Having consent as the cornerstone of sexual morals is historically a more recent development, and one that is a direct result of things like those described in the article. The prevailing social and moral order up until the late 1960s used to be a total mess in regards to people's sexuality, it was flat-out illegal to be gay, it was at the very least problematic to have any sexual relationships when you were unmarried, getting a divorce was seen as a disgrace, abortion was entirely illegal about anywhere outside of the USSR, parents here in Germany could even get jailed for allowing their teenage kids to have their gf or bf of the same age stay at their place overnight. At the same time, it was considered to be legally impossible to rape your wife, as being married ment an obligation to be sexually available to your husband. The latter part didn't change until the 1990s.
So it was not only an incredibly repressive climate before the 1960's sexual revolution, it was also, simultaneously, a climate that was oblivious to the restrictions we place upon people's sexuality today. The prevailing progressive stance in the 1960s was a motion to do away with all restrictions on sexuality in their entirity. In many cases, these restrictions where legally intertwined to begin with - legalizing gay sex led to zoophilia becoming legal in Germany for a couple decades, because both zoophilia and male homosexuality were covered by the same law. In their fight against Christian and patriarchal notions of sexual morals, people overthrew both opressive and sensible restrictions, which led to atrocious things like the petition mentioned here, abuse like that described in the article, or a ton of men forcing themselves on women by insisting that they shouldn't be such prudes. The 1970s were a total and utter mess in that regard, a golden age for sex pests.
Our present sexual morals where shaped by reacting to that - people had to realize that "anything goes" leads to enabling abusers. That we needed a regulative for sexuality, just not one that was founded in Christian notions of morality. Fortunately, people found a workable and elegant approach - "anything between consenting partners goes" and that became the new paradigm during the 1980s and 1990s. So the way we think about sex today has only been an established, mainstream thing for two or three decades, and it was a very confused, problematic process to arrive there.
When this or related topics come up, for example when chuds are claiming that the left's sexual permissiveness will lead to a legalization of pedophilia next, this major paradigm shift is always left out, whether deliberately or because they just aren't aware of it. Chuds portray the entire development of sexual ethics as a constant move towards being more and more permissive. When in fact we're at the tail end of a development that went from merely overthrowing an established order of sexual conduct to formulating a new set of ethics to replace it. It's very easy to spot actual or feigned ignorance of that development when somebody both accuses leftists of being pedo enablers and complains about metoo - this proves that somebody either hasn't understood the historic context of our present-day sexual ethics or is wilfully misrepresenting it.
Sorry for hitting you with that wall of text. I could have posted it somewhere else itt, it touches upon a lot of subjects brought up by other posters. I just felt it fit best as a reply to your remark about elements of the prevailing social and moral order.
The 1970s were a total and utter mess in that regard, a golden age for sex pests.
It still kinda is in our present time. The explosion of porn into the mainstream from its previous "weirdos in coats jacking off in theaters" to "everyone does it, even women" have made all sorts of sex pests more prominent. What would have been the reaction in the 1960-1980s to being told, you should go do porn? Probably not good. That's the kind of shit women are told and encouraged from 18 or younger nowadays.
Adultery and divorce were frowned upon in more conservative circles, but also somewhat accepted. People were definitely more offput by someone in their 40s marrying a teenager (apparantly it was not Bukharin, can't remember which Bolshevik it was) than Trotksy's divorce or Lenin's alleged affair. As for consent, no one was ever okay with the police raping their daughters.
Consent is not old. What you are describing was so common with Soviet communists because it was common in Russia back then in general.
My great grandmother was a Pontic Greek who lived in Trabzon. She got married and had her first kid at age 14. It is really shocking when you hear about that today but no one really ever saw it as particularly weird because it was a normal thing in these societies during the first half of the 20th century. In the US, it wasn't until the 1920s that the age of consent was raised to 16-18 in most places.
Consent was not a concern until very recently. The taboo was sex before marriage, not consent. Basically if you were married, you were automatically consenting, and in many cases, you couldn't even consent to getting married.
EDIT: @MagisterSinister did a really good write up about this and how that sort of stuff came to be.
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Bukharin also had a young wife. Can't remember if she was underaged when they were married or not. (Edit: may have been another Bolshevik)
Then Stalin's secret police chief abused his position to rape children.
Remember, some elements of the prevailing social and moral order, like age of consent laws, are actually good.
Having consent as the cornerstone of sexual morals is historically a more recent development, and one that is a direct result of things like those described in the article. The prevailing social and moral order up until the late 1960s used to be a total mess in regards to people's sexuality, it was flat-out illegal to be gay, it was at the very least problematic to have any sexual relationships when you were unmarried, getting a divorce was seen as a disgrace, abortion was entirely illegal about anywhere outside of the USSR, parents here in Germany could even get jailed for allowing their teenage kids to have their gf or bf of the same age stay at their place overnight. At the same time, it was considered to be legally impossible to rape your wife, as being married ment an obligation to be sexually available to your husband. The latter part didn't change until the 1990s.
So it was not only an incredibly repressive climate before the 1960's sexual revolution, it was also, simultaneously, a climate that was oblivious to the restrictions we place upon people's sexuality today. The prevailing progressive stance in the 1960s was a motion to do away with all restrictions on sexuality in their entirity. In many cases, these restrictions where legally intertwined to begin with - legalizing gay sex led to zoophilia becoming legal in Germany for a couple decades, because both zoophilia and male homosexuality were covered by the same law. In their fight against Christian and patriarchal notions of sexual morals, people overthrew both opressive and sensible restrictions, which led to atrocious things like the petition mentioned here, abuse like that described in the article, or a ton of men forcing themselves on women by insisting that they shouldn't be such prudes. The 1970s were a total and utter mess in that regard, a golden age for sex pests.
Our present sexual morals where shaped by reacting to that - people had to realize that "anything goes" leads to enabling abusers. That we needed a regulative for sexuality, just not one that was founded in Christian notions of morality. Fortunately, people found a workable and elegant approach - "anything between consenting partners goes" and that became the new paradigm during the 1980s and 1990s. So the way we think about sex today has only been an established, mainstream thing for two or three decades, and it was a very confused, problematic process to arrive there.
When this or related topics come up, for example when chuds are claiming that the left's sexual permissiveness will lead to a legalization of pedophilia next, this major paradigm shift is always left out, whether deliberately or because they just aren't aware of it. Chuds portray the entire development of sexual ethics as a constant move towards being more and more permissive. When in fact we're at the tail end of a development that went from merely overthrowing an established order of sexual conduct to formulating a new set of ethics to replace it. It's very easy to spot actual or feigned ignorance of that development when somebody both accuses leftists of being pedo enablers and complains about metoo - this proves that somebody either hasn't understood the historic context of our present-day sexual ethics or is wilfully misrepresenting it.
Sorry for hitting you with that wall of text. I could have posted it somewhere else itt, it touches upon a lot of subjects brought up by other posters. I just felt it fit best as a reply to your remark about elements of the prevailing social and moral order.
It still kinda is in our present time. The explosion of porn into the mainstream from its previous "weirdos in coats jacking off in theaters" to "everyone does it, even women" have made all sorts of sex pests more prominent. What would have been the reaction in the 1960-1980s to being told, you should go do porn? Probably not good. That's the kind of shit women are told and encouraged from 18 or younger nowadays.
I found it enlightening. Thanks for posting (and never stop!)
Yeah this is just about a perfect write up.
Adultery and divorce were frowned upon in more conservative circles, but also somewhat accepted. People were definitely more offput by someone in their 40s marrying a teenager (apparantly it was not Bukharin, can't remember which Bolshevik it was) than Trotksy's divorce or Lenin's alleged affair. As for consent, no one was ever okay with the police raping their daughters.
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Bad, even
Consent is not old. What you are describing was so common with Soviet communists because it was common in Russia back then in general.
My great grandmother was a Pontic Greek who lived in Trabzon. She got married and had her first kid at age 14. It is really shocking when you hear about that today but no one really ever saw it as particularly weird because it was a normal thing in these societies during the first half of the 20th century. In the US, it wasn't until the 1920s that the age of consent was raised to 16-18 in most places.
Consent was not a concern until very recently. The taboo was sex before marriage, not consent. Basically if you were married, you were automatically consenting, and in many cases, you couldn't even consent to getting married.
EDIT: @MagisterSinister did a really good write up about this and how that sort of stuff came to be.