Appendix Soviet Attitudes to Homosexuality re Paedophilia

Content Warning: As the title indicates, the following post will go into some dark areas, mainly abuse, physical, sexual and medical. Discretion is advised.

A while back I wrote an essay about the early Soviet authorities attitudes towards Homosexuality. Aside from a brief section about how teenage girls suspected of being lesbians were treated by Psychiatric authorities in the 1980s much of the information didn't move past the 1950s. On reflection restricting myself to that period might of been a mistake, so this is something of a follow up.

I've noticed that its increasingly common amongst Stalin admirers whom can't handle the homophobia argue that the laws against homosexuality where just laws to protect children. AKA the usual dogwhistle for anti queer bigotry.

I thought I dealt with this myth pretty well in my earlier essay by just quoting both versions of the legal article in full.

Like so.

“154-a. Sexual relations of a man with a man (pederasty)--

deprivation of liberty for a term up to five years.

Pederasty, done with the employment of force or use of the dependent situation of the victim, --

deprivation of liberty for a term from five to eight years.
[1 April 1934 (SU No 15, art. 95)].”

http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/uk136-e.html

‘Pederasty
Sexual relations of a man with a man (pederasty),
Shall be punished by deprivation of freedom for a term of up to five years.
Pederasty committed with the application of physical force, or threats, or with respect to a minor, or with taking advantage of the dependent position of the victim,
Shall be punished by deprivation of freedom for a term of up to eight years.’

(Butler, WE, Translator & Editor, Basic Documents on the Soviet Legal System, Oceana Publications, 1983, Page 344)

The key to their argument always revolves around the use of the word Pederasty. Now if you read these passages you'll notice some very strange logical issues, pederasty is being defined as sexual relations between men, it not only doesn't specify an age of consent but states that sex between "a man and a man". Two men.

Further more the additional clauses specify a harsher sentence if coercion is involved or one of the sexual partners is a minor. So while the law does contain punishments of paedophilic relationships it also makes clear that non coercive sex between two men who aren't minors is also punishable. 

This should be the end of the discussion, but it isn't. However there is more to be considered, I could give you a boring lesson on etymology and how words relating to Queer people and our identities are often fluid and changing or how the term homosexual was popularised by German sex reformers in the 19th century. Or how in Russian legal and psychological literature the term "pederast" was used as a blanket term for all same sex activities dating back to Tzarist times. For example men suspected of being the "Passive pederast" could be compelled to undergo medical examination of their anal cavity to check for signs of penetration.

Here the Russian cases turned chiefly on identification of the
“passive pederast” through examination of the anal region and comparison
with a catalog of deformities.

Dan Healy's Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia


But fortunately I don't have to, because its much easier to expose the lie, see even the Soviet legal and medical authorities acknowledged that their legal code criminalised consensual same sex relations.

After the 1950s there were isolated voices calling for legal reforms including to Article 121.

The above images come from Sociolegal Control of Homosexuality, their section on Russia relies heavily on the work of Igor S. Kon at the Russian Academy of Sciences. This is the Soviet Authorities in their own words, but of course it shouldn't have to get this far.

LGBTQ people do exist in the former USSR and they have been open about how they were repressed by the Soviet authorities. We also have the explicit attacks on homosexuality as decadent, bourgeois and Fascist, from the Comintern and its fraternal parties outside the Soviet Union. The evidence is overwhelming and from many sources. but there's always an excuse.