The concept of "debauchery" or, to be more precise, "fornication" in Russia began to be met with the strengthening of the positions of the Orthodox Church (after the 10th century). A significant contribution to corruption was made by “civilized” foreigners visiting our country.
It was the Orthodox Church that first systematized and sought to implement a set of moral rules that define what is fornication and what punishment should follow for it.
The first "anti-depraved" restrictions
In pre-Christian pagan Russia, the modern concept of debauchery was rather vague - much of what was then considered the norm is today considered debauchery. The same Kiev prince Vladimir, the baptist of Russia, according to the testimony of foreign eyewitnesses, had a harem with dozens of concubines, and many wealthy princes practiced this at that time.
Judging by the written sources that have come down to us, the first "tax" on girls who got married being innocent was introduced by Princess Olga in 953. The loss of innocence before marriage was not condemned before. Moreover, usually the "right of the first night" belonged to the pagan wise men. Only Prince Svyatoslav, 14 years after Olga's decree, proclaimed the absolute sexual monopoly of the spouse - only he pledged to enter into relations with his wife.
From wandering to sin
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Until the 8th century in Russia the word "fornication" in relation to women did not have a condemning meaning - a harlot means looking for a husband for herself, wandering in search. Then this label began to hang on the girls who had lost their innocence. From the 12th century, unmarried women and widows who entered into a premarital relationship with men were considered harlots. Only from the 18th century did the designation "harlot" become a dirty word.
Bath as a breeding ground for vice
For the time being, debauchery as a social institution in Russia did not exist - the class of aristocrats as such had not yet formed, and there were not so many "carriers of civilization", foreigners who came to us. In addition, with the churching of Russia, selfish fornication (prostitution) began to be considered the same crime as theft and robbery - procurers and tavern girls mercilessly and publicly flogged in the city squares.
However, despite the housebuilding and prohibitions of the church, the common people did not shy away from debauchery.
Foreigners took for debauchery even the very fact of joint washing of the Slavs in the bathhouse (it is no secret that in Europe at that time it was generally a sin to wash - according to church canons). According to the testimony of the Byzantine missionary Belisarius, who visited the Novgorod lands in 850, “the life of the Slovenes and Rusyns is wild and ungodly”: the foreigner was amazed that men and women locked themselves together in a hotly heated bath, whipped each other with brooms, then threw themselves into an ice hole or snowdrift … And then they go to “torture their bodies” in huts.
The set of rules "Domostroy"
The set of Christian rules and recommendations of the 16th century "Domostroy", a kind of expanded church "memo" for every Orthodox, is the first relatively widespread written document, which, among other things, strictly regulated sexual relations between men and women. They had to be polygamous, the husband was in charge of the family, sex life was limited to certain days, all sorts of "dubious" kissing and kissing were not allowed.
The ban also applied to "lascivious speech." Even erotic dreams were considered devilish obsessions, and should be praised.
Intercourse, according to this set of rules, had to take place exclusively for conception.
The Church considered the sexuality of a woman to be vicious (in the modern sense of this term) - she should not have put on makeup, put on makeup, so as not to “seduce demons”. Attractive women were positioned as outright harlots.
Foreign influence
Foreigners made a significant contribution to the expansion of the population of Russia. As the Russian historian Nikolai Kostomarov believed, it was the foreigners who brought syphilis and other "bad" diseases into our country in the 16th century. By the way, before smelly (in the literal sense of the word) foreigners began to massively visit "unwashed Russia", we had never heard of epidemics that had mowed down "enlightened" Europe for centuries - in Russia they simply had the habit of following elementary rules hygiene.
Since the 16th century, the Slavs, as ethnographer Nikolai Galkovsky describes, the inhabitants of Russia began to massively mow down foreign syphilis, the guardsmen introduced a fashion for sodomy. Even Metropolitan Zosima was accused of homosexuality, although some church historians consider this to be the intrigues of his enemies.
… With the strengthening of foreign influence in Russia, especially under Peter I, manifestations of debauchery began to take structured forms - attempts were made to open brothels (by the way, the first official brothel in Russia was opened by a German woman, Anna Felker). Peter prevented this, but Catherine II had to allow it in order to somehow prevent the spread of venereal diseases.