Sorokin on the societal effects of licentiousness

"Among several studies of the forms of sexual life among preliterate groups, I. D. Unwin’s Sex and Culture (Oxford University Press, 1934) is possibly the most important...

Carefully analyzing a large sample of the rites and beliefs of preliterate and historical peoples, Unwin f‌inds four great patterns of human culture: (1) Zoistic culture, the most primitive, which has no temples, no priests, no post-funeral rites, no rites denoting the im- portant crises of human life, as well as no clear or elaborate beliefs in the powers operating the universe; (2) Manistic culture, which has post-funeral and some other rites and a sort of vague belief in the higher powers; (3) Deistic culture, which has temples, priests, elaborate post-funeral and other rites, and a fairly coherent system of beliefs in the higher powers of the universe; (4) Rationalistic culture, which has a well-developed and logical system of conceptions about the universe and its powers, and a rationalistic set of rites or ceremonies marking the important events of both individual and social life; only the peoples of the last development are strictly "cultural". The Zoistic, Manistic, Deistic and Rationalistic types are shown by Unwin to be related to several other cultural and social conditions...

Reduction of sexual freedom is accompanied by a rise in cultural creativity. Among 59 preliterate societies investigated, in those where the young men and women were permitted pre—nuptial freedom, their mentality tends to be shaped into a Zoistic mould. If they are compelled to accept occasional continence, their mentality is moulded into a Deistic form. Finally, if besides prenuptial continence, monogamic faithfulness is required, especially from women, the mentality of the society tends to become Rationalistic.

Civilized societies which have most strictly limited sexual freedom have developed the highest cultures. In the whole of human history not a single case is found in which a society advanced to the Rationalistic culture without its women being born and reared in a rigidly enforced pattern of faithfulness to one man. Further, there is no example of a community which has retained its high position on the cultural scale after less rigorous sexual customs have replaced more restricting ones. Thus, when under the inf‌luence of Christianity the sexual freedom of the Teutonic tribes was limited, this restriction was one of the most important forces affecting subsequent cultural progress. And when the polygamous Moors in Spain married monogamus Christian and Jewish women, they progressed from a Deistic to a partly Rationalistic culture...

With the expansion and growth of these societies, however, the stern regulations of sex relationships were progressively replaced by weaker ones. Sexual freedom widened until it encompassed the whole society, and eventually turned into anarchy. Wives and children were emancipated from the absolute power of the pater familiar, and their newly won equality brought with it sexual freedom. Within three generations from the moment of signif‌icant expansion of sexual freedom, the cultural and social creativity of these societies began to decline.

This lag between the development of sex freedom and the decline of creativity is due to the fact that the younger generations need time to be “educated” in the new patterns of behavior. Thereafter, the decline proceeds hand in hand with the expansion of sex freedom. However, if the sex anarchy is checked, and replaced by new restrictions, the process of decline may be halted and within a century or so, may be replaced by a cultural and social renaissance. When it is not checked, the decline of the societies soon becomes irreversible and leads to their historical degeneration...

Evidence [on sexual degeneracy ruining society] is supplied by experiments in Soviet Russia in the 1920’s and by the degeneration of many preliterate colonial peoples.

Most instructive is undoubtedly the radical attempt of the Soviets to eliminate “capitalistic" monogamy and to establish complete sexual freedom as a cornerstone of the Communist economic and social regime.

During the f‌irst stage of the Revolution, its leaders deliberately attempted to destroy marriage and the family. Free love was glorif‌ied by the off‌icial "glass of water” theory: if a person is thirsty, so went the Party line, it is immaterial what glass he uses when satisfying his thirst; it is equally unimportant how he, satisf‌ies his sex hunger. The legal distinction between marriage and casual sexual intercourse was abolished. The Communist law spoke only of "contracts" between males and females for the satisfaction of their desires either for an indef‌inite or a def‌inite period,--a year, a month, a week, or even for a single night. One could marry and divorce as many times as desired. Husband or wife could obtain a divorce without the other being notif‌ied. It was not even necessary that "marriages” be registered. Bigamy and even polygamy were permissible under the new pro- visions. Abortion was facilitated in state institutions. Premarital relations were praised, and extramarital rela- tions were considered normal.

The old pragmatic test: "By their fruits ye shall know them", provides the answer to the question whether this sex freedom was practical.

Within a few years, hordes of wild, homeless children became a real menace to the Soviet Union itself. Millions of lives, especially of young girls, were wrecked; divorces skyrocketed, as also did abortions. The hatreds and conf‌licts among polygamous and polyandrous mates rapidly mounted,—and so did psychoneuroses. Work in the nationalized factories slackened.

The total results were so appalling that the government was forced to reverse its policy. The propaganda of “the glass of water” theory was declared to be counter-revolutionary, and its place was taken by of‌icial glorification of premarital chastity and of the sanctity of marriage. Abortion was prohibited except, since 1945, in exceptional conditions involving the health of the mother or similar considerations. The liberty of divorce was radically curtailed; by the decree of July 14, 1944, it was made impossible for the vast majority of citizens. By now the cycle has been completed, and a slight relaxation of this too severe repression of sex is making it moderately normal. Soviet Russia today has a more monogamic, stable, and Victorian family and marriage life than do most of the Western countries.

Considering that the whole cycle occurred under a single regime, the experiment is highly informative. It clearly shows the destructive consequences of unlimimd sex freedom, especially in regard to creative growth. In the period from 1918 to 1926, when that freedom was fostered, the Soviet government was preoccupied with destructive work, and the imprisoned Russian nation was unable to achieve much in the task of positive reorganization or creative cultural growth.

After 1930, when the task of curbing sex freedom was essentially accomplished, the destructive activities of the government began to subside, and its constructive work gained momentum. Increasingly fruitful were the efforts toward industrialization and economic growth, the building of the armed forces, the rapid development of schools, hospitals, and research institutes, the fostering of the physical and even the social sciences, and of the humanities. There followed a renaissance of the f‌ine arts and literature, a notable decrease of the previous persecution of religion, and a restoration and glorif‌ication of the great national values of Russia, which had in the preceding period been villified by the Communist regime."

--- The American Sex Revolution / Pitirim Sorokin, p. 109-115


More on Sorokin:

Critic of the Sensate Culture: Rediscovering the Genius of Pitirim Sorokin - Intercollegiate Studies Institute: Think. Live Free.


Article on Soviet sexual freedom:

How sexual revolution exploded (and imploded) across 1920s Russia (PHOTOS) - Russia Beyond

"Ideologically, sexual liberation was one of the key weapons in fighting Orthodoxy, and the old order in general. Among early Bolsheviks, the key propagandist of a new family order was Alexandra Kollontai, Russian revolutionary and later, a diplomat. There’s a popular theory often attributed to Kollontai – that of the ‘glass of water.’ It states that love (and consequently, sex) should be available to anyone as easily as asking for a glass of water. This, however, is a gross oversimplification of Kollontai’s idea.

Kollontai promoted a concept of the ‘new woman’ – one freed from the oppression of marriage, household work and the business of raising children; all these chores must be taken on by society and state. They would take on children’s education (including sexual), urge a move toward a nationwide catering industry, collective housing, foster care and so on. For Kollontai, love was to be freed, too – civil partnership would take the place of traditional marriage.

Obviously, Bolsheviks were building their policy on family along the most progressive lines – something that would not be seen in the West for decades. However, the onus was now on the individual, and such all-encompassing freedom was simply too much for the agricultural, barely urbanized Russian society of the 1920s.

“On the abolition of marriage” and “On civil partnership, children and ownership” were among the first decrees of the Soviets in 1918. Church weddings were abolished, civil partnership introduced. Divorce was a matter of choice. Abortions were legalized. All of that implied a total liberation of family and sexual relations. This heralded the beginning of the raunchiest epoch in recent Russian history.

A relaxed attitude to nudism was a a vivid sign of the times: on the bank of the Moskva river, near the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, a nude beach formed, the likes of which Western Europe could not have dreamed of at the time. The aforementioned “Down With Shame!” society had held numerous marches, one numbering as many as 10,000 people. Alexander Trushnovich, a monarchist, recalls (link in Russian) one of their gatherings: “‘Down with philistines! Down with deceiving priests! We don’t need clothes – we’re children of the sun and air!’ – a naked spokesman was shouting from a stage in Krasnodar’s main square. Walking past this place in the evening, I saw the stage dismantled... and somebody beat up the ‘child of sun and air’”.

All of these wild developments had been taking place while Russia was still in the midst of the World War, as well as the Civil War. Amnesties in 1917, 1919, 1920 and beyond freed a great many criminals in a country where state power had only begun to form. The masses of criminals were joined by defecting and discharged soldiers.

Rape by 1920s has become an epidemic. Quite strikingly, sexual violence towards former noble and bourgeois women was for a time even considered “class justice” among the proletarian males. Meanwhile, up to 20 percent of Russia’s male population had carried sexually-transmitted diseases (although in Tsarist Russia in the beginning of the century, the numbers were 25-27%). New laws on marriage and the overall atmosphere of breaking with the past encouraged promiscuity and casual approach to sex, unthinkable just years ago.

Soviet society was breeding a dangerous generation of homeless orphans – official reports indicate that, by 1923, half of the children born in Moscow had been conceived out of wedlock, and many of them were abandoned in infancy. The pendulum of sexual revolution had to swing back – and if it didn’t, it had to be pulled forcibly.

Already in the first half of 1920s, when sexual liberation was still in full swing, the Soviets had set about promoting traditional values… again.

In 1924, psychiatrist Aron Salkind publishes ‘12 Sexual Commandments of the Revolutionary Proletariat’, that read “love must be monogamous”, “sexual intercourse must only be the final link in the chain of deep and complicated feelings connecting two people in love”.

Even as “Down With Shame!” were parading naked through the Moscow streets, People’s Commissar of Public Health Nikolay Semashko wrote that such behaviour “must be most categorically condemned… At a time when capitalistic monstrosities like prostitution and hooliganism are not yet eliminated, nudity aids immorality… That is why I consider absolutely necessary to stop this disgrace at once, with repressive methods, if needed...”

Soviet leaders did not want the population to squander its energy on self-gratification anymore. Severe austerity and cutbacks were introduced. Women’s rights groups were in decline. Moreover, the women themselves now barely had any reason for the education the feminists had so desperately fought for: no sooner had the woman been freed from the traditional, patriarchal society the Bolsheviks sought to remove that she was being brought back into the kitchen, having to cook for her worker husband; meanwhile, factory rations were already being redistributed, which made home cooking a necessity. Kollontai’s “new woman” was new for just about a decade.

Now, the family was once more the basic unit of society. Decrees were reversed one after another. Finally, by 1934, homosexuality had been re-criminalized, and a ban on abortion reintroduced (1936). This did not lead to a reduction of the free woman’s propaganda value, of course. Because now, she could “do it all” – perform the communist task of forging the revolution, while also being a mother, wife, cook and cleaner.

For decades to come, sexuality and erotica would be completely shunned by Soviet culture and society – and considering this, it is no wonder Russian society had become so hypocritical about sex. The next sexual revolution would take place only in 1990s. "