Why Women Had Better Sex Under Socialism
nytimes.comRead the writer's bio before sharing your hot take on the article.
"Kristen R. Ghodsee, a professor of Russian and East European studies at the University of Pennsylvania, is the author of numerous books on European Communism and its aftermath, including, most recently, “Red Hangover: Legacies of 20th-Century Communism.”
This is an essay in the series Red Century, about the history and legacy of Communism 100 years after the Russian Revolution."
Edit: formatting
Thank you. Regardless of whether the article is factually correct, I'm a bit surprised to see the number of reactionary comments (dead or otherwise) in this thread.
I really wish the NYTimes didn't publish crap like this: "here's a marginally significant observation about two groups of people and here's a bunch of anecdotes that purport to explain the difference." It's a just-so story wrapped in a veneer of history. At least deal with the subject critically, discuss whether the observation is significant or whether the method (anecdotes, in this case) being used to explain the differences between people is robust. Ask a follow up question: "If X is true, we might also expect Y."
They're a newspaper, not a scientific journal. They commissioned a piece from an academic working with the subject. That's already a step above most newspapers who'd just have a journalist write something themselves.
What's your point? Newspapers shouldn't treat the subjects they cover critically? They shouldn't contextualize statements to help readers distinguish truth from fiction?
They are critical and contexualizing when it comes to certain topics. Why not when it comes to "data" driven observations?
My point is that they should not need to treat it with the care of a scientific journal, and that commissioning an academic known to write on the subject already means NY Times is exceeding the standards of most newspapers in this respect.
"I didn't read the article or look up the author but I hate communism so here's some reactionary spite dressed up as scientific concern."
I have no problem with communism per se and I'm not a reactionary. I'm not sure why you would allege that. I frequently point out problems with scientific topics posted on HN.
According to http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_exa...
In the US rural teens have more sex than urban teens. One of the theories of why this happens is boredom. Rural teens just don't have as many activities to fill their day as do urban teens.
I wonder if something like that can explain at least part of this finding. The West during this time underwent massive technological and social change, compared to the Communist countries. In addition, in the Communist countries, complaining could land you in prison (see the Stasi and their informant network). Unless you wanted to risk your life escaping, the best coping strategy was probably to shut up and have sex to relieve your tension.
I think that's an interesting idea, I think it's also documented that people have more sex during power outages.
I can attest that life under socialism was perhaps a bit more boring, certainly there was less distractions (in the form of media, computers, games). However, I am not sure that the dictatorial nature of these regimes affected large enough portion of the population - most people were probably happier with having job security and general stability. I even heard stories from people that they could actually complain more in the job, because they didn't risk they would be fired. Not to mention the general laid back attitude to work that many people had.
However, your hypothesis somehow misses the "more pleasurable" part; it considers sex as something that is done when times are rough, and not as something that is also fun in itself.
The basis for the headline:
A comparative sociological study of East and West Germans conducted after reunification in 1990 found that Eastern women had twice as many orgasms as Western women.
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"A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual, and certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works."
Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction..
"A fifth of male fish in UK rivers now ‘trans-gender’ due to chemicals in human waste"
https://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/featurednews/title_591899_en.h...
Bullshit. I was born in communist Czechoslovakia. It is like celebrating North Korea, because their army has 30% women. Sex was one of a few available entertainment options.
It was difficult to get basic hygiene products (tampons, toilet paper).
They're not "celebrating" it, unless you seriously think the NY Times have suddenly decided communism on any shape or form is great. They are just not pretending that no joy was possible, or that there were no positive aspects at all, and not insisting on ignoring the few positive aspects.
E.g. it is a matter of fact that a lot of legislation relating to women's rights have been rolled back in many of these countries for example.
And your statement that sex was one of very few available entertainment options would make sense as an explanation if we can see this same outcome in e.g. third world countries compared to developed countries.
It would be interesting to see if that is the case. Maybe you're right that it is simply due to lack of alternative entertainment.
> It was difficult to get basic hygiene products (tampons, toilet paper).
And nobody is saying otherwise - this is entirely irrelevant to the article.
I think I am reading different NY Times. They never wrote how communist goverment in Romania banned anticonception, abortions etc... But maybe that makes sex more exiciting :(
And please educate me what women's rights post-communist goverments took away.
Why don't you read the article.
> Sex was one of a few available entertainment options.
I honestly wonder, what's so much better about today's entertainment that people prefer it to sex?
I was also born in communist Czechoslovakia. Yes, it was dull, although I was too young to speak for sex. From what I heard, it was a weird mix of conservative and liberal morality.
I personally think that people were simply more content with relationships they had. Today, people are dazzled by the paradox of choice, because their life heavily depends on good choice of the partner (as I already remark elsewhere in this discussion).
I think it's plausible. The research in the book The Spirit Level supports the notion that more equal societies have their members less stressed, across the whole social hierarchy. There is also interesting research from Robert Sapolsky about this.
tl;dr women, when not having to depend on a man for income and have an equivalent divide of household duties, tend to not be as stressed and have better sex
Not exactly. The only facts here refer to a study post-Reunification that said that East German women had twice the orgasms of West Germans.
The rest is a couple of anecdotes that seem to fall suspiciously in the "it was better in my day" and "my mother wants grandchildren" camps. Neither of which are particular to ex-socialist countries. Plus some supposition that doesn't appear to have any grounds within the article.
I mean, that tl;dr might well be true (of life rather than the article). I would be interested in seeing the detail of the original study though. Depending on precisely when they counted said orgasms, my own anecdata of early post-Wall relations may have a quite different explanation.
Bulgaria was never a communist state, and categorizing it as such is a gross misrepresentation. It was ally to communist states, yes, but the socialism in Bulgaria was far communism.
Sorry, are you saying that the People's Republic of Bulgaria was not run by Bulgarian Communist Party? Or are you saying that there wasn't a People's Republic of Bulgaria or that the Bulgarian Communist Party wasn't communist? Or something else?
There are states in India governed by Communist Parties where the people/society are not following a communist structure
GP is probably noting that Communism is a classless, stateless, moneyless society in which the Law of Value has been abolished; "Communist state" is an oxymoron.
LeoNatan25 said Bulgaria "was ally to communist states", so it's clear he doesn't consider "communist state" an oxymoron
I'd like to know more about the alleged difference between Bulgaria and the unnamed allies.
Interesting, I missed that part. In this case I would say he is incorrect, then. Having a Communist party in power does not make a Communist society.
Why do you think that?
As far as I know, it was ruled for 40+ years by the self called communist party, and the means of production were owned by the state.
They might not have been part of the USSR, but they were pretty communist as far as I can see.
> and the means of production were owned by the state.
So it was not communist, as there was a state. And it was not communist because there were class differences (unless we are to believe that the party elite did not live differently to the rest).
But that did not distinguish them from the rest of Eastern Europe or the Soviet Union - none of these countries described themselves as communist, but as socialist, for a reason: They all used the lure of a future communist society as a carrot to get people to accept the many sticks being applied.
So he's half right, but for the wrong reasons.
EDIT: In any case, whether or not one agree on the above definition of communism, Bulgaria certainly was not different enough to the rest to set it apart. Either Bulgaria was communist too or none of them were.
Ok, I see what you mean.
It might not have been textbook communism - but if we go down that route, how many real communist countries have there been?
The whole soviet block self described as communist (bulgarian party was "communist", the russian party was "communist"). They have effectively redefined what communist means for 95% of the population.
In East Germany before the unification, lifestyles were more traditional. Moreover, there were incentives to start a family early in life. Perhaps most importantly, young families would get priority treatment when applying for newly-built apartments. Therefore people got married in their early 20s, and moved into their new flat, away from parents, as soon as possible, and had the sex life young married couples normally have.
Makes sense. The longer your work day and the more financially stressed you are, the less sex you're going to tend to have. Birth rates have been decreasing in the first world countries for a reason.
Why do we have more socialists in other countries than in (former) socialist states?
I'd wager a variety of factors, including post-collapse suppression of Communist ideas, the legacy of the Soviet Union which is regarded poorly in many eastern European countries, and disillusionment with Marxism-Leninism, or at least, Soviet-style state capitalism.
In countries in which there has been no "Socialist" past, many people see Socialism as a realistic option given modern Communist philosophers. That is to say, this is because aside from McCarthyist red scare legacy, there is less stigma.
Do we?
In Germany, Linke (Left), is by far strongest in the former DDR, and it came out of PDS, which again was the successor to SED - the ruling party of DDR.
It has merged with some other groups, and appears fairly thoroughly "reformed" to the extent that they're too centrist for many socialists, but the imbalance between its support in the East and West remains.
It varies a lot by country, seemingly both coming down to the level of oppression in the different countries, but also things like their propaganda, and to what extent their ideology was presented in a way that their populations had the background to recognise how different their actual polices were vs. their supposed theoretical foundations (e.g. teaching Marx to someone using full source texts if you want to maintain an authoritarian regime is not a particularly bright plan, but the extent of careful quoting and ordering and explaining away and indoctrination varied greatly)
Linke, or DDR, is now fabian (democratic) socialism.
They are still socialist, though.
And, by the way, Fabianism is virtually unknown outside the UK today other than in small pockets in the English-speaking world, though it had such unfortunate effects as inspiring the creation of the Ba'athist movement (Saddam Hussein and the Assads were/are Ba'athists), and also inspired quite a few other leaders of former British colonies, many of whom thankfully made better leaders.
Most places outside the UK, when talking about democratic socialism you can be talking about anything from libertarian communism to social democracy - the term generally only exclude Stalinist/Maoist parties. Many communist parties have explicitly used the term in order to signal lack of support for Stalinism. But most "democratic socialist" parties are to the left of the social-democratic parties though the latter also use the term with some regularity.
Though you're right that they are increasingly gradualist like the Fabians.
Most social democrats outside the UK see Eduard Bernstein as one of their main sources for their gradualism, not the Fabians, in part because largely unlike Labour in the UK most of the European social democratic left as well as many other places started as communist parties and split and/or reformed (most of them in the period between the October Revolution and Stalins decree that Comintern member parties were to be obligated to accept orders from the Soviet Union), and Bernstein as a friend and associate of Marx and Engels who continued to support many of their views and goals even as he rejected the need for revolutions was able to gain far more support than the Fabians that had pretty much no presence other than in the British Empire.
Experience is a good teacher. Dalrymple remarked on this in _Utopias Elsewhere_ -- how it sometimes seems that every society has to learn that Communism won't work the hard way.