, with the editorial line stated and not negotiated.

How you’ll hear it

• Football crowd after a missed tackle: «کونی» (kuni) hurled at a player.
• School-yard bullying: «کونی» aimed at a boy who cried.
• State-aligned commentator slurring a male critic: «این کونی‌ها» (in kuni-hâ) “these kunis.”

References

• OutRight Action International: Iran LGBT discrimination
• Human Rights Watch: “We Are a Buried Generation” (Iran LGBT report)
• IranHRDC: English translation of the Islamic Penal Code (Article 234, lavat)