Sex Education and the AIDS Epidemic in the Former Soviet Union

Russian attitudes towards sex and sexuality by a case study of the sex education and the resulting campaign to combat AIDS:

• The initial response was one of indifference, describing promiscuity as a decadent Western disease much in line with the moral decay prevailing the United States and Europe.
  
• However concern about the declining birth rate, the number of abortions and significant increases in the frequency of STDs, led to the launching of a health education campaign from the 1950s to the end of tbe 1970s.
  
• Although this was not a complete success it was quickly followed, in 1980, by the first phase of a sex education programme under Brezbnev. However, it was poorly developed and under-resourced and eventually petered out.
• After AIDS hit the USSR in the mid-1980s, attitudes began to change and the second phase of the sex education campaign was launcbed by Gorbacbev as part of his policies of glasnost and perestroika. While public opinion welcomed this change of attitude, the best efforts of the former Soviet health service to combat abortion, STDs and now AIDS were hampered by a relatively small budget, on the one hand, and by years of neglect which meant that it lacked the necessary resources (staff, establishments, medical supplies, finance), etc.

• The main victims, such as gay males and prostitutes, have been blamed for their own infection.

• Nevertheless the severe shortages of condoms and disposable syringes, and the traditional view of homosexuals and prostitutes as deviants, remain.
• The cbances of introducing an effective sex education programme and also of stemming AIDS in the FSU in the short-term look bleak given the general ignorance regarding sex, and the difficulties currently being experienced in trying to alter traditional pattems of sexual behaviour.
  

(sources: 1, 2)

The Philosophy of Sex and Gender in Russia

"Little has changed in the post-Soviet period. Feminism and the gender approach are practically not included in the mainstream of philosophic studies. Only very few women-philosophers relay Western feminist theories (mainly of the post-modernist type) and propagate the gender approach. Not only "Philistines" (common people) but Russian intellectuals as well consider feminism a curse word, and gender studies - a usual muddle of the civilization-satiated Western mind."

This essay, written by Olga Voronina, is an interesting account on how sex and gender are viewed in Russia, and especially how different these angles are than their Western counterparts.

Russian philosophy had quite a peculiar approach toward perceiving and assessing the masculine versus feminine.

• in the Russian philosophy and theology of sex differentiation between the masculine and feminine beginnings is viewed from the standpoint of the metaphysical or spiritual and religious principles, while for Western philosophy such differentiaiton is more of the ontological or gnosiological character.

• the Russian philosophy often puts different cultural and symbolic emphases: what in the European philosophy has traditionally been associated with the masculine beginning (divine, spiritual, true) is associated in Russia and Russian culture - via the category of love - with the feminine beginning. So it may seem as if we could draw a conclusion that in Russia the feminine beginning was praised higher than the masculine one.

• it should be noted that the apprehension of the feminine in the irrationalistic Russian philosophy is very abstract in its nature. It is an allegory rather than a category, a moral instruction rather than a concept.

(sources: 1, 2)

Sexuality in Recent Russian Literature

Although the law granting freedom of the press was passed in August 1990, the old law forbidding the sale and distribution of pornography was not, and still is not, formally abolished. Therefore some publishers exercise extra caution, cutting out risque passages, whereas others publish questionable texts in their entirety.

A Soviet dictionary of literary terms proudly declared in the entry on pornography: "French art especially is rich in pornography, whereas Russian art, on the contrary, is rather marked by the spirit of chastity and purity."

To repeat, the tradition of prudery is still very much alive in Russian literature. Although sex of the domestic variety has been pouring onto the movie screens and theater stages in greater and greater quantities, pages of books and literary journals have been filled mostly with erotic productions from the West or from the past.
(source)

Modern Russian Erotic Paintings

"Dream on Meadow" by Studinikin Yuri
Canvas, oil
2006












"Gold Key" by Klapoukh Yuri
Canvas, oil
2004

In this gallery of Russian erotic paintings, these two pieces stood out a lot to me. A lot of artwork included nature and made frequent use of soft, warm colors. It almost seems like the artists tend to incorporate the female body into nature instead of simply putting it in nature, as seen in these two pieces. Additionally, the female body, in the pieces in this gallery, tend to be painted as larger and rotund.
(source)

A Right to be Gay - Russia

Until recently it was a crime to be gay in Russia. Today, gays can revel until dawn in nightclubs teeming with lipstick drag queens and male dancers clad in silver pants. As the bass reverberates around the room, two doctors arrive from St Petersburg's most respected clinic. Igor reveals, "I feel free here, I can talk to other people, and at work I can't do that." Despite Yeltsin's reform, homosexuals live in fear of persecution. The communist concept of a superior Socialist man still engenders a deep seated revulsion against men who deviate from the norm. A homosexual human rights group breaks into its own clubhouse after it was illegally closed down by marauding police. Boys who were beaten up during the raid are too scared to complain in case their families are made to suffer. A group of friends sitting in the sunshine by the river discuss homosexuality. 21 year old Sergei proudly admits to gay bashing. They all agree that gays should not "show off in public". It is only in selective clubs that gays can flaunt their sexuality in safety. The fear is that even this limited, freedom might be taken away.

Aug 1996
Produced by ABC Australia
Distributed by Journeyman Pictures

Very interesting, short (16 minute) documentary conveying first hand accounts and stories of Russian homosexual men, the criticism and dangers they face as well as how Russians view, see, and react to homosexuality. Although not entirely recent (1996), it was a very interesting watch.

The Sexual Revolution in Russia

Igor Kon has received fame in the Western world because of his frequent visits but more so for his insistent work on sexual life in Russia. Before he ventured into the field of sexology, he worked in philosophy, sociology, history, and became a member of the Soviet and now Russian Academy of Education. He is a true interdisciplinarian focusing earlier on youth and recently on sexual problems. His first work that came to my attention was a book on friendship, translated into German. It was surprising to see a Soviet study on this theme in the late seventies. It made me suspect that the author wanted to discuss homosexuality, but not being able to do so, chose for an innocent but close theme. Nowadays, Kon participates in heated debates on the legal status and the social place of same-sex love.

Kon's Sexual Revolution is both his own story and Russia's history of sexuality. The book's double face makes it compelling reading as Kon's memoirs add to the sexual history of the country. The part that deals with the pre-War history, is based on written sources and the few studies that have up till now appeared, such as Laura Engelstein's magnificent study. Kon offers us an interesting story of this period, stressing and using the sexological successes in Russia in the early part of this century. Just before and after the Bolshevist Revolution of 1917, several rather primitive sex surveys were executed among prostitutes, students, workers and other social groups. But soon after the communists came to power, hopes for greater sexual freedoms that were expected could be forgotten and surveying sex became impossible. As prudish as their bourgeois opponents, the communists very soon started to thwart prostitution and homosexuality. Although they legalized abortion in their early days, they forbade it again in the thirties for demographic reasons.

In the age of the czars, political society had been morally traditional and not supportive of sexual liberation. But in the arts a rich erotic culture had developed under the aegis of Sergei Diaghilev, famous for his ballets and literary enterprises. Others started to write about carnal love, brothels, homosexuality, necrophilia and comparable erotic topics. Leo Tolstoy might have condemned sex, but in his wake others as the philosopher Vasily Rozanov began to defend it. Russian culture reached just before the Revolution with the so called "Silver Age" its erotic pinnacle, and declined very soon after it because many artists left the country, others were killed or imprisoned, while few remained active under communism.

Kon divides the communist period in four parts. From 1917 to 1930, the main characteristics were disintegration of the family and emancipation of women. From 1930 to 1956, marriage and family were strengthened, and the erotic culture was eliminated. Kon calls it the totalitarian epoch which developed into the authoritarian period from 1956 to 1985 when sex became domesticated and regulated and some individual freedoms were allowed. In the last period from 1985 to 1990 sex came out of the closet what produced both radical sex movements and also anomie and sex panics.

(sources: 1, 2)

In hand with the earlier posted history of homosexuality, the Russian boot was placed over sexuality as a whole, especially under the reign of communism. Not only did the Soviet era put a hold on any possibility of tolerating homosexuality, but sex, in all forms and presentations, was watered down or simply blacked out. I also thought it was interesting how abortion was initially legal, but eventually condemned along with prostitution and homosexuality.

Recent Homophobia in Russia

BELGRADE, September 19, 2009 – Nikolai Baev, a co-organizer of Moscow Pride, arrived in Belgrade at lunchtime looking forward to taking part in his very first Pride march.

But when he got to his hotel his excitement turned to sorrow when he learned that tomorrow’s Belgrade Pride march had been suddenly canceled by the organizers when the Serbian Government announced this morning that the parade in the city center could not go ahead but offered an alternative location in the suburbs.

“I came all this way for nothing,” he told UK Gay News.

“So it appears that Moscow is the only capital city where Pride organizers have not given in to the authorities who don’t want a Pride in a city center,” he added.

Mr. Baev flew in from Moscow with Nikolai Alekseev and said that there were skinheads at the airport when they arrived.

Nationalist groups, skinheads and religious organizations had vowed to disrupt the gay parade, some of them inciting violence.

But the authorities from the Serbian President downwards had backed the rights of the gay community to stage the parade, which was scheduled for lunchtime tomorrow (September 20).

“The government has ordered state institutions to take all necessary measures to stop violence, uncover and arrest those who threaten with violence,” an earlier government statement said. “The government will ensure public order and peace, the security of the citizens and property, and the right of every citizen to enjoy his or her constitutional and legally guaranteed rights.

But it was “security concerns” that led government officials from prohibiting the planned parade, and suggesting an alternative out-of-town venue, a wooded area on the banks of the Danube in Ušće.

Nikolai Alekseev, who runs the GayRussia.ru Website and is a co-organiser of Moscow Pride, told UK Gay News that he could not understand the cancellation.

“The authorities seem to have put any personal views of gay matters to one side and to back the rights of the gay community to hold the Pride Parade.
(sources: 1, 2)

MOSCOW, June 1, 2008 – Yuri Luzkhov, Moscow's mayor, had already banned the city's third Gay Pride march after dismissing homosexuals as Satanists.

Campaigners were too afraid to protest on the street, so a small group instead hung a banner calling for tolerance from an apartment window opposite Mr Luzhkov's offices. As the four activists unfurled the banner, Orthodox priests on the street below denounced the "moral corruption" of homosexuality.

Their female followers, clutching crucifixes, threw eggs at the banner which was quickly pulled down by angry neighbors – to the cheers of passers-by.

Police tried and failed to break down the door of the apartment to arrest the protesters, leading to a standoff that lasted several hours.

Earlier in the day 30 gay rights campaigners had held a furtive five-minute vigil outside the Tchaikovsky music hall before scattering.

The manner in which the demonstrations were held reflects the Kremlin's increasing intolerance for all forms of public protest. Political demonstrations in the past two years have been stamped on by the police with increasing brutality.
(source)

These very recent examples of the Russian government opposing pride marches show that homosexuality is still widely looked down upon. Not only that, but demonstrations of all kinds, from small to medium (larger organization does not seem to be possible at all, presently) are put down easily, quickly, and to public approval.