In the 1950s, during the darkest phase of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia, Czech sexologists started to research the female orgasm, outpacing most of their colleagues abroad. What triggered their interest in the topic and what exactly did their research focus on? Find out in another part of our mini-series Sex under Communism.
Was Czechoslovakia the first country in the world to have its own sexual revolution? Sociologist Kateřina Lišková, who authored a book called Sexual Liberation, Socialist Style Communist Czechoslovakia and the Science of Desire, wouldn’t go as far as that. However, she says, sexual evolution in Czechoslovakia definitely started earlier than abroad:
“Specifically, in the early 1950s, the female orgasm was being explored in Czechoslovakia, which was unheard of for that time, not only in the surrounding Eastern European countries, but also west of our borders.
“In the West, the female orgasm wasn’t studied until about a decade later. In our country, other progressive things were already happening, like research on homosexuality, the legalization of abortion. So the 1950s in Czechoslovakia were actually very progressive sexually.”
See the rest here.
Author: Libor Kukal