Lesboseksprosvet (Russia)

Lesbosexprosvet 🇷🇺
Location: Russia
Definition: Lesbian sex education; grassroots initiatives disseminating information about safer sex among queer women in Russia
Keywords: Russia – FSU – Gender – Women – Sexuality – LGBT – Healthcare – Education
Author: Polina Kislitsyna
Affiliation: Department of Anthropology, European University at Saint Petersburg, Russia
Website: Profile page at Academia

By Polina Kislitsyna, Department of Anthropology, European University at Saint Petersburg, Russia

Lesboseksprosvet, an abbreviation for lesbian sex education, refers to grassroots initiatives aimed at disseminating information about safer sex among queer women in Russia. The term was coined in 2017 by one of the key figures in these activities, Sasha Kazantseva. The abbreviation includes three parts: lesbiyskiy (lesbian), seks (sex), and prosvet (enlightenment). Seksprosvet, or ‘sex enlightenment’ (seksual’noe prosveshchenie) has an idiomatic sounding of the twentieth-century revolutionary ‘newspeak’ that emerged in the aftermath of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution and included multiple variations on the theme of political and cultural education of the illiterate masses: politpros, kul’tprosvet and many others. Lesboseksprosvet of the twenty-first century is not associated with any organization, movement or community. "Enlightening" takes place at the grassroot level, through practices of sharing texts, videos, lectures, workshops and other forms of information production, devoted to sexual relationships between women. Thematic range of these activities includes lesbian healthcare, protection against sexually transmitted infections (STIs), psychological safety in sexual relations, diversity of sexual practices and preferences, and sexual consent.

There is no formal sex education in contemporary Russia. The Soviet youth learned about sex informally: from their peers, through courtyard games and childish folklore, as well as classical art representation of nude bodies and sexual scenes (Rotkirch 2000). In tune with the Soviet morals, the theme of sexuality remains tabooed, and politicized. Late Soviet publications on sexual relationships linked sexuality solely with marriage and reproduction (Temkina 2009). In the post-Soviet period, the discourse on sexuality became somewhat liberalized and less censored. Some gynaecologists engaged in the preventive dissemination of information about STIs, mainly in response to a sharp peak in the STIs since the collapse of the USSR. At the same time, most of them called for sexual abstinence before marriage as a way of protection against STIs and unwanted pregnancy. Medical discourse about sexuality still included the concept of moral purity inherited from the Soviet Past (Rivkin-Fish 1999, 2009). 

In the 1990-2000s, there were ongoing debates on school sex education. The opponents stated that sex education implies seduction of children and promotion of Western values. Sexual counselling at the time contained gender stereotyping and avoided any discussion of complicated topics including homosexuality (Snarskaya 2009). Although the subject of homosexuality began to emerge in public discourse in the 1990s, those mentions had little to do with educational information. Set-up in 1989, a monthly newspaper SPEED-Info (AIDS-Info), aimed at disseminating information about AIDS and safer sex, was mainly focused on heterosexual relations, despite the predominant risk group was homosexuals. In the small sample of publications on homosexuality, the phenomenon was referred to as something forbidden, shameful, disgusting, or, at least, obscene (Attwood 1996). Therefore, sex education in Russia was exclusively heteronormative.

The 2013 ban of propaganda of non-traditional relations among minors, adopted as the federal law, hinders dissemination of any information about homosexuality in Russia. Besides, doctors and psychologists do not pursue specific expertise of working with LGBT. In some cases, these specialists themselves appear to be a source of homophobia spreading. They do not follow international standards and do not disseminate relevant information on sexuality. In such conditions, it is hard to get knowledge about sex or sexual health for queers.

Nonetheless, as in many other countries, there are non-governmental organizations and communities that prevent HIV infection spread and support people in Russia. Some of these organisations work with men who have sex with men, so information about safer sex between men and their healthcare does circulate in some ways in Russia. Yet, even organisations working with marginalized groups seem to reproduce gender inequality by not channelling similar information for women who have sex with women. This issue is not exclusively typical for Russia: in the USA, the UK and Australia the same problems are highlighted by researchers (Richardson 2000, Power, McNair, Carr 2009). Lesbians and bisexual women tend to be excluded from dominant discourses on sexual health risk. Furthermore, sex between women is often believed to be safe, as it does not involve potentially dangerous penetration and does not require contraception. Research on this problematic in Russia is limited, but some reports by the media and safe sex activists suggest that even doctors are often ignorant of the need to protect against STIs for lesbians.

Lesboseksprosvet practices of sex education for queer women have emerged online. One of the first in this respect was the blog Washed hands (Pomyla ruki) on Telegram, a messenger and blogging platform, that was created by Sasha Kazantseva in 2017. The title of the blog reflects the irony in associating safety of lesbian sex with simple rules of hand hygiene. The blog has a limited number of followers: just over 25,000 by 2020. In her interviews, Kazantseva points to the shortage of information on lesbian sex and healthcare in Russia as the major drive for her activities. As an influencer in the online community, she started running workshops and lectures in St.Petersburg and Moscow and pursue the offline format in other big cities in Russia. Due to Kazantseva’s efforts, but not exclusively, lesbian sex education has developed in both virtual and real Russian queer communities. In 2020, there were more than 30 blogs on different platforms (Instagram, Telegram, and YouTube etc.) and about 20 YouTube videos that discuss lesbian sexuality and health in Russian. This may seem like a small number, but this kind of information was largely inaccessible a few years ago. As the idea of women’s sex health become more accepted, more bloggers, who write about sex in general, bring up specific lesbosexprosvet issues. Notably, the amount of bloggers is increasing. In the continuing absence of formal sex education and growing censorship, independent bloggers and media assume the role of information providers and disseminators of good practices.

Kazantseva and other protagonists of lesboseksprosvet raise awareness of healthcare among queer women. On all platforms and in all formats, they channel advice on the means of barrier contraception that can be used for sexual contact between women and where they can be found. For example, since dental dams used as protection in oral sex are hard to find in Russian shops, they provide instructions of making them from a common latex condom and using sheets of latex instead. Health advice, such as regular visits to a gynaecologist and testing for STIs are common, supplied with details of lesbian-friendly gynaecologists. Yet physical safety in sex is not the only concern of lesboseksprosvet. It also promotes psychological safety and mental health agenda, which include necessity of sexual consent, discussion of one’s sexual preferences with partners, and possible risks. Thus, establishing a language to describe various sexual techniques and methods of masturbation used by queer women is an essential part of this novel discourse. 

In addition to immediate sex education, the goals of lesboseksprosvet are to enhance visibility of queer women, legitimize lesbian sexuality, and gradually expand the discursive space allotted to them, even if these goals are not expressed in those very words by its protagonists. This is achieved through the conceptualization of lesbian sex as part of medical discourse. The case of lesboseksprosvet may be considered as self-medicalization by subjects excluded from the medical control, in bottom-up initiative of those who seek to become objects of healthcare (Conrad 2007). Therefore, the medicalization of sexual relations between women appears to be a way to normalize them.

Importantly, the grassroots initiatives of lesboseksprosvet create multiple platforms and network-based alternatives to official medicine where queer women could solve their health problems, get information about lesbian sexuality, and not feel excluded. Some LGBT and feminist organizations, independent media, and even private medical clinics support initiatives related to lesboseksprosvet, but it remains short of institutional support and largely confined to a grassroots solidarity in resisting the predominant climate of ignorance and homophobia. 

References

Attwood, L. 1996. ‘Young People, Sex and Sexual identity’, in H. Pilkington (ed.), Gender, Generation and Identity in Contemporary Russia. London and New York: Routledge: 103-128

Conrad, P. 2007. The Medicalization of Society. Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press

Power, J., McNair, R., and Carr, S. 2009. ‘Absent Sexual Scripts: Lesbian and Bisexual Women’s Knowledge, Attitudes and Action Regarding Safer Sex and Sexual Health Information’, Culture, Health & Sexuality, 11(1): 67-81

Richardson, D. 2000. ‘The Social Construction of Immunity: HIV Risk Perception and Prevention among Lesbians and Bisexual Women’, Culture, Health & Sexuality, 2(1): 33-49

Rivkin-Fish M., Samokhvalov V. 2009. ‘Seksual’noe obrazovanie i razvitie lichnosti: pereosmyslenie professional’noy vlasti’ [Sexual Education and Personal Development: Rethinking of Professional Power], in E. Zdravomyslova, A.Temkina (eds.), Zdorov’e i Doverie: Gendernyi Podkhod k Reproduktivnoy Meditsine [Health and Trust: Gender Approach to Reproductive Medicine]. Saint Petersburg: EU SP Press: 21-50

Rivkin-Fish, M. 1999. ‘Sexuality Education in Russia: Defining Pleasure and Danger for a Fledgling Democratic Society’, Social Science & Medicine, 49(6): 801-814

Rotkirch, A. 2000. The Man Question: Loves and Lives in Late 20th Century Russia. Helsinki: University of Helsinki, Department of Social Policy

Snarskaya, O. 2009. ‘Seksual’noe obrazovanie kak sfera proizvodstva gendernykh razlichiy i kostruirovaniya predstavleniy o ‘natsii’’ [Sexual Education as Reproduction of Gender Differences and Construction of Conceptions of ‘Nation’], in E. Zdravomyslova, A.Temkina (eds.), Zdorov’e i Doverie: Gendernyi Podkhod k Reproduktivnoy Meditsine [Health and Trust: Gender Approach to Reproductive Medicine]. Saint Petersburg: EU SP Press: 51-89

Temkina, A. 2009. ‘Polovoe prosveshchenie kak moral’noe vospitanie (Pozdnesovetskie diskursy o seksualnosti)’ [Sexual Education as Moral Upbringing (Late Soviet Discourses of Sexuality)], in E. Zdravomyslova, A.Temkina (eds.), Zdorov’e i Doverie: Gendernyi Podkhod k Reproduktivnoy Meditsine [Health and Trust: Gender Approach to Reproductive Medicine]. Saint Petersburg: EU SP Press: 90-107