Thread: The views of Russians, according to the "Pew Institute". True or false?

Originally Posted by xdns

By the way, here is one curious thing: seems that anti-homosexual laws always targeted men only (мужеложество), whereas lesbianism was not punished by the law. Why the bias?

Because in Victorian times when most of these laws were at their height women were not considered to have any sexuality at all. They certainly weren't suposed to enjoy sex. They were to lie back and think of England.

Plus to a hetrosexual man two women together is not automatically a turn off. Whereas, the thought of another man, doing that, touching them there, well, that's just icky. They know that's wrong. And men write the laws.

Originally Posted by sarah37

Because in Victorian times when most of these laws were at their height women were not considered to have any sexuality at all. They certainly weren't suposed to enjoy sex. They were to lie back and think of England.

There's some truth to that, Sarah, but the legal reality was more complicated. Anti-sodomy laws existed for many centuries before Queen Victoria came along, and to some degree they were rooted in the wording of the Bible: "If a man lies down with a man as with a woman..., Leviticus 20:13" (Note that euphemistic expression "lying down with a man" is the origin of the Russian word for sodomy: мужеложество.)

Also, the Victorian British were, in some ways, progressives on matters of sex and the law -- at least in the sense that they preferred to treat homosexuality and prostitution and other "sexual offenses" as social/medical problems that could be treated with compassionate, rational Science, instead of being condemned as sins against God.

Going back to the case of Oscar Wilde -- as I said above, he was officially jailed for oral sex with men, since the government was unable to prove anal sex.

And yet there was more to it than that: early in his trial, when the public only knew about Wilde's homosexual affairs with other upper-class gentlemen "of his own station", there was a surprising amount of public sympathy for him. Because the educated, progressive Victorian middle class (and the newspapers they read) said, basically, "Of course this is all rather disgusting, but surely it should be a private matter between individuals, and there's no reason for the Crown to treat it as a crime in our modern scientific era, etc."

But later in the trial, the prosecutors were able to prove that Wilde had been having lots and lots of oral sex with male prostitutes all around London -- and this fact outraged those very same Victorian progressives, who thought that a successful upper-class gentleman like Oscar Wilde had a duty to help educate young men of the lower classes, and not to take advantage of their poverty by paying them for blowjobs!

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

But later in the trial, the prosecutors were able to prove that Wilde had been having lots and lots of oral sex with male prostitutes all around London -- and this fact outraged those very same Victorian progressives, who thought that a successful upper-class gentleman like Oscar Wilde had a duty to help educate young men of the lower classes, and not to take advantage of their poverty by paying them for blowjobs!

This sounds a bit commie. I do realize though it's complicated due to his paying for male blowjobs, but as for "straight heads" - I wouldn't understand how someone getting a paid sexual service violates anything...