(Nov. 16) -- A cemetery in northeastern Iran is arousing interest from locals and tourists alike, thanks to tombstones that look remarkably like penises.
The Khalid Nabi cemetery, which is 40 miles northeast of Gonbad-e Kavous in northeastern Iran, is becoming a hot-and-bothered spot for Iran's young adults, for whom sex is a dirty word.
According to the Global Post, more than 600 headstones have been erected in the bizarre cemetery, which is believed to be more than 1,400 years old. The most famous person believed to be buried there is Khalid Nabi, a prophet who was born in Yemen 40 years before Muhammad.
It is a pilgrimage site, but to say the people who are visiting are going for religious purposes alone would be a fallacy in the truest sense of the word. Nope, the folk want to see giant stone sex organs.
There are two types of titillating tombstones: Some are long columns nearly 6 feet high that look just like penises and others are smaller, cross-shaped headstones that some observers think represent female breasts.
According to Alireza Hesar Nuee, one of the few historians to have studied the site, the sexual symbolism could come from the phallic religion practiced in India and central Asia, but admits few know for sure the meaning behind the designs.
Whatever the original message might have been, current visitors look out on the field and see a bizarre agglomeration of horny headstones.
The chatter among tourists, often overexcited by the surprising sight, is the only thing that breaks through the otherwise perfect silence of the cemetery and the valley. The bashful are hesitant to take pictures standing next to the poles, but others see it as an opportunity to have a laugh.
And that's the way it should be, according to psychiatrist Dr. Doreen Orion, who, as author of the travel book "Queen of the Road" (Broadway Books), has taken detours to see sex organs created by nature, such as a penis-shaped rock off the coast of Morro Bay, Calif.
"I've seen caves in Oregon where the stalactites and stalagmites were phallic shaped," she told AOL News. "It brings out the 12-year-old in all of us. People seem to enjoy anthropomorphizing objects in nature."
Of course, Iran isn't the only place with rocks that look like sex organs.
According to Richard Rubacher, an expatriate writer living in Bangkok, some of the most popular tourist attractions in Thailand are rocks that look like human genitalia.
"On the island of Koh Samui, about 400 miles from Bangkok, there are two rock formations that resemble male and female genitalia and they are very popular -- families flock to it," he said.
In addition, Mount Danxia in Southern China is famous for having a male organ-shaped stone and a female one at almost the same place -- across the river from each other about three miles apart.
Regardless of their location, Orion thinks sex organ-shaped rocks are a good thing -- especially in places in like Iran where discussion of sex is taboo.
"In places where sexual expression is suppressed, but there are objects like these that are naturally formed in nature, this can be a safe outlet," she said. "It's fun and harmless and a good laugh."
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