Not All Theaters Are Erotic

A. Kuznetsov, Not All Theaters Are Erotic. July 28, 1990

Although the country was going through a severe crisis, Gorbachev took the time in December 1990 to read before the Supreme Soviet letters complaining about pornography. On December 5 he issued a decree outlining a program to combat pornography and establishing a Public Morals Protection Committee under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture. Two prominent members of the former Presidential Council, Evgenii Primakov and Valentin Rasputin, were put in charge.

The shift from a hypocritically puritan socialist society to democracy is naturally accompanied by a more open interest in sex. Video clubs showing mainstream Western movies became the most important entertainment for males in the Soviet Union. Severe economic problems and the lure of hard currency resulted in an increase in prostitution. Soviet children were taught little about sex, and adults had no opportunity to discuss their intimate problems with trained physicians. According to the older Communists and conservatives, it was glasnost that created all the fuss. The reader of a youth-oriented newspaper mocks their fears.

Original Source: Komsomol’skaia pravda, 28 July 1990.

Dear Editor!

I read in your newspaper Mr. V. Shtyriakhov’s letter, “Eroticism Is a Weapon, Too,” and, word of honor, I shed a tear. I congratulate you wholeheartedly! I have been subscribing to Komsomolka for more than twenty years, but a more hypocritical article I have not read, not even during the stagnation period!

It seems that, instead of nuclear weapons, now there is an erotic weapon. All must stand as one on the front line of struggle! Destroy the weapon and multiply chastely, like flowers and leaves! Remove eroticism from the big screen, from the newspaper pages, from the theaters, from the beaches, and from spouses’ beds! And only then will we eradicate sexual crimes!

Our ancestors, as well as the Americans’ ancestors, paid for freedom with their lives. And we, in exchange for our newfound freedom, are inundated by the naked thighs of Moscow beauties, leading all of society to dwell on but one thought: Whom should we rape today? Isn’t it too primitive? Isn’t it too pitiful a price for freedom?

The image of part or all of a woman’s naked body is not eroticism! The description of the sexual act in literature is not eroticism, but rather naturalism. Eroticism is a depiction and a glorification of sensual love; it is not bestiality! I will swear that in the Soviet Union not one erotic movie or play has been produced, nor has one truly erotic book been published!

I can assure you, Mr. Shtyriakhov, that nobody forces sexual permissiveness into the public consciousness. To do so would be possible only through cruel repression and animal fear, which is never 100 percent effective in any case; society is never a unified conglomerate but consists instead of individuals. The more a person is cultured and educated, the more difficult such mind control is to achieve! Take our society in the 1930s: With education averaging four to seven years and with no culture, there was fertile ground for the forcible manipulation of thought. It happened! It also happened that sixty million people disappeared! And a lot of our citizens believed sincerely that their parents, children, relatives, and friends were indeed German and Japanese spies, Trotskyites, terrorists, or simply enemies of the people.

And, in another example, how many times were we told in the mass media, literature, movies, and television that dear Leonid Il’ich [Brezhnev] was a smart, handsome, and courageous champion (of what?), a true Leninist (and who are the rest?), and a loyal proponent (of what?)? At the same time, society was laughing at him openly and telling anecdotes (at his expense). Why? Society had become more cultured and educated. And there was no fear anymore, only disdain.

I do not think that, at present, our society can still be afraid of anything! The genie has been let out of the bottle, and to put it back again would be very difficult! It might be also dangerous! And, Mr. Shtyriakhov, do not presume to speak for all of society, because we have plenty of cowards and scoundrels, traitors and conformists, rapists and murderers. Speak only for yourself

I, for example, will never assault a woman after watching erotic videotapes or looking at nudes on a calendar. It is not eroticism that provokes sexual crimes, but our low culture, savagery and dullness, permissiveness, absence of authoritative powers, uncertainty about the future, and the deep moral and ethical crisis in our country! As a result we have a rapid rise in serious crimes!

Religion will not help us here, because it is not a panacea for all problems. Simply put, the church is now as much in fashion as are acid-washed jeans in the Riga market in Moscow. Before, we criticized the church and praised the bureaucrats, now it’s vice versa.

I’d like to quote one sentence from your letter: “I suspect you are right that the term ‘full freedom of creativity,’ which has been talked about so much recently, should not signify a full freedom of artists to do anything they want.”

The artist can only be called an artist when he has full freedom in his work. Otherwise he becomes a craftsman or, what is even more terrible, a flattering servant. Talent does not owe anything to anyone. It cannot be nurtured; one either has it or not. This is a notion that stands above classes, systems, and politics!

In dark, cruel medieval Spain Don Quixote suddenly appeared-a humanistic, light, and kind novel. And in the nice, staid tulip country of Flanders appeared the no-less-famous novel, The Legend of Eulenspiegel, all stained with blood, smelling of burned human flesh, pain, and suffering!

If these novels had been written by “assignment,” the result would have been the opposite. These novels would not have become jewels of world literature.

Should we see everywhere and in everything the intrigues of the command administrative system? According to you, a naked back on the screen amounts to a conspiracy. A beauty pageant is a malicious plot. An erotic calendar in the metro is simply a terrible scheme. If there is a plot, where are the enemies-enemies of society, enemies of the people? Maybe everything is much simpler. Perhaps what we observe today is the expression of the “forbidden fruit syndrome.” All of it will pass; we’ll become more cultured, free, quiet, and we won’t snivel because of every miniskirt, be enraged because of eroticism, write ludicrous mad letters to newspapers, and confuse low-quality cooperative goods with the arts.

But when will this happen? Until we live in such a dark and boring reality, Mr. Shtyriakhov, we should allow our youth to enjoy themselves by truly looking at beautiful men, women, and life. You remember Dostoevskii’s words: “Beauty will save the world!” It is truly so! When one sees a beautiful woman, one immediately forgets about increasing her role in society and about a positive outcome for the Food Program. And, in a further advantage, one’s stomach suffers less from hunger, and one stops running to the stores. Instead, one lovingly feels the awakening of his primal animal instincts!

So let’s be gentlemen. Don’t deprive a Soviet woman of her only joy (she is already left without sausage). Let her, one who shares our misfortunes, have plenty of at least these things! And we men will go on somehow.

The roots of amorality in our country lie not in eroticism and pornography but in an agonized economy and an absence of ideals. We can do anything. We can forbid eroticism, put underwear and a Russian blouse on the statue of David and an old-fashioned swimsuit on Aphrodite. We can dress Danae in a deep-sea diving suit, close all cinemas and TV stations, and I assure you there will be no drop in sexual crimes.

A crisis of ideas brings about a crisis of authority, which in turn results in a moral and ethical crisis in society. We are all guilty in this! Some are guilty because they rule, and others because they allowed the first ones to rule!

Enough of screams, and appeals, and false threats ascribed to a nonexistent weapon. It is high time to learn to think and build, but not to restructure.

With erotic regards,
A. Kuznetsov, director Palace of Culture, Moscow Province

Source: Isaac Tarasulo, ed., Perils of Perestroika: Viewpoints from the Soviet Press, 1989-1991 (Wilmington: SR Books, 1992), pp. 18-21.

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