Sex education and the depiction of homosexuality under Khrushchev

Abstract

Building on early Soviet precedents, this chapter delineates the Soviet discourse on homosexuality as reflected in Soviet sex education and advice manuals of the Khrushchev era. Using primarily Russian language sources, it analyses the content of Soviet manuals on ‘sex education’, which were introduced by the Soviet state in the early 1960s. These are unique sources with the potential to shed new light on the discourse on homosexuality and broader issues relating to attitudes towards sex in the Soviet Union.