SEXUAL BEHAVIOR IN THE COMMUNIST WORLD

Writer: Peter Stafford
Τitle: Sexual Behavior in the Communist World
Subtitle: An Eyewitness Report of Life, Love and the Human Condition Behind the Iron Curtain
Introduction: Peter Stafford
Language: English
Place of Publication: New York
Publisher: The Julian Press, Inc.
Year of Publication: 1967
Format: 160x240mm
Pages: 335 (287+48 single colour illustrated supplement)
Illustrations: 122 black and white plates, pictures, drawings, cartoons and film stills)
Jacket Design: Ronald Clyne
Binding: Boards in duotone jacket
Weight: 762gr.
Entry No: 2009037
Date of Entry: 26th May 2009

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Never yet has such a revealing account been written of the emotional consequences of living under a Communist regime. Imprisoned women turned over to psychopaths, love suppressed, love lives and marriages as expressions of political opportunities, and the denial of love for the service of state propaganda are only a few of the topics covered in this sweeping survey of sexual attitudes and practices behind the Iron Curtain.

Peter Stafford, a journalist fluent in most European and Asiatic languages, tells from first-hand experience and documented reports of sado-masochistic horrors, dehumanizing, repression and pockets of sexual freedom in that part of the world that has become, to most of us in the West, almost like the dark side of the moon.

Here we learn of prison tortures, political use of sex, wild parties, vestigial secret rites, women raping men, poems of the human heart, even a short story of the universal encounter of a man and a woman in an affair. Here too are the private lives of people at all levels of society under Communism, far more telling than anything we as yet have seen.

A partial summary includes: BULGARIA: The jet set of the Golden Sands. RUSSIA: The land of total hypocrisy in sex. CZECHOSLOVAKIA: The “little Marys.” RUMANIA: Main supply depot for Communist brothels, male and female. POLAND: The most liberal Communist country in regard to sex. CHINA: Human feelings crushed to produce robots for the good of the state. HUNGARY: Tortures in Hungarian prisons; Budapest, the sexiest city in the Communist world. YUGOSLAVIA: The dolce vita of the Dalmation littoral.

Encompassing the period from 1917 to 1967, the structure of the book is threefold:

* The official attitude to sex, the various changes throughout the Communist regimes from puritanism to extreme tolerance (legalized abortion, non-formal marriage, very fast divorce). Sex as a weapon of Communist policy. The Central Register of Blackmail (homosexuals, sexual aberrants, nymphos, satyriasis addicts, etc.).

* Sexual attitudes and practices in the Communist countries as expressed through literature. Extracts from books, plays, short stories, etc., including miniature articles of material never before translated.

* Sexual attitudes in the visual arts‒including the cinema. How sex is influencing painting, sculpture, movies, and television in the Communist countries.