Soviets Struggle With Sexual Glasnost : Bringing Glasnost to the Bedroom: Soviets Struggle With Sex

A nation known for its squeamishness about sex is paying for its prudishness with rampant divorce and abortions and an increasingly frustrated and puzzled populace, a Soviet sex expert said.

Despite a spirit of openness and a freer discussion of once-sensitive subjects, philosopher Igor S. Kon believes the Soviets desperately need to engage in some frank banter about the boudoir.

“Things that newspapers in the West already are writing about and which even have become sensations aren’t even known by specialists here,” Kon said.

Taboo Topic

Although the social chill on discussing sex is thawing a bit, sex is still a taboo topic in a country known for its puritanism, where even the Russian language lacks a polite word for love-making.

On a recent televised discussion between panels of Soviet and U.S. students, the Americans spoke freely about the problems of teen-age pregnancy and other sex-related subjects.

But when an American asked whether there were similar woes in the Soviet Union, the half-joking answer was: “We don’t have sex.”

Evidence points to the contrary in this nation of nearly 285 million people, however. Western specialists say Soviet women average nine abortions and the number of AIDS cases, while small, is growing.

Such problems makes it necessary to deal openly with sex, said Kon, who is trying to take President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost--or openness--behind the bedroom doors.

“If we don’t do anything . . . we will create new difficulties. The stability of marriage will suffer,” he said at a recent lecture to an overflow crowd at Moscow’s House of Actors.

Kon recently returned from a 3 1/2-month stay in the United States where he visited AIDS clinics and family planning centers. He told his audience that the Soviet Union is far behind the West in discussing sex.

Against the Mainstream

His frank talk goes against the mainstream, and his comments raised many eyebrows among an audience that ranged from young men and women clad in jeans to people in their 80s.

With little poll data available to judge the Soviet public’s attitude toward sex, the audience’s questions offer some clues. Most expressed concern over a perceived rise in pornography and homosexuality.

But Kon said he does not consider recent sexually explicit Soviet movies to be pornographic and told the audience that homosexuality is natural for some people.

Kon blamed Soviet authorities for the public’s ignorance about sex and the resulting health and family problems.

“If a woman comes into a clinic, even a solid one in Moscow, and asks how to become pregnant, they will tell her,” Kon said in his lecture. “But if she asks how to receive pleasure from this, they will say, ‘We can’t help you. It’s not our speciality.’ ”

Traditionally, Soviet women are expected only to be good mothers and homemakers.

“Sexual pleasure was considered not important to marriage,” he said. Today, however, Soviet women are demanding happy sex lives.

There have been some changes, however.

After a 10-year struggle with censors, Kon’s book “Introduction to Sexology” was finally published in the Soviet Union last year. A new book, which he said will include illustrations of sexual positions, is slated for publication early this year.

Sex Clinics Open

Sex clinics have been opened in several Soviet cities and the Health Ministry is beginning to realize that AIDS, the high rates of divorce and abortions cannot be reduced without the help of psychologists and sociologists, Kon said.

The Health Ministry newspaper Meditsinskaya Gazeta have decried a chronic shortage of condoms and printed a reader’s letter saying some people are so desperate they are using balloons as a substitute. The same newspaper called for repeal of the law making homosexuality a crime.

Although Kon’s talk was largely philosophical and he did not provide many specific sex tips, one woman confided to a friend afterward:

“If I had known this before, I’d be a normal person now.”