Images of 1950s Czechoslovakia often feature show trials, political prisoners, and farm collectivization. Yet, this era also introduced state-sponsored research on sexual satisfaction and the female orgasm. As Kateřina Lišková demonstrates in her meticulously researched monograph, a scientific understanding of human sexuality was an important state goal in 1950s Czechoslovakia.
Lišková examines the experts’ creation of a Czechoslovak communist discourse about sexuality and traces its shifts during the Party's four-decade rule. Reminding readers that the history of sexuality does not always “adhere to a linear narrative of emancipation,” (1) Lišková argues that state ideologies about sexuality became less progressive over time. While Lišková attempts to analyze how individuals received state-sponsored advice on sexuality, her primary interest is expert literature. Sources include government ministry archives and writings by sexologists, gynecologists, psychiatrists, and other professionals.
Following a theoretical and historical background, Lišková’s book proceeds chronologically through state socialism. She presents an overview of expert thinking on marriage, sexual relations, abortion, and homosexuality as well as the creation of scientific and sociological institutes to study sexuality. Chapter 2 discusses the era Lišková calls the long 1950s; Chapter 4 focuses on the Normalization period of the 1970s and 80s. Interspersed with the chronological chapters are two thematic chapters, on the female orgasm (Chapter 3) and on male deviance (Chapter 5).
Why did early communist Czechoslovakia focus its attention on female sexuality? Lišková argues that early communist leaders saw gender equality as a cornerstone of the new society. Citing early socialists, Czechoslovak communists showed that gender inequality emerged from bourgeois concepts of property. Marriage, still considered a building block of the state, would now center on male and female equality. With the postwar need for both workers and children, the state understood that women needed particular support. Not only did more household services like communal kitchens and public laundries become available but men were also reminded to share household and parenting duties.
The emphasis on women's sexual satisfaction emerged from these discussions of marital equality. The female orgasm functioned symbolically in 1950s Czechoslovakia as a sign of equality and population health. Studies on fertility suggested that women who achieved orgasm were more likely to conceive. Czechoslovak scientists studied the mechanics of female orgasm and demonstrated that associated muscular spasms aided sperm motility and conception. Other scientists saw anorgasmia as a neurological, psychological, or sociological phenomenon that could be corrected. Whether treating infertility or sexual dissatisfaction, Czechoslovak doctors and sexologists centered their work on the heterosexual, married couple. The ultimate goal was a stable family structure that supported society's next generation of children.
Lišková’s study shows, however, that the state's goal to increase population failed. During the 1960s and 70s, Czechoslovak experts retreated into a more traditional discourse that emphasized a patriarchal gender hierarchy. Leaders began to fear that 1950s liberal divorce laws, legalization of abortion, and dramatic rise of women in the workforce had slowed population growth to a standstill. As Lišková explains, “motherhood became more valuable than women as producers and wage earners.” (36) Scientists began to focus research on the necessity of mother-child bonding, and a 1963 television documentary, Children without Love, profiled children whose emotional problems stemmed from institutional rather than parental care. Maternity leaves lengthened, and images of dutiful mothers abounded. In the 1970s, the state put tremendous resources into marital counseling and parental education.
The final chapter investigates Czechoslovak experts’ views on male sexual deviance. Lišková shows that sexologists began to view homosexuality as a sexual variation rather than a deviance and argued for decriminalization. However, male violence towards women, homosexual prostitution, and other forms of deviance garnered increasing attention. While Lišková ties this phenomenon to the declining population rate, this chapter does not cohere as well to the rest of the book's focus on marriage, family, and women's changing roles. Despite this, Lišková raises intriguing topics about male sexuality that future scholars can pursue and expand.
The book's focus on scientific and expert literature will appeal to graduate students and academics, rather than an undergraduate or general audience. Gender scholars will appreciate Lišková’s attention to the intersection of state socialism and population politics. East Europeanists will welcome her nuanced depiction of communist Czechoslovakia.
