Abstract

Sex in the Time of Revolution

This article presents information about the books "The Keys to Happiness: Sex and the Search for Modernity in Fin-de-Siécle Russia," by Laura Engelstein and "Sex and Russian Society," edited by Igor Kon and James Riordan. The Keys to Happiness, by Laura Engelstein, and Sex and Russian Society, edited by Igor Kon and James Riordan, look at sex at times of political upheaval. Engelstein has written a scholarly study of Russia's diverse and tolerant pre-revolutionary sexual culture. Kon and Riordan describe Stalinism's obliteration of the Revolution's pluralistic sexual culture and the repressive legacy confronting contemporary Russian society. The "sexual revolution" is today taking place in an environment of social, political, economic and moral crisis. Russian society seems unprepared for the enormous problems.