Sexual Liberation, Socialist Style

Communist Czechoslovakia and the Science of Desire, 1945–1989

Kate?ina Lišková

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781108576482
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Eastern European History
• Index: History

This is the first account of sexual liberation in Eastern Europe during the Cold War. Kate?ina Lišková reveals how, in the case of Czechoslovakia, important aspects of sexuality were already liberated during the 1950s - abortion was legalized, homosexuality decriminalized, the female orgasm came into experts' focus - and all that was underscored by an emphasis on gender equality. However, with the coming of Normalization, gender discourses reversed and women were to aspire to be caring mothers and docile wives. Good sex was to cement a lasting marriage and family. In contrast to the usual Western accounts highlighting the importance of social movements to sexual and gender freedom, here we discover, through the analysis of rich archival sources covering forty years of state socialism in Czechoslovakia, how experts, including sexologists, demographers, and psychologists, advised the state on population development, marriage and the family to shape the most intimate aspects of people's lives.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Sweeping Changes in Sexuality across East Central Europe
• 2 The Public Family: Collectivized Equality in the Long 1950s
• 3 The Female Orgasm: From Treating Infertility to Managing Pleasure
• 4 The Privatized Family: Atomized Hierarchy during Normalization
• 5 Male Deviance: Now You See Them, Now You Don’t
• Conclusion
• Primary Sources
• Bibliography
• Index