The Sex Life of Man
L. A. Vasilevskaia, The Sex Life of Man. 1924
Co-author L. M. Vasilevskaia
L.A. and L.M. Vasilevskii were both physicians, and writers on sex issues.
It has long been known that a healthy spirit can only be housed in a healthy body, and the new world can be created only by a thoroughly healthy, strong and cheerful generation. And only a generation which orders its sexual life on a rational and healthy basis can be healthy. The condition of the sexual system of man is decidedly reflected in its most profound form in all aspects of our existence, not only in physical health, but in our moods, our capacity for work, our relations with people, our social activity, our creativity.
Meanwhile, our entire sexual life, the mutual relations between the sexes, is extraordinarily deformed. Our marriage, which still to a significant degree is determined by the economic dependence of the woman, is abnormal. The abundance of girls, remaining for material reasons outside of the sexual union and its pleasures, is abnormal. The gloomy phenomenon of the sale by women of their bodies, the impropriety of sexual relations, their impersonality, unworthy of humans, is disgraceful. The greatest harm to the physical and spiritual well-being of society is the unheard of spread of venereal disease, the terrible rise in abortions and the overall rejection of motherhood. The birth of a child for an enormous number of mothers and for the conjugal pair in general is turning from a blessing and source of happiness into a source of hard deprivation, almost a curse. Finally, there is the appalling and abnormal attitude of people to questions of sex. Either they hypocritically are too ashamed to speak about it, as if in this cradle of mankind there is something dirty and shameful, or they speak with a foul grin, with a wink and cynicism.
Even now a double sexual standard of morality for men and for women still prevails. Men are allowed-not only by law, but by custom, by generally recognized habits-much that would be considered impermissible for women, shameful and immoral, it being the case that such a "male" evaluation is maintained not only by men, but to a significant degree by women. Maintained in their centuries old, stagnant power are vile proverbs such as "no hearsay can soil a good guy's reputation," that a man in the sexual sense must "sow his wild oats," but for a woman nothing is winked at, and they condemn her for a petty, chance sin in the area of sex. It does not follow that the above should be understood in the sense that it would be a normal situation for women to become equal with men in sexual dissoluteness and cynicism. On the contrary, the ideal would be a restrained and worthy sexual life for both sexes. And once again this does not mean that mankind must turn away from sexual pleasures. Love, equal with hunger, is the greatest motive force of life, and existence, deprived of the pleasures of mutual love, does not know the fullness of life's sensations and does not give satisfaction and happiness. In personal love there flowers all that is elevated and bright in our natures and the hiding places where the noblest and most valued sides of our "I" are lodged, are revealed.
As regards the creation of a new generation and the desire to continue one's existence in children, with all the great importance of this element of love, with all its enormous significance in the history of mankind, personal love, the direct sexual feeling, is not limited to this and is not reduced to this. One and the other are lawful and fine; both to continue oneself, to express oneself in a child, and simply to take pleasure in the mutual nearness, to tie one's life with the life of a close person. But it is necessary that bodily closeness go hand-in-hand with spiritual closeness, or at least, with mutual sympathy, with some commonality of interests.
To introduce beauty and humanity into the sexual relations of people is one of the most difficult tasks which, among others, stand before the revolution. For this, quite apart from everything else, two conditions are indispensable. First we must change at its root the view of the masses toward the themes touched on here. Instead of vulgar winking or hypocritical silence, a serious and honest view of people must be attained in the entire area of sexual relations, one corresponding to the importance of the task. Second, we must arm youth from their early years with an intelligible familiarity with problems of sex, with the mysteries of birth, with correct and sensible opinions in this regard. The second condition must obviously precede the first. Our sexual life can be made healthy only when our younger generation is raised with new more worthy views on the role and desirable character of sexual life. From this the importance of a sensibly organized and expeditiously executed sex education is clear.
Much unhappiness in our sexual life could be avoided if our children received in this regard a better preparation for what they could expect in their future sex lives. At the present time this matter finds itself in truly awful conditions. The young boy or girl first becomes familiar with sex from murky and filthy sources, which frequently make their idea of love filthy for all their lives, which inculcate in them a twisted and often savage notion of it. Their source of information is often either the cynicism and foul language of their elders or the boastful and no less filthy communication of more mature and "experienced" friends, or the foul street pamphlet, film, etc. As a result the child enters life with a disfigured, twisted understanding, that everything touched on here is "shameful" and indecent to talk about, and that one can only make various conjectures about it.
The situation of female youth is especially sad. With doubled diligence they take her away from "delicate" themes, in order to preserve her "chastity," so that even marrying and preparing herself to become a mother, she still imagines the essence of sexual relations dimly, connecting it with danger, duty and fear. Among workers, the intimate closeness of all members of the family, the habitation density, the necessity to enter life too early (earlier industrial and other kinds of labor), usually in the years of childhood, acquaint the youth with this side of life, but here familiarity is achieved at great cost, and it is difficult to evaluate the moral harm which is inflicted on young consciousness by the coarseness and nakedness of this familiarity.
Parents, who could most easily and naturally take upon themselves such a preparation of the young for their future sexual lives, either intentionally divert children from questions on these themes, with the aim of not "corrupting" them, and even directly refuse to answer them, seeing here a dangerous signal of early profligacy, or they do not know how to approach this dangerous theme, how to talk about these things to the child, and at what age to undertake it. This theme is in fact very crucial and complex, and if undertaken clumsily or prematurely, it can, instead of bringing benefit, inflict serious harm on the child, and be a source of severe spiritual wound. As a result, sex education in the family is either completely lacking or is undertaken blindly and incorrectly. And as for sex education in school, that requires even greater care in approach. Familiarizing children in school presumes not only a rational division of children into groups by age, development, and personal characteristics, but also great sensitivity and tact on the part of the educator.
While referring to the school, it is impossible not to note the great prophylactic significance of co-education. With all the shortcomings of the labor school now being established in Soviet Russia, one of the most valuable merits is precisely this co-education from the earliest years. Thanks to this, children of both sexes begin very early to get used to the society of children of the opposite sex, and learn to see in them real comrades, close and understandable. By the time sexual feeling begins to arise, there is none of that estrangement and mysterious and disturbing secrecy among children of different sexes, which earlier had been fed school children due to that artificial disassociation. In this way that simplicity, that clarity of relations between the sexes is prepared, the lack of which is painfully told in early amorousness, in unhealthy instincts, in the extreme role of sexual feelings for the entire subsequent life.
Only the co-education of children will weaken the excessively great significance which love plays in the life of contemporary man. It is impermissible that in the new world the entire life of a person should depend on whether the creature beloved by him responds in kind or rejects him. It is unworthy of a truly free man to become a slave of his personal attachment, if the lack of success in love is capable of turning his life's plans upside down, of filling his soul with despair and of shoving his hand toward a vial of poison, or dooming him to wicked displays of jealousy and vengeance worthy of a savage.
The sphere of love must occupy an appropriate place in the life of man, a strong and significant place, but by no means the determining and predominant one.
Source: William G. Rosenberg, ed., Bolshevik Visions: First Phase of the Cultural Revolution in Soviet Russia (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1984), 107-110.