It is generally accepted that in the Soviet Union even adults were embarrassed to talk to each other about intimate relationships. What can we say about the sexuality education of children? And this statement is partly true. But only partly.
After the revolution
In fact, in the 1920s and 1930s, much attention was paid to the problem of sex education. The rapid development of such a science as pedology has made it possible to collect and analyze a lot of data on the characteristics of children's development, including sexual development. Thanks to this, special programs for sex education for adolescents were created, which were actively implemented.
However, in 1936, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks issued a decree "On pedological perversions in the system of the People's Commissariat for Education", after which pedology was recognized as a pseudoscience. In this regard, the question of the sexuality education of children was closed for many years.
After 25 years of silence
For 25 years of silence in educational institutions, only parents were engaged in sex education of their children. The question of the role of the school in this process was returned only in the early 60s. It was then that the course "Fundamentals of the Soviet family and family education" was included in the school curriculum. Some aspects of preparing adolescents for adult life were taught in their lessons by teachers of other subjects.
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Of course, in those years, special attention was paid not only to intimate relationships, but to a healthy and strong family. Therefore, even in the works of the classics, passages containing private scenes were cut out by the censors. And scientific sexological literature was kept under lock and key. In order to get acquainted with the works of scientists, even an eminent teacher should have received a special permit. The knowledge about this area of human life, which the school provided, was also superficial, and did not in any way affect the behavior of adolescents in practice. Therefore, already in 1965, sex education in schools was canceled. Even the course "Human Anatomy" was recommended only for independent study by schoolchildren.
Another 20 years have passed
In the 1980s, the number of abortions in the country increased dramatically. Therefore, we still had to return to the problem of sex education.
In 1982, a special program "Ethics and Psychology of Family Life" was created. In the next 10 years, she was actively introduced into the school curriculum of the senior classes and received many positive ratings from teachers.
Since 1983, the course "Hygienic and Sexual Education" has been added to the compulsory study. This course was studied by schoolchildren starting from grade 8. As before, first of all, educational institutions promoted the responsibility of spouses, the formation of sexual identity. However, teachers of the appropriate qualifications were sorely lacking. This function was assumed by subject teachers, who were often limited to a formal approach to sexuality education for young people.
For this or some other reason, but by the end of the 80s, the USSR was in one of the leading places in the world in terms of the number of abortions.