Russian Sex Studies in the West: What They Talk about When They Talk about Love

Abstract

The approach to Russian sexuality exemplified by Eliot Borenstein’s recent keynote conference address, ‘Perverting Slavic Studies: A Love Story’ is examined and placed into the overall context of some common myths and clichés that seem to circulate in Russian sex studies outside Russia Each of the three parts of the study addresses a familiar set piece about sexuality in Russian culture and literature: Rozanov as an anti-Semitic sadist, as discussed by Laura Engelstein; Viktor Erofeev as an arch-enemy of academic feminists, as framed in the collection Eros and Pornography in Russian Culture; and finally Borenstein’s broad approach and his ‘Russian pornography as an idea’. In a brief summary, some of the most conspicuous problems of the burgeoning Russian sex studies ‘industry’ in the USA are formulated as it struggles to come to grips with its topic.