Perverzní sex a normální gender. Normalizační sexuologie promlouvá o sexu a genderu

Abstract

The period of Normalization in Czechoslovakia is often perceived as a grey “Eastern iceberg” where life stood still and uniformity governed. My analysis of sexological discourse, particularly of texts focused on perversity, juxtaposes the normalized ethos of the period with deviant sexual subjectivities. I analyze papers and debates presented at annual sexological conferences in the 1970s and 1980s. Sexuality, especially in its non-normal/deviant forms, was revealed as unstable, a quality sought to be “rectified” through gender which was perceived as binary. The family was interrogated as a source of deviance and also as a place of redress. While sexological writings in general tend to biologize sexuality, my analysis shows that sexologists attributed social genealogy to deviance, a finding that attests to rigid social conditions during Normalization.

Keywords

• sexology
• deviance
• normalization
• Czechoslovakia
• sex
• gender
• sex customs