State-socialist heteromasculinity on the eve of neoliberalism: sexual problems in the first Polish lifestyle magazine for men

Abstract

ABSTRACT After the 1989–1992 collapse of the Soviet bloc, Eastern European countries underwent rapid socioeconomic changes from state socialism to neoliberal capitalism. Yet, research from these countries has been only scarcely used to study the neoliberalization of sexuality. To fill this gap, this article examines heterosexual masculinity in Poland at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s. Using Foucauldian approaches to discourse, I analyze how sexual problems were discussed in Pan, the first Polish lifestyle magazine for men (1987–1993). I demonstrate that, in contrast to the neoliberal models of heterosexuality, the state-socialist masculinity of Pan did not advocate discipline, control, and sexual mastery, but it repudiated egalitarianism and reciprocity of pleasure. Heterosexual dynamics in Pan prioritized men’s interests at the expense of women, whom various sexual experts silenced, admonished, and blamed for sexual difficulties. As a result, Pan constructed a deeply patriarchal masculinity of unaccountability and entitlement to women’s submissiveness. These findings add novel insights that help understand the ideologies of sexuality under state socialism.