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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Andrea C. Mazzarino, Doctoral student, Department of Anthropology, Brown University, Box 1921, Providence, RI 02906, 4012634179, Andrea_Mazzarino@brown.edu

Motherhood as women's civic duty has been a recurrent theme in Soviet and Russian conversations, particularly in the contexts of schools, doctors' offices, and the mass media. Ironically, pro-natalist discourses censor explicit information on sexual behaviors and pleasure. They portray sex as shameful for women to engage in or discuss, as well as violent and dangerous. Conversations continue in the post-Soviet era as politicians, journalists, and doctors react to an explosion of foreign information sources on sex; wider access to contraception; birth rates that are among the lowest in the world; and Russia's ongoing population decline. These authorities focus on women's behaviors rather than the poor living conditions and declining public health indicators that make motherhood difficult. This paper examines implications of such discourses for women's sexual relationships: If authorities have portrayed women's sexuality as shameful, then in what contexts do women express it? I show that some women have reacted to censorship by forming separate relationships involving sexual pleasure, and removing them from public view. Against a backdrop of crowded urban living conditions, this separation requires that women find spaces outside the home where they can engage in relationships. Many do so in the contexts of domestic and foreign travel. This study illustrates less visible categories of relationships that women are forming, the social and economic pressures that influence these relationships, and the diverse meanings women give to them. In doing so, it sheds light on how changing gender ideals and socioeconomic conditions affect women's sexual and reproductive health.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify four interrelated changes in Russian sex discourses during the post-Soviet era.
• Explain how these changes have influenced the locations where Russian women’s sexual relationships occur.
• Describe how these physically removed relationships affect women’s sexual and reproductive health.

Keywords: Women's Sexuality, Politics

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

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