Thread: Is this really genuine..."In the USSR we don't have sex"

Originally Posted by ac220

Re political implications. Ребят, давайте жить дружно.

Yeah, I probably spend too much time in the political section of this forum...

А в Иране, условия совсем другие. Там секс вообще бывает, но существует суровый дефицит гомо-секса. (Или так утвердил президент Ахмадинежад, выступая с речью у ООН!)

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

А в Иране_ (no comma) условия совсем другие. Там секс вообще бывает

Как? И в Иране бывает???

но существует суровый дефицит гомо-секса. (Или так утверждал президент Ахмадинежад, выступая с речью в ООН!)

Он признался, что чувствует дефицит гомо-секса?

(What you wrote means they in Iran need and miss that kind of sex).

[quote=Оля]

Originally Posted by "Throbert McGee":anj7v2ll

но существует суровый дефицит гомо-секса. (Или так утверждал президент Ахмадинежад, выступая с речью в ООН!)

Он признался, что чувствует дефицит гомо-секса?

(What you wrote means they in Iran need and miss that kind of sex).[/quote:anj7v2ll]

That was my intended meaning -- I love it when I try to be humorous in Russian, and actually succeed!

His actual statement was something like "We do not have homosexuals in Iran" -- and naturally he was ridiculed in many American newspapers for (apparently) being naive enough and/or insane enough to believe the statistically absurd claim that no Persian man has ever played with another man's "horseradish" .

But in fact, what he probably wanted to express was something closer to "We don't have your type of homosexuals in Iran". In other words, that the modern phenomenon of people being "openly gay" and having Gay Pride Parades and other American/Western manifestations of homosexuality is something alien to Iran's culture. (And when I say "alien," I mean that in Ahmadinejad's mind, it's not merely чужой-alien, but totally инопланетянский-alien!)

So anyway, the explanation that the word секс, back in Soviet days, had strongly negative associations with whores and pornography, reminded me of the Ahmadinejad speech to the UN.

Originally Posted by Crocodile

Originally Posted by ac220

Re political implications. Ребят, давайте жить дружно.

Yeah, I probably spend too much time in the political section of this forum...

I should be BANNED from the Political forum. Seriously!
Is that possible Lampada?

It is distracting me from studying Russian!

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

the modern phenomenon of people being "openly gay" and having Gay Pride Parades and other American/Western manifestations of homosexuality is something alien to Iran's culture. (And when I say "alien," I mean that in Ahmadinejad's mind, it's not merely чужой-alien, but totally инопланетянский-alien!)

All that can be also said about Russia. Maybe not as strongly as in Iran, but this kind of "freedom" is alien to us in Russia.

So anyway, the explanation that the word секс, back in Soviet days, had strongly negative associations with whores and pornography, reminded me of the Ahmadinejad speech to the UN.

Well... I can confess that I don't like this word either, although I live nowadays, and I am not 50 y.o. or more.

Originally Posted by Оля

Well... I can confess that I don't like this word either, although I live nowadays, and I am not 50 y.o. or more.

I don't know what type of common swear words exist in Russian.. Whether they are "sexual" or "religious". Where I come from they are religious: Related to profanity and the Devil. There are hardly no sexual swear words, and those who exist are considered INCREDIBLY rude. Most people would never use them, including men.

It is SO disturbing to hear people swear with sexual words if you are not used to it.... There is some kind of politeness rule in the UK of not swearing in front of women (for men). But many men ignore that.

You don't really experience that until you live in an English speaking country because it doesn't happen in films or English speaking TV programs, or even in music.

It was a shock and I really dislike it.

Originally Posted by Johanna

You don't really experience that until you live in an English speaking country because it doesn't happen in films or English speaking TV programs, or even in music.

Almost in every English speaking film I've watched in my life I heared actors absolutely freely use the word 'f..k' a lot of times during the film. EVEN from women and CHILDREN. As an example, just remember the film 'Love Actually' (which is considered quite a 'good-feeling' film, as far as I know). The only one where I didn't hear this word was 'The Perfume', I think. So I 100% know that Russian swear words which have the same meaning are MUCH ruder than English because you hardly ever hear them in Russian films from famous and respected actors' lips. When an English speaking character in a movie is floating in a boat and suddenly sees reefs ahead, he can easily exclaim, "Oh f...!" A Russian character in a film would never say a 'mat' word in a situation like that. He would exclaim "Чёрт!", or say anything else, but never something of mat (I repeat, I mean films).

Originally Posted by Johanna

It is SO disturbing to hear people swear with sexual words if you are not used to it.... There is some kind of politeness rule in the UK of not swearing in front of women (for men). But many men ignore that.

Throbert McGee!! Welcome to Master Russian.

You don't really experience that until you live in an English speaking country because it doesn't happen in films or English speaking TV programs, or even in music.

ok... way off topic now, but I have enjoyed reading this thread!!



Johanna... there have been two people who I met at different times and very different locations (one West Coast (Hollywood) and one East Coast - Florida) who just both happen to be British males. Each of them had the same verbal habit of saying the word f**k after almost every other word.

"I was f**king late today because I got a f**king ticket on the f**king freeway from the f**king cop for f**king going 10 f**king miles over the f**king speed limit f**king sh*t."

Neither one of them cared who was around when they spoke. Old ladies in their "f**king" 80s could have been next to them and it would not have made a difference. The first time I heard this I was just a babe in the woods, I had never heard anyone speak like that. No cursing in my universe! Then it became a sort of game with everyone...we would count how many times he could say the word in one sentence.

I'm a fan of cursing when people can use it creatively. See Roddy Doyle The Barrytown Series.

Originally Posted by rockzmom

Neither one of them cared who was around when they spoke. Old ladies in their "f**king" 80s could have been next to them and it would not have made a difference...

Jazz (rockzmom, for those who don’t know), that was f**king A plus funny!
Then I imagined what old "f**king" ladies in their 80s would be in Russian. Wicked!

Originally Posted by Johanna

Originally Posted by Оля

Well... I can confess that I don't like this word either, although I live nowadays, and I am not 50 y.o. or more.

I don't know what type of common swear words exist in Russian.. Whether they are "sexual" or "religious". Where I come from they are religious: Related to profanity and the Devil. There are hardly no sexual swear words, and those who exist are considered INCREDIBLY rude. Most people would never use them, including men.

It is SO disturbing to hear people swear with sexual words if you are not used to it.... There is some kind of politeness rule in the UK of not swearing in front of women (for men). But many men ignore that.

You don't really experience that until you live in an English speaking country because it doesn't happen in films or English speaking TV programs, or even in music.

It was a shock and I really dislike it.

Swear words in America are much more casual now than they used to be. It seems the generation before me would swear only when mad, my generation swears as normal casual conversation. Example: If I see a friend I haven't seen for a long time I can say "what the f*ck have you been up to?"

This phrase became known by, probably, every Soviet person of that time:
"В СССР секса нет..."
As far as I can remember (I've seen that TV bridge and I was 14-15 years old), the lady, who said these words, stressed the word for "sex" and spoke it in the same way, one speaks about rather dirty issues. Again, as far as I remember, she probably meant adult movies, magazines and so on. The phrase about love was added (if it was added at all), in order to make it sound not that comically.

Welcome to the forum Dmitry.
At least someone who actually watched the programme!

I don't know anything about this, but I might have said the exact same thing as she did! I often speak before considering exactly how it comes out...

She probably thought it was a slightly insulting question about her country and just wanted to say "there is no pornograhy here!".

When someone asks a question like that, the best answer is probably "none of your business!" or "better than you could imagine in your wildest dreams".

(I guess there must have been porn in the USSR though, but probably harder to get hold of, instead of sold everywhere... [good in my opinion])

Originally Posted by Johanna

Welcome to the forum Dmitry.
At least someone who actually watched the programme!

I don't know anything about this, but I might have said the exact same thing as she did! I often speak before considering exactly how it comes out...

She probably thought it was a slightly insulting question about her country and just wanted to say "there is no pornograhy here!".

When someone asks a question like that, the best answer is probably "none of your business!" or "better than you could imagine in your wildest dreams".

(I guess there must have been porn in the USSR though, but probably harder to get hold of, instead of sold everywhere... [good in my opinion])

Well, there were numerous people who claimed that they had seen it, including me. But yes, this account and one by Полуношник are the most lucid ones.

Regarding your feelings and interpretation, - yes, that's pretty much it. Even if the original question wasn't about that, that's the most probable way it was understood.

As for the best ways to respond to something like that... If only we all were that witty in public... /Sighs, remembers his own ill-considered lines. None on the live TV, fortunately. /

Originally Posted by ac220

Originally Posted by Johanna

...
(I guess there must have been porn in the USSR though, but probably harder to get hold of, instead of sold everywhere... [good in my opinion])

Well, there were numerous people who claimed that they had seen it, including me.

А я сначала подумала, что это ответ про порнографию.

Originally Posted by Оля

Originally Posted by ac220

Originally Posted by Johanna

...
(I guess there must have been porn in the USSR though, but probably harder to get hold of, instead of sold everywhere... [good in my opinion])

Well, there were numerous people who claimed that they had seen it, including me.

А я сначала подумала, что это ответ про порнографию.

Мда. Режь цитаты, не режь, всё равно возникают неудобства в чтении...

Originally Posted by Оля

Originally Posted by Johanna

You don't really experience that until you live in an English speaking country because it doesn't happen in films or English speaking TV programs, or even in music.

Almost in every English speaking film I've watched in my life I heard actors absolutely freely use the word 'f..k' a lot of times during the film. EVEN from women and CHILDREN. [...] So I 100% know that Russian [s:qr4i8kpv]swear[/s:qr4i8kpv] cuss words which have the same meaning are MUCH ruder than English because you hardly ever hear them in Russian films from famous and respected actors' lips.

Оля -- first, as a quick note: in colloquial US English, "to cuss" or "to use cuss words" is a more natural-sounding way to express "ругаться" or "говорить матом". ("Cuss" was originally a rural dialect pronunciation of "curse", and rhymes with "bus" -- so one could phonetically spell it as кас in Cyrillic.) In formal contexts, of course, one can say "to swear" or "to use obscenities" or "to use profanities".

Second, the "de-taboo-ing" of cuss words is a relatively recent phenomenon here in America -- for example, when I was in high school in the late 1980s, a film could get an "R" rating if the word "f--k" was used only twice in the entire movie! And a decade earlier than that, one appearance of "the F-word" was sufficient for an "R" rating. (NB: "rated R" означает, что вход в кинотеатр без родителей запрещен детям, до 17 лет.)

Между прочим, как я уже объяснял где-то на форуме, мой папа служил военным, точнее в "Marines". И на основе таких фильмов, как Full Metal Jacket (в котором актер Р. Ли Эрми, играющий в роле сурового саржанта, показывает зрителям как использовать "английский мат" на уровне художественного мастера), люди представляют, что мой папа тоже всегда ругался матом. Но это совсем не так -- во всей моей жизни, я услышил у него "мат" лишь два раза -- именно фразы "goddamnit" и "that's b_llsh_t!"

I simply mean to say that, although you might get a different impression from Hollywood movies, many English speakers remain very conservative about using cuss words.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

Second, the "de-taboo-ing" of cuss words is a relatively recent phenomenon here in America -- for example, when I was in high school in the late 1980s, a film could get an "R" rating if the word "f--k" was used only twice in the entire movie! And a decade earlier than that, one appearance of "the F-word" was sufficient for an "R" rating. (NB: "rated R" означает, что вход в кинотеатр без родителей запрещен детям, до 17 лет.)

Well, you know, what is the difference between US and Soviet/Russia films? Mat words are just never used in our films, not "twice", or "once", but just never. Okay, let's say this "never" means 99% because there are some exceptions, of course; but in the films where 'mat' was used that I can recall now, those words were exceptionally indispensable for the artistic concept of the film, and for the director's message. For example, some 'mat' words are used in the film "Любовник" (2002); concretely, the word "б...ь". But the main character used this word not as a curse, but in its original meaning (a woman who is a prostitute); he calls that way his wife who was unfaithful to him.
There is another film with a 'famous' scene where a character is cursing with 'mat' word during several minutes; that scene made even a scandal of some kind if we can call such a trifle a scandal in today's Russia. But then again, this character has a strong stress, he lost his temper and is being in hysterics. If he would have remembered that he didn't turn off the electric iron at home, he would never say anything of mat (in a Russian movie).

Между прочим, как я уже объяснял где-то на форуме, мой папа служил военным, точнее в "Marines". И на основе таких фильмов, как Full Metal Jacket (в котором актер Р. Ли Эрми, играющий [s:15v46e0r]в роле[/s:15v46e0r] сурового сержанта, показывает зрителям, как использовать "английский мат" на уровне художественного мастерства), люди представляют, что мой папа тоже всегда ругался матом. Но это совсем не так -- [s:15v46e0r]во всей моей жизни,[/s:15v46e0r] (and no comma) за всю свою жизнь я услышал [s:15v46e0r]у[/s:15v46e0r] от него "мат" лишь два раза -- а именно фразы "goddamnit" и "that's b_llsh_t!"

I simply mean to say that, although you might get a different impression from Hollywood movies, many English speakers remain very conservative about using cuss words.

You know, most of the movies I meant were not American, Hollywood movies; they mostly were English (British)

Olya, what you are saying is probably true for Soviet films, but I cannot say that I didn't hear swearing in the modern movies. At first, swearwords appeared in books (to my amazement I discovered one day that Pushkin himself too knew all these words ). Then these words have slowly saturated onto the screens. When they are shown on TV, these words are censored of course, but then again - this doesn't happen always. The original sound (on a DVD, for example) contain everything in its 'uncensored' form.