Women had better sex in communist countries

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know about birth control pills but buying condoms at a store was a mortifying experience. Mind you, there were no convenience stores, everything was on shelves and you yad to ask a saleswoman to give condoms to you.

I was 13 when USSR collapsed so have no actual experience but I remember veey well what a horribly prudish culture it was. There is just no way such attitude in society could result in better sex lives of women... or men.

If you have no actual experience , how do you know it was mortifying ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know about birth control pills but buying condoms at a store was a mortifying experience. Mind you, there were no convenience stores, everything was on shelves and you yad to ask a saleswoman to give condoms to you.

I was 13 when USSR collapsed so have no actual experience but I remember veey well what a horribly prudish culture it was. There is just no way such attitude in society could result in better sex lives of women... or men.

If you have no actual experience , how do you know it was mortifying ?

You are always able to pick such things up, even as a teenager.

Here is a good article about sex in the USSR (some graphic images).

"Condoms were openly on sale at the chemists. But to discuss condoms or lubricants wasn’t the done thing. The majority of men in a chemists either whispered or asked for “a small packet!” or with a wink asked for “one of those pyramid packets”. There was a mass of jokes about this: A man comes to a chemists and whispers “Vsssshshshsh”, the chemist says “Yes? Whatwhat?” The man whispers “I need some vasseline” The chemist replies “Ahhh! Tell me please why are you whispering?” the man (in a whisper) “I need it for sex”.

"There had always been an aura of the forbidden around sex in the USSR. Having said that there was, of course, sex. In enormous quantities just as much as the present. In the Soviet Union though there was no sexual discourse: it was seen as shameful and indecent to speak about sex."

https://afoniya.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/the-sex-of-our-grandfathers-there-wasnt-sex-in-the-ussr-right-wrong-denis-dragunovsky-on-the-strange-world-of-soviet-sex/

[Anonymous]

Pp, thirty years ago these attitudes were neither strange nor confined to the USSR.

[Anonymous]

I was a sexually active teenager in a provincial, very conservative, Muslim majority city in 1988. Bought oral contraceptives and condoms in a drugstore freely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pp, thirty years ago these attitudes were neither strange nor confined to the USSR.

If you are not from the USSR you simply cannot imagine the extent of that prudishness in comparison with the West.

Now if you mean in comparison with Muslim countries, then of course.

[Anonymous]

Why do we keep referencing USSR as a monolith?

I said five pages ago it was comprised of dozens of distinct and different cultures. There was no one size fits all with respect to sex or anything else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp, thirty years ago these attitudes were neither strange nor confined to the USSR.

If you are not from the USSR you simply cannot imagine the extent of that prudishness in comparison with the West.

Now if you mean in comparison with Muslim countries, then of course.

I am, and I’m the poster who was able to freely buy birth control from drugstores in a provincial, Muslim majority city in the USSR. In 1988.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My extended family grew up in Soviet Armenia. Their birth certificates are written in Armenian. Their names are unmistakably Armenian. Family language was always Armenian though everyone is fluent in Russian with an accent. There goes your Russification theory.

Maybe in Armenia it was a theory. In Ukraine, it was an undeniable fact.

+1
Why do people invalidate others’ lives experience because of a family tale? Pp, go ask your older relatives about Russification, you’ll learn a few things.

Case in point: Moldova. Territory taken from Romania in 1945. Russified to use the Cyrillic alphabet. They were brainwashed to believe they spoke a different language than Romanian- Moldovan. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification
Moldova: “The cultural and linguistic effects of Russification manifest themselves in persistent identity questions. During the breakup of the Soviet Union, this led to separation of a large and industrialized portion of the country, becoming the de facto independent state of Transnistria, whose main official language is Russian.“

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My extended family grew up in Soviet Armenia. Their birth certificates are written in Armenian. Their names are unmistakably Armenian. Family language was always Armenian though everyone is fluent in Russian with an accent. There goes your Russification theory.

Maybe in Armenia it was a theory. In Ukraine, it was an undeniable fact.

+1
Why do people invalidate others’ lives experience because of a family tale? Pp, go ask your older relatives about Russification, you’ll learn a few things.

Case in point: Moldova. Territory taken from Romania in 1945. Russified to use the Cyrillic alphabet. They were brainwashed to believe they spoke a different language than Romanian- Moldovan. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification
Moldova: “The cultural and linguistic effects of Russification manifest themselves in persistent identity questions. During the breakup of the Soviet Union, this led to separation of a large and industrialized portion of the country, becoming the de facto independent state of Transnistria, whose main official language is Russian.“

How is one family tale more important than another family tale?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My extended family grew up in Soviet Armenia. Their birth certificates are written in Armenian. Their names are unmistakably Armenian. Family language was always Armenian though everyone is fluent in Russian with an accent. There goes your Russification theory.

Maybe in Armenia it was a theory. In Ukraine, it was an undeniable fact.

Then perhaps it’s time to acknowledge your claims of universal Russification are a bit of a stretch ? Perhaps the reality is more nuanced?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My extended family grew up in Soviet Armenia. Their birth certificates are written in Armenian. Their names are unmistakably Armenian. Family language was always Armenian though everyone is fluent in Russian with an accent. There goes your Russification theory.

Maybe in Armenia it was a theory. In Ukraine, it was an undeniable fact.

+1
Why do people invalidate others’ lives experience because of a family tale? Pp, go ask your older relatives about Russification, you’ll learn a few things.

Case in point: Moldova. Territory taken from Romania in 1945. Russified to use the Cyrillic alphabet. They were brainwashed to believe they spoke a different language than Romanian- Moldovan. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification
Moldova: “The cultural and linguistic effects of Russification manifest themselves in persistent identity questions. During the breakup of the Soviet Union, this led to separation of a large and industrialized portion of the country, becoming the de facto independent state of Transnistria, whose main official language is Russian.“

How is one family tale more important than another family tale?

It’s MY lived experience, not a selective family tale.

Just because they had Armenian names doesn’t mean Armenia wasn’t Russified. Read the Wikipedia entry and ask your elders. Did they specifically told you there was no Russification, or did you draw that conclusion yourself just because they could speak Armenian?