This paper is a preliminary attempt to present prostitution as a viable historic subject within Iranian studies in particular and Middle Eastern studies in general and to compare the various discourses on prostitution during the second Pahlavi regime and post-Revolutionary Iran. It hopes to point out that studying prostitution within the modern Iranian context can expand the theoretical discussions on sexuality and sex work within feminist scholarship and highlight the Islamic regime’s attempt at re-inventing a little known religious tradition to fit modern times. The paper seeks to highlight the emerging discourse on prostitution during the 1970s within various structures of Iranian society and to display the deep sympathy towards the character of “the prostitute.” During the Pahlavi regime, the legitimacy of the modern state was closely connected to women’s progress and by the 1970s this attempt at modernizing women had expanded to include saving and modernizing “the prostitute.” During the 1970s the discourse on prostitution entered the public domain and became politicized as it tied closely with the regime’s efforts to modernize Iranian society by changing the plight of its women; similarly the issues of prostitution and also mut’a (temporary marriage) have gained public attention and political momentum in Iran’s post-Revolution Islamic government as they relate closely to Iran’s effort to develop socially and politically along Islamic lines. In post-Revolutionary Iran, mut’a became an Islamic solution to a modern political problem. The first and second sections of this paper highlight competing notions of modernity in Iran during the second half of the twentieth century. The secular modernization of the Shah’s regime is juxtaposed with the religious modernization of the Islamic Republic. The last section of this paper takes on a separate yet pertinent approach by emphasizing the relevance of a study of prostitution in the Iranian context to feminist scholarship. It destabilizes the “prostitute” and complicates established assumptions about it. The fact that individual prostitutes have different experiences in their lives across time and space has become evident by historical and contemporary scholarship which seeks to move beyond a literature that depicts prostitutes as victims. The examples of temple prostitutes in India who gained autonomy and wealth, and high-status courtesans in Japan and China who were lovers and artisans demanding high payments, are a few of the cases that challenge the dominant debates on prostitution. This paper seeks to add the case of prostitution in Iran to this list.