Phenomenological Exploration of Sexuality Experienced by Females Left Behind during Their Husbands’ Migration in Lar City

Introduction Sexual needs are regulated and routined as one of the most important biological-instinctive needs in the fabric of social-cultural networks. In Iran, one of the most customary and legitimate channels to satisfy such biological needs is family formation via marriage. New industrial developments and long-term geographical-demographic motilities resulting from them have provided the basis for a group of women, who are left behind due to their husbands’ migration for a long time. Thus, they are forced to live away from their husbands in their hometowns for a long period of time (a period of 6 months or more than a year). Although these women’s qualities of life can be explored in several dimensions, their sexuality concerns and experiences are of the most important and relatively unknown issues. Explicating their experiences of extra-marital sexual relations in the Iranian society where the bond of marriage is considered sacred and customary based on Sharia and the governing legal system has double importance since these experiences can lead to severe individual, social, and legal consequences. Sexual desire is defined as the sum of forces that move us towards a sexual behavior or away from it. The present research aimed to analyze sexual desire perception of a group of women, who were left behind due to their husbands’ migration, in the city of Lar. Lar City is located in the south of Fras Province and Lari men migrate to the Persian Gulf countries in order to find a job. With their international migration, their wives, who are left for a time, encounter many problems and challenges, including sexual issues. Due to sensitivity to this subject, researching on which is a taboo in Iran, a qualitative research, particularly a phenomenological study, was recognized to be suitable for exploring these women’s perceptions and lived experiences of sexuality. Based on the research logic, the main questions formulated were as follows: How do the Lari women left behind due to their husbands’ migration understand their sexual needs? How do their sexual needs are regulated and managed, while their husbands are present or absent? What are their most important concerns regarding their sexual needs and affairs? What are their self- perceptions and self-experiences of others’ sexual practices? Materials & Methods Due to the importance and extreme sensitivity of the issue, the lived experiences of sexuality of 14 women, who had been left behind because of the