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File photo of the Kremlin in Moscow. DPA/PA Images

In Russia, men and women are turning to sex coaches to get over Soviet-era taboos

Sex, as a subject, remains largely an unmentionable in Russia.

SURROUNDED BY EROTIC toys, half a dozen women of all ages sit in a central Moscow basement facing a whiteboard as a sex coach trains them in speaking openly about their sexual desires.

“I finally want to know what it’s like to be a satisfied woman, what sexual pleasure is,” one of the “students”, aged 45 and divorced, told AFP.

Barely spoken about publicly in Soviet times and with the Kremlin pushing conservative values in recent years, sex, as a subject, remains largely an unmentionable in Russia.

To help people overcome their shyness in talking about sexual pleasure, sexologist training courses, psychologists and so-called sex coaches are now appearing in Moscow, adding to TV shows and articles in women’s magazines.

Viktoria Ekaterina Frank, a psychologist and sexologist, said that her course at the Sex.rf school did not aim to teach sex techniques but rather “help women understand the psychological barriers ingrained in their heads”.

Many women are “so embarrassed to talk about sex, they can barely breathe”, she said.

‘No sex’ in USSR

Nearly three decades after the end of the USSR, Russian society remains deeply marked by the aura of taboo around the issue of sex in the Soviet Union, according to sociologists.

Soviet authorities primarily promoted the idea that “the sexual act should serve only for reproduction,” sociologist Yelena Kochkina told AFP.

“This means that sexuality was not talked about in the family or at school,” she said.

A TV interview from the beginning of the Perestroika era immortalised the Soviet prudish and practical attitude to sex, even if it was far from true in practice.

During a 1986 talk show broadcast in the United States and the USSR, an American woman asked a Soviet woman if there was sex in adverts in the Soviet Union.

“There is no sex back home, we are categorically against it,” the Russian replied, in an exchange that has become a part of popular culture.

Feast or famine

Although it was off limits in public discourse in the Soviet era, everyone was having sex and “maybe even too much”, said Dmitry Rogozin, a sociology professor at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Abortion at the time was often used as contraception due to the pill and condoms being unavailable and, as a result, the number of terminations was one of the highest in the world at the beginning of the 1990s.

When the USSR collapsed in 1991, a sex industry burst onto the scene, with a wave of erotic films on video cassette or in cinemas, magazines with racy photos and adverts in the popular press.

Sex coach Yelena Rydkina said that after the initial “crazy boom in interest”, suddenly it became too much, causing fear and rejection, and people turned away.

Inspired by sex coaching classes she attended in San Francisco in the US, Rydkina began teaching courses in Moscow where “people can talk normally about sex”.

“Politics in the last 10 years is moving away from open sexuality and propagates traditional family values,” she said.

Nevertheless, there is now a “real demand” for more coverage of sex-related issues, leading to a rise in sex blogging in Russia, added Rydkina.

One such blogger is Tatyana Dmitriyeva, who founded Sexprosvet, a popular website that aims to “develop sex culture in Russia”.

She set up the site three years ago because she said that there was nowhere to seriously discuss the subject.

“I wanted to change that, I wanted to start a dialogue,” she told AFP.

Dmitriyeva also organises burlesque shows and regular pop-up markets of erotic accessories in Moscow, all as part of efforts, she said, to promote “sex that is not boring”.

Safer than politics

For sociologist Rogozin, a lack of open political debate in Russia has now made talking about sex more attractive.

With authorities increasing their control over the media and internet, often blocking content linked to the opposition, Rogozin said that Russians found freedom of expression in talking about sex.

“Intimacy is seen as a form of escape from dangerous political activity,” he told AFP.

People are more eager to talk about sex than politics.

The appetite for open discussion, however, stops short at homosexuality – considered by the state as a mental illness until 1999, he said.

Authorities, citing “traditional” values, have banned gay pride parades and clamped down on so-called homosexual propaganda among minors.

“Being gay is ok for celebrities, but not for those who live next door,” Rogozin said.

© AFP 2019

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    Mute Jams O' Donnell
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    May 12th 2019, 5:09 PM

    I always thought with communism when the shop’s were empty, nothing but Soviet B.S. on the state run telly, There was nothing to do but screw.! ( At least it was free).!

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    Mute Del Teeling
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    May 12th 2019, 5:14 PM

    @Jams O’ Donnell: How crass

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    Mute Gav Brosnan
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    May 12th 2019, 5:38 PM

    @Del Teeling: back to Russia with you.

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    Mute Tony Donoghue
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    May 12th 2019, 6:07 PM

    @Jams O’ Donnell: nothing but babe station u say, there’s a lot to be said for communism perhaps

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    Mute Red Pirate 71
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    May 13th 2019, 1:39 AM

    @Jams O’ Donnell: wage equality, abortion. Divorce. Free access to education. Free housing. Free healthcare. Free holidays. Sounds space age? No. That’s the Soviet Union. Certainly not modern Ireland.

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    Mute Pamela K Sztyblewski
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    Jul 28th 2019, 10:49 AM

    @Jams O’ Donnell: Well that would account for a higher birth rate than they have. Then again, no place has a birth rate like the Irish. (My father had 15 brothers and sisters….)

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    Mute Pamela K Sztyblewski
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    Jul 28th 2019, 10:54 AM

    @Red Pirate 71: Irish people get that stuff in England.

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    Mute Tony Donoghue
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    May 12th 2019, 6:04 PM

    Russian ladies, the sweetest taboo

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    Mute John Mulligan
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    May 12th 2019, 6:27 PM

    Take that story with a grain of siberian salt.
    A Russian colleague once summed up her country’s attitude to sex as follows: ‘in Russia we have no God, no hell or heaven and no concept of sin. If we have an itch, we scratch it.’

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    Mute Fiona Fitzgerald
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    May 12th 2019, 9:56 PM

    There again, anyone who hoped to escape probably wouldn’t want to risk leaving hostages behind. I’m fairly sure that no one was allowed to travel abroad in the past, unless their husband, wife or children stayed behind.

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    Mute Red Pirate 71
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    May 13th 2019, 1:40 AM

    @Fiona Fitzgerald: totally incorrect. Along with most American generated propaganda about Russia.

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    Mute Maggie O'Connor
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    May 12th 2019, 7:22 PM

    I don’t think its too far removed from the old Irish Catholic view about sex.. it was deemed inappropriate and shameful even to talk about it. Thankfully that has changed but, i still won’t covet my neighbour’s wife.

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    Mute Shawn O'Ceallaghan
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    May 12th 2019, 7:32 PM

    @Maggie O’Connor: unless for

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    Mute rusty
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    May 12th 2019, 9:29 PM

    @Maggie O’Connor: why not ?

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    Mute Jumperoo
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    May 12th 2019, 11:05 PM

    @rusty: I don’t covet my neighbour’s wife either. She’s puck ugly, and painful to listen to.

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    Mute Aine O Connor
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    May 13th 2019, 8:04 AM

    @Jumperoo: who says she would be bothered with you either.

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    Mute Aine O Connor
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    May 13th 2019, 8:11 AM

    @Maggie O’Connor:
    The Irish did not talk much about sex but had plenty of it judging by the numbers of unmarried Mothers, Shotgun marraiges and very large families. Follow the evidence.Sex is like most activities, the more you practice the more you learn and the more you learn the better it gets.

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    Mute Joey Roche
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    May 12th 2019, 5:48 PM

    Russian man found with three testicles, Whodyanickthebollockoff.

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    Mute Me_a_monkey
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    May 13th 2019, 7:13 PM

    @Joey Roche: in soviet Russia, sex has you….

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    Mute Jonny
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    May 12th 2019, 6:40 PM

    We like beans, we like sauce, we like sexual intercourse

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    Mute anthony o cathain
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    May 13th 2019, 12:07 AM

    @Jonny: haha hahaha hahaha. Spastic

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    Mute anthony o cathain
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    May 13th 2019, 12:08 AM

    A scary society

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    Mute The decline of Manchester United
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    May 13th 2019, 6:20 AM

    Horrible small minded Government, even today Putin would have a new Soviet Empire all the way across Europe but he knows the Americans would wipe them off the map if he tried

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    Mute Pamela K Sztyblewski
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    Jul 28th 2019, 10:55 AM

    @The decline of Manchester United: How, Russians aren’t allowed outside Russia without Visas even in Europe, while Americans are allowed everywhere visa-free “for 90 days”

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    Mute Guilherme Taffarel Bergamin
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    May 14th 2019, 2:20 PM

    Might be true for older people (40+), but I’m pretty sure that’s not the case with the young. I know a few Russians and I’d say they are pretty open about the subject. Homossexuality though I think it is still a taboo like it was in my country (Brazil) 20 – 15 years ago

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