History of the sexual revolution in Russia
To clarify the concept of “sexual revolution,” let us turn to the history of Ancient Rome. There was one revered matron named Lucretia, she was the daughter of an invoice and the wife of a famous commander. Her disturbing beauty attracted the spoiled king”s son, and he took the girl by force at gunpoint.
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Poor Lucrezia could not be put to shame. She told this story to her husband and in his presence stabbed herself with a dagger. These sad events led to the overthrow of the imperial power and the establishment of the Roman Republic. As incredible as it may sound, it”s true! Then the revolution followed sex crimes. However, hundreds of years pass, and another revolution occurs in the Roman Republic. As a result of the change in moral principles, prostitutes walk freely around the Colosseum, and rich priests of love pay taxes to the state treasury. Interesting? It still is! But then Rome, how were things in the Russian Empire? We will find out what key political events led to the sexual revolution in Russia.
The October Revolution is a sexual revolution
It’s safe to say that there was sex in Tsarist Russia. Enlightened monarchs turned to Europe and enjoyed their favorites. The Grand Empress Catherine seems to have said that after her official husband recognized 20 favorites, secondly, “everyone was in sight.” There was no sex education for the masses. Ordinary men and women relied on Christian doctrine and used folk remedies for contraception. However. 1917 struck! According to experts, the first sexual revolution in Russia occurred precisely after the October Revolution. It is noteworthy that the young Soviet state adopted bold laws. Among them was the decriminalization of homosexuality.
The glass of water theory
Among young people, enlightened during the formative years of Soviet power, the “glass of water” theory was widespread. Young people rejected romantic “snot and drool.” They argued that the relationship between a man and a woman is an instinctual need, like the usual quenching of thirst. And for you, sex with a clean partner is natural, because you drink a glass of water in the heat.
Lenin about love.
The leader of the revolution, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, wrote the following about love and marriage. After the revolution in Soviet Russia, two important decrees were issued: “On the abolition of official marriage” and “On civil marriage.” The decree addressed the issue of legalizing sexual cohabitation by mutual consent. A man and a woman were considered spouses, regardless of whether the marriage was registered by the state.
Husbands and wives were considered equal marriage partners, and Lenin called this decree a “revolution in marriage” put into practice.
Freedom for the Soviet woman!
The Soviet government opened the doors of schools and universities to women. The concepts of “home” and “kitchen slavery” collapsed. Thanks to the construction of numerous nurseries, kindergartens and schools, women had the opportunity to fully study and work.
Read also: “My sex life is much better without a penis” — true story penile cancer is a fairly rare cancer. It was with him that the main character of our story had to face. He went through a difficult one.
Revolutionary Russian Alexandra Kollontai was the first female minister and ambassador to the USSR. In this high position, she was a theorist of Russian feminism and an ideologist of the sexual revolution. They say that Kollontai began an affair at work with the Naval People”s Commissar Pavel Dybenko. In the past, lovers forgot about national politics and fled to Crimea. Vladimir Ilyich responded with a joke and ordered “to punish them with loyalty to each other for five years.”
Nudists of the 1920s
The Bolsheviks set themselves the task of destroying the patriarchal church order and bourgeois morality. The popularity of the “naked” movement, which had been gaining momentum even before the revolution, reached a new stage in the early 1920s. The young Soviet government did not “suppress” physical love and the creative talent to decorate the beauty of the female body. It was then that such literary “hooligans” as Sergei Yesenin, Mikhail Bulgakov, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Alexander Rodchenko, Ida Rubinstein and Ziga Vertov became famous. Through literature, painting, dance and cinema, a new image of the Soviet citizen emerged, free and keeping up with the times.
In the 1920s, a joke was made in the West. In the Soviet paradise, one could walk naked, hiding behind a copy of the newspaper “Kommunist.” The joke was based on real facts. In a 1924 note, Bulgakov reported that completely naked people with bandages on their arms were walking around Moscow “in disgrace.” They boarded trams and caused bewilderment among passersby. Indeed, in the mid-1920s, the “Shame! Association” became extremely popular among young people. Activist demonstrations were large-scale and widespread. In 1924, nudity reached its zenith, when approximately 10, 000 people took to the streets. The participants” antics were calmly suppressed by the police, and People”s Commissar of Health Nikolai Semashko issued a statement in one of the central newspapers. The minister declared that naked people would not be allowed to walk the streets of Soviet cities under the guise of revolutionary views. He advised the movement”s activists to go to the sea. The advice of the Comrade People”s Commissar was heeded. And “Down with shame!” was the next action of the followers. It took place on the beaches of Sevastopol. In 1928, the World Federation for Sexual Reform (this organization was not the invention of Ilf and Petrov) recognized the young republics of the USSR as the standard of sexual tolerance.
Freezing Sex in the 1930s
The decline of the Soviet Union in the 1920s coincided with a change of power and the rise of a new movement of socialist puritanism. Naked, happy women and plump little children appeared on magazine covers. By the mid-1930s, a complete “freeze” of sexual issues had begun in the Soviet Union. The country”s leader, Joseph Stalin, became the ideologist of the new movement. Sexual freedom was now thoroughly suppressed, and atrocities, terror, persecution, and violence were concealed behind Soviet government propaganda.
The wonderful slogan “Family is the cell of society” was proclaimed. Although extramarital sex or abortion were not legally prosecuted, such acts were considered extremely immoral and stigmatized by Soviet society.
Thaw of the 80s
When the country”s male population declined after the Great Patriotic War, the moral foundations of society weakened significantly. This paved the way for a new sexual revolution in Soviet Russia. In the 1980s, changes in Soviet dogma were dramatic and rapid. Society developed dynamically and turned toward the progressive West. Young people in the 1980s wanted to be free from parental control. They openly laughed at their mothers” warnings against mistakes and stupidity. Girls actively mastered makeup techniques and drastically changed their hairstyles, while men became more liberated in their courtship. The main result of the “thaw” of the 1980s was sex education. Today, Soviet youth read books and magazines revealing the secrets of sexual debut, premarital sex, and birth control. It was in the 1980s that Russians realized that sex was no longer taboo, that attraction to the opposite sex was romantic and had a beautiful name—love!
