Book contents
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures in Volume II
- Contributors to Volume II
- Editors’ Preface to the Series
- 1 Human Sexuality: The Evolutionary Legacy of Mating, Parenting, and Family Formation
- 2 Sexuality in Ancient Egypt: Pleasures, Desires, Norms, and Representations
- 3 Sexuality in the Systems of Thought and Belief of the Ancient Near East
- 4 Sexuality in Traditional South Asian Systems of Thought and Belief
- 5 Discourses of Desire in Ancient Greece and Rome
- 6 Writing a History of Sexuality for Pre-Modern China
- 7 Sexuality in Traditional Systems of Thought and Belief in Pre-modern Japan
- 8 African Traditions of Sexualities
- 9 Sexuality in the Traditional Systems of Thought and Belief of the Americas
- 10 Oceanic Sexualities: Persistence, Change, Resistance
- 11 Sexuality in Buddhist Traditions
- 12 Sexuality in Jewish Traditions
- 13 Sexuality in Christian Traditions
- 14 Sexuality in Islamic Traditions
- 15 Scientific Sex in the Modern World
- 16 Sexuality in Marxism and Socialism
- 17 Feminism and Modern Sexuality
- 18 Post-Colonialism and Sexuality
- Index
- Contents to Volumes I, III, and IV
- References
16 - Sexuality in Marxism and Socialism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 April 2024
By
Book contents
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures in Volume II
- Contributors to Volume II
- Editors’ Preface to the Series
- 1 Human Sexuality: The Evolutionary Legacy of Mating, Parenting, and Family Formation
- 2 Sexuality in Ancient Egypt: Pleasures, Desires, Norms, and Representations
- 3 Sexuality in the Systems of Thought and Belief of the Ancient Near East
- 4 Sexuality in Traditional South Asian Systems of Thought and Belief
- 5 Discourses of Desire in Ancient Greece and Rome
- 6 Writing a History of Sexuality for Pre-Modern China
- 7 Sexuality in Traditional Systems of Thought and Belief in Pre-modern Japan
- 8 African Traditions of Sexualities
- 9 Sexuality in the Traditional Systems of Thought and Belief of the Americas
- 10 Oceanic Sexualities: Persistence, Change, Resistance
- 11 Sexuality in Buddhist Traditions
- 12 Sexuality in Jewish Traditions
- 13 Sexuality in Christian Traditions
- 14 Sexuality in Islamic Traditions
- 15 Scientific Sex in the Modern World
- 16 Sexuality in Marxism and Socialism
- 17 Feminism and Modern Sexuality
- 18 Post-Colonialism and Sexuality
- Index
- Contents to Volumes I, III, and IV
- References
Summary
This chapter explores the interplay between sex and socialism in the Soviet Union, Cold War Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, and Vietnam. It examines how sex was legislated, represented, and managed by the state, placing this analysis within the context of religious beliefs and cultural mores, Westernization and globalization, and generational change. Considering sexuality as both a procreative and a recreative practice, it demonstrates that concerns about regime consolidation, demographic growth, public health, and popular legitimacy, more so than commitment to gender and sexual equality or personal pleasure, shaped state approaches to sex. Yet while the state instrumentalized sex for the purpose of building socialism, some experts were genuinely devoted to enhancing citizens’ knowledge of sexual health and satisfaction, eschewing ideological concerns. Meanwhile, socialist regimes had to contend with traditional values and religious influences, which were often contrary to the modernizing impulses and progressive policies states hoped to institute, and, as socialism wore on, younger generations who supported liberalizing tendencies. They also had to contend with external forces, such as the opening to Western culture. Thus, state policies and representations of sexuality varied across time and space, affecting individuals in different ways.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities , pp. 340 - 365Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024
References
Further Reading
Bebel, August. Woman and Socialism. Trans. Meta L. Stern. New York: Socialist Literature, 1910.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Frances Lee. The Dictatorship of Sex: Lifestyle Advice for the Soviet Masses. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Biebuyck, Erin. ‘The Collectivisation of Pleasure: Normative Sexuality in Post-1966 Romania’. Aspasia 4 (2010): 49–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carleton, Gregory. Sexual Revolution in Bolshevik Russia. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dumitriu, Radu. De vorbă cu tinerii: Probleme de educație a sexelor (Speaking with Youth: Issues of Sex Education). Bucharest: Editura Tineretulu, 1972.Google Scholar
Engels, Friedrich. The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. 1884; London: Verso, 2021.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, Jennifer. ‘Decriminalization, Seduction, and “Unnatural Desire” in the German Democratic Republic’. Feminist Studies 36, no. 3 (2010): 553–77.Google Scholar
Guerra, Lillian. ‘Gender Policing, Homosexuality, and the New Patriarchy of the Cuban Revolution, 1965–1970’. Social History 35, no. 3 (2010): 268–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, Carrie. Sexual Revolutions in Cuba: Passion, Politics, and Memory. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Healey, Dan. Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia: The Regulation of Sexual and Gender Dissent. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herzog, Dagmar. ‘East Germany’s Sexual Evolution’. In Socialist Modern: East German Everyday Culture and Politics, ed. Katherine Pence and Paul Betts, 71–95. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Holt, Alix, ed. and trans. Alexandra Kollontai: Selected Writings. New York: W. W. Norton, 1980.Google Scholar
Hynson, Rachel M. ‘Sex and State Making in Revolutionary Cuba, 1959–1968’. PhD dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2014.Google Scholar
Jackson, Stevi, Liu, Jieyu, and Woo, Juhyun, eds. East Asian Sexualities: Modernity, Gender and New Sexual Cultures. London: Zed Books, 2008.Google Scholar
Jinga, Luciana. ‘Science and Politics during the Cold War: The Controversial Case of Sexology in Communist Romania’. History of Communism in Europe 9 (2018): 87–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirk, Emily J. ‘Cuba’s National Sex Education Program: Origins and Evolution’. Cuban Studies 49 (2020): 289–309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kościańska, Agnieszka, Gender, Pleasure, and Violence: The Construction of Expert Knowledge of Sexuality in Poland. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2021.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kulpa, Robert, and Joanna, Mizielinska, eds. De-Centring Western Sexualities: Central and Eastern European Perspectives. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2011.Google Scholar
Kurimay, Anita. Queer Budapest, 1873–1961. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Kurimay, Anita, and Judit, Takács. ‘Emergence of the Hungarian Homosexual Movement in Late Refrigerator Socialism’. Sexualities 20, nos. 5/6 (2017): 585–603.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lew-Starowicz, Zbigniew. Seks nietypowy (Atypical Sex). Warsaw: Instytut Wydawniczy Związków Zawodowych, 1988.Google Scholar
Lišková, Kateřina. Sexual Liberation, Socialist Style: Communist Czechoslovakia and the Science of Desire, 1945–1989. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McLellan, Josie. Love in the Time of Communism: Intimacy and Sexuality in the GDR. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Moon, Joan. ‘Feminism and Socialism: The Utopian Synthesis of Flora Tristan’. In Socialist Women: European Socialist Feminism in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, ed. Boxer, Marilyn J. and Quatert, Jean H., 19–50. New York: Elsevier, 1978.Google Scholar
Neubert, Rudolf. Die Geschlechterfrage: Ein Buch für junge Leute. Rudolstadt: Greifenverlag, 1955.Google Scholar
Poldervaart, Saskia. ‘Theories about Sex and Sexuality in Utopian Socialism’. Journal of Homosexuality 2, no. 2/3 (1995): 41–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rofel, Lisa. Desiring China: Experiments in Neoliberalism, Sexuality, and Public Culture. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Takács, Judit. ‘Disciplining Gender and (Homo)sexuality in State Socialist Hungary in the 1970s’. European Review of History: Revue européenne d’histoire 22, no. 1 (2015): 161–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar