“Post-Soviet sexual revolution”: history and modernity. Group Discussion

Abstract

The group discussion at March 30, 2018 covers a wide range of problems related to modern sexuality, social norms that regulate it, and the historical circumstances that influenced these norms. In the speeches of the participants, three generations of the sexual revolution in Russia are designated: the generation of the behavioral revolution, the generation of the discursive revolution and the generation of the gender revolution. It considers the Bolshevik gender reforms, expressed in the adoption of laws aimed at changing the role of women in the family and society and changing the basis of relations between men and women due to legislative consolidation of gender equality. The authors point out fundamental differences in the pace and nature of gender modernization in Western countries and in Russia, expressed in the fact that in the West, the consequences of the “sexual revolution” of 1968 significantly changed the behavior of both men and women, in the countries of the Soviet bloc only female roles have changed. It is noted, however, that although men show a growing interest in active fatherhood, women in the majority reserve the right to make all reproductive decisions on their own.