New Puritanism: what confuses us?

You will be in the summer, and if you are lucky, then even earlier, on the beach – do not be too lazy to count (of course, for the sake of purely sporting interest), how many girls there are, sunbathing topless. Unless you prefer nudist beaches, you can bet that your fingers will be enough to count. Or maybe even one. The fashion for naked breasts has clearly passed. In general, fashion seems to be becoming more conservative.

No, the famous couturiers, of course, continue to amuse the public with dresses with slits from about the neck and absolutely transparent fabrics. But even on the catwalks, a trend called uniform dressing is becoming more and more active: things are elegant, but at the same time practical and emphatically not scandalous.

Body as evidence

But nudity is increasingly perceived as something offensive. Zealots of morality achieve the closure of exhibitions, barely hearing about the nudity. Particularly moral citizens even demand to wear pants, for example, a statue of David. And the activists of the Femen movement, who at one time were perceived as fiery fighters for freedom, turned into ordinary exhibitionists in the public mind. Does this mean that we are entering the era of a new puritanism?

Let’s not rush to conclusions, but the trend is obvious, and not only domestic. 88% of French women (who are considered to be women of very free views) say that they consider themselves bashful, and more than half admit that they are dissatisfied with their own body and tend to hide it.

In Russia, no such surveys have been conducted, but here are the data from the Levada Center in 2015. The main quality that men appreciate in women, 49% of survey participants called good looks. But sex appeal collected only 15% of the votes, losing more than two times to fidelity (38%) and more than three times to thriftiness (46%). While nudity continues to reign in advertising, the media and social media, we can speak of a “new restraint” that affects all generations.

Sociologist and philosopher Anna Temkina draws attention to purely Russian features. “Public people are fighting against ‘debauchery’, politicians and the Russian Orthodox Church want to ban abortion,” she says. – Reanimated (although they may not have died) Soviet habits of hypocrisy regarding contraception, sexual education and so on.

The Church declares patriarchal rules (for example, “the husband is always the head of the family”), and this partly coincides with the mass ideas about the “natural destiny” of men and women. Sexuality, the body, reproduction are now under close scrutiny, and there are constant attempts to control and normalize them.”

Science and religion do not allow

This phenomenon has many explanations, and not always only ideological ones. Here, for example, is the opinion of a sexologist and psychotherapist Irina Panyukova. “I haven’t seen any serious research on this topic yet, but, according to my feelings, more and more people are really giving up sensual pleasures. I see several purely medical reasons.

For example, an increasing number of people tend to asceticism and puritanism because of the fear of diseases – primarily sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS. By the way, the extinction of the fashion for bare breasts on the beaches is also dictated not only (and maybe not so much) by moral considerations. Scientists, to the great chagrin of men, have convincingly proved that this method of sunbathing seriously increases the risk of developing breast cancer.

But the matter is not limited to health, of course. In European countries, moral norms are increasingly influenced by the influx of migrants from Islamic countries who are not too ready to look at a naked body with approval. So, even in many districts of Paris and its suburbs, it is already quite risky for a woman to appear on the street in a short skirt or a transparent blouse. And tolerant Europeans in this situation tend to defend the values ​​of the guests rather than the hosts.

For example, on the occasion of last year’s visit to Rome by the President of Iran, the Italian authorities considered it good to cover the naked female statues in the Capitol Museum with plywood shields. In Russia, the influence of Islamic ideas on the norms of behavior is perhaps not so serious, but its growth should not be ruled out either.

There is something to compare

There are also psychological reasons. Ideal beauties with legs of infinite length and an outstanding bust give rise to anxiety and fear of their own imperfection in women. “You need to listen to how patients talk about their body in order to understand the severity of their complexes,” says psychoanalyst Gerard Bonnet. – The world we live in is full of exhibitionism, he constantly plays a show, puts everything on display, and this becomes a problem. By falling prey to this ‘tyranny of appearances’, agreeing to measure themselves by the standards of inaccessible models, more and more people suffer from strong internal inhibitions that range from shame to fear of ridicule.

As a result, going to the beach turns from pleasure into a serious test. How will people around you look? How is the body valued? Regularly, a month or two before the opening of the beach season, social networks are filled with desperate pleas for advice on diet / exercise / plastic surgery / miracle pills to prepare for the “exit”. And beach overalls, originally designed to protect against jellyfish stings and sunburn, are becoming more and more popular even on cloudy days and on the banks of water bodies in which jellyfish have never been found.

Russia in this sense found itself, perhaps, in an even more difficult situation. Europeans and Americans won their right to freedom of the body on the barricades of the sexual revolution in the 1960s, but in our country, as you know, “there was no sex” until the early 1990s. But the ensuing course of sexual education was more than intense.

“It seems to me that many people today are afraid of their own sexuality,” says psychoanalytic psychotherapist Svetlana Fedorova. – When the prohibitions were gone, the desires broke out, sometimes in the most extreme manifestations. People lost their borders, they were afraid of this and now they are trying to return the borders.”

Meanwhile, if sexual topics are banned, this is also an unhealthy situation, Irina Panyukova notes: “An overly strict, puritanical upbringing is one of the main causes of many functional sexual disorders. In particular, it has been proven to be practically the leading cause of anorgasmia in women.”

Sign of depression?

Irina Panyukova sees another explanation for the popularity of the “new puritanism”. The population of the planet is increasingly concentrated in megacities. And depression and anxiety disorders are becoming a real scourge of big cities.

“Soon these diseases will take second place in megacities after respiratory viral infections,” emphasizes Irina Panyukova. “And decreased sexual function is one of the very first symptoms of anxiety disorders. A person can still be fine with work, for example, but depression primarily affects the sensual sphere. Even the taste of food changes. And the loss of interest in sex is from the same area.

Admitting this even to yourself is not an easy task. “The ascetic way of life implies the victory over attraction. But for this, especially at a young age, either a very strong will is needed, or an insufficiently strong attraction. And I tend to assume the second, – continues Irina Panyukova. – And the ideology that is brought under this situation is often secondary. Depressive and anxiety disorders are not recognized for a long time, and religion or something else becomes a suitable explanation for the decline in sexual function.

pendulum effect

The philosopher Teresa Argo also speaks of the possible secondary nature of the religious zeal of the new moralists. But she sees the reason rather in the excess of nudity around us – on billboards and in videos, in films and the Internet: : they turn the naked body into a threat.”

So it is unlikely that we are dealing with a new Middle Ages. Rather, with the law of the pendulum, which, having reached the peak of sexual freedom, predictably moved in the opposite direction. Some manifestations generated by this freedom were probably really excessive and even ugly. It is only important that the movement in the opposite direction does not go to extremes.

From the history of shame

How has the idea of ​​morality changed in society over time? Here are some interesting facts about the history of Puritanism.