The other day I found an interesting film on YouTube, “Do Communists Have Better Sex?” It was the title that grabbed me. As an former Godless Communist, I retain a lingering pride in the achievements of Soviet Man. Sputnik, the first man in space, the first woman in space, the Super Booster, the Belomor Canal, the world’s largest bomb, weaving machines, and turbine generators (not to mention beating Hitler and saving the world.), and now we are told better sex as well!
Wow!!!
There are no inhibitions that Bolsheviks cannot conquer!
Freed from bourgeois propriety, Soviet Man achieves per capita rates of bliss to dwarf that of the hodmen of capitalism!
Scientific socialism has given proletarian lovers orgasm after orgasm, while imperialist couples jostle one another like blind puppies in a bathetic dance of frustration.
Fight today, revolutionary, at the barricades of copulation!
Kto kogo!
[Take a minute to calm down.]
DO COMMUNISTS HAVE BETTER SEX ? (2006) from ma.ja.de. on Vimeo.
Now, this was actually a serious documentary, well made, dealing with a documented phenomenon. When the Berlin wall came down in November 1989, sociologists rushed east to study the differences between capitalist and communist societies. They found that, despite the repressive nature of the regime in the DDR, the sex was better. Two key facts stand out:
There were other interesting statistics as well (e.g. eastern penises averaged 6 mm larger than western, 90% of Easterners had participated in nudist activities), but these two, I think, indicate a significant and undeniable phenomenon: sex was better under communism. Furthermore, by the early 2000’s, eastern statistics had fallen to western levels, indicating that this phenomenon was not geographical, but political. Anecdotally, eastern women actually complained that sex had been better under the Soviet government.
Why? Why should a régime so despised by its citizens, one that failed to produce the material abundance of its rival in the west, one that controlled speech and expression so thoroughly, have produced these high levels of sexual satisfaction? Several ideas were proposed.
• The east was secular, while the west was “oppressed” by the church: the sexuality of the west was hobbled by religiosity. Though this difference was pronounced during the 1950’s, by the 1980’s rates of church attendance were comparable, yet rates of sex satisfaction actually declined in the west during this time.
• The east offered comprehensive sex education. While the east did institute “modern” sex education much earlier than the west, by 1970 this to was comparable, so this too is a spurious variable.
• There was less fear of pregnancy in the east, since children were subsidized. This, I think does explain differing patterns of fertility. Women in the east averaged three children, as opposed to two in the west, and they had them in their early twenties while in the west women began having children about five years later. But contraception was equally available in east and west (albeit, subsidized in the east), so after the introduction of the pill in the early 1960’s this would seem to be less of a variable.
• Women in the east were economically autonomous. Due to the post-war man shortage in the east, women were brought into the work-force in the late 1940’s, becoming factory workers, bricklayers. It was ordinary and usual for an eastern woman to have her own income and not be dependent upon a man. Yet by 1980, rates of female employment in east and west were comparable, so this too would seem to be a spurious variable.
• Material affluence make people lethargic in the west. There might be something to this. Material abundance makes one materialistic, whereas privation makes one look to more spiritual satisfactions. Sexuality, reflecting the totality of the person, must inevitably be degraded by a materialist world view, so privation just might enhance sexuality.
• Prostitution and pornography were unavailable in the east. This, I think, is the key factor. Let’s take this a bit further and extrapolate about the kind and number of sexual outlets available to Easterners. Small apartments and lack of pornography made masturbation difficult. Suppression of prostitution closed this outlet. An endemic housing shortage and lack of hotels and private automobiles made trysting spots rare, so illicit affairs were probably difficult and thus fewer in number. Thus sexuality was channeled into expression within monogamous relationships.
When sex becomes a commodity (as capitalism inevitably makes everything), men can find release easily and without effort, so they undervalue their sexual partners. However, when a man can find release only with a woman he is partnered with, he takes care of that woman, makes sure she enjoys sex. The film-makers miss this, stressing in fact that the west was rife with means of sexual satisfaction (e.g. peep-shows, classes to teach women how to find their G-spot, pornography of all sorts, the widespread availability of sex toys), yet are baffled that these failed to produce the sex satisfaction that they promised. They have extensive footage of how, immediately following reunification, Easterners consumed pornography eagerly, yet fail to tie this in with the subsequent decline in sex satisfaction.
Thus, perhaps unwittingly, the communist system fostered sexual exclusivity, the key to lasting sex satisfaction. Eastern man was not troubled by the unrealistic (and fraudulent) example of pornography; having no idealized sex-goddess to compare his mate with, he was satisfied with her. Similarly too, eastern woman, having fewer lifetime sex partners, was likely to end up with one that was as good as, if not better than, her previous lovers. Faced with a paucity of sexual outlets, eastern couples made the best of each other, coming to delight in their familiarity. Variety, far from enhancing long-term sexual satisfaction, pales before the skill that comes only from truly intimate knowledge of ones partner.
Wow!!!There are no inhibitions that Bolsheviks cannot conquer!
Freed from bourgeois propriety, Soviet Man achieves per capita rates of bliss to dwarf that of the hodmen of capitalism!
Scientific socialism has given proletarian lovers orgasm after orgasm, while imperialist couples jostle one another like blind puppies in a bathetic dance of frustration.
Fight today, revolutionary, at the barricades of copulation!
Kto kogo!
[Take a minute to calm down.]
DO COMMUNISTS HAVE BETTER SEX ? (2006) from ma.ja.de. on Vimeo.
Now, this was actually a serious documentary, well made, dealing with a documented phenomenon. When the Berlin wall came down in November 1989, sociologists rushed east to study the differences between capitalist and communist societies. They found that, despite the repressive nature of the regime in the DDR, the sex was better. Two key facts stand out:
- While western couples copulated on average two times a week, eastern couples averaged three times.
- Whereas western women reported achieving orgasm in 50% of their sexual encounters, eastern women hit the jack-pot fully 85% of the time.
Why? Why should a régime so despised by its citizens, one that failed to produce the material abundance of its rival in the west, one that controlled speech and expression so thoroughly, have produced these high levels of sexual satisfaction? Several ideas were proposed.
• The east was secular, while the west was “oppressed” by the church: the sexuality of the west was hobbled by religiosity. Though this difference was pronounced during the 1950’s, by the 1980’s rates of church attendance were comparable, yet rates of sex satisfaction actually declined in the west during this time.
• The east offered comprehensive sex education. While the east did institute “modern” sex education much earlier than the west, by 1970 this to was comparable, so this too is a spurious variable.
• There was less fear of pregnancy in the east, since children were subsidized. This, I think does explain differing patterns of fertility. Women in the east averaged three children, as opposed to two in the west, and they had them in their early twenties while in the west women began having children about five years later. But contraception was equally available in east and west (albeit, subsidized in the east), so after the introduction of the pill in the early 1960’s this would seem to be less of a variable.
• Women in the east were economically autonomous. Due to the post-war man shortage in the east, women were brought into the work-force in the late 1940’s, becoming factory workers, bricklayers. It was ordinary and usual for an eastern woman to have her own income and not be dependent upon a man. Yet by 1980, rates of female employment in east and west were comparable, so this too would seem to be a spurious variable.
• Material affluence make people lethargic in the west. There might be something to this. Material abundance makes one materialistic, whereas privation makes one look to more spiritual satisfactions. Sexuality, reflecting the totality of the person, must inevitably be degraded by a materialist world view, so privation just might enhance sexuality.
• Prostitution and pornography were unavailable in the east. This, I think, is the key factor. Let’s take this a bit further and extrapolate about the kind and number of sexual outlets available to Easterners. Small apartments and lack of pornography made masturbation difficult. Suppression of prostitution closed this outlet. An endemic housing shortage and lack of hotels and private automobiles made trysting spots rare, so illicit affairs were probably difficult and thus fewer in number. Thus sexuality was channeled into expression within monogamous relationships.
When sex becomes a commodity (as capitalism inevitably makes everything), men can find release easily and without effort, so they undervalue their sexual partners. However, when a man can find release only with a woman he is partnered with, he takes care of that woman, makes sure she enjoys sex. The film-makers miss this, stressing in fact that the west was rife with means of sexual satisfaction (e.g. peep-shows, classes to teach women how to find their G-spot, pornography of all sorts, the widespread availability of sex toys), yet are baffled that these failed to produce the sex satisfaction that they promised. They have extensive footage of how, immediately following reunification, Easterners consumed pornography eagerly, yet fail to tie this in with the subsequent decline in sex satisfaction.Thus, perhaps unwittingly, the communist system fostered sexual exclusivity, the key to lasting sex satisfaction. Eastern man was not troubled by the unrealistic (and fraudulent) example of pornography; having no idealized sex-goddess to compare his mate with, he was satisfied with her. Similarly too, eastern woman, having fewer lifetime sex partners, was likely to end up with one that was as good as, if not better than, her previous lovers. Faced with a paucity of sexual outlets, eastern couples made the best of each other, coming to delight in their familiarity. Variety, far from enhancing long-term sexual satisfaction, pales before the skill that comes only from truly intimate knowledge of ones partner.
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