Serbian Sexual Response:
Gender & Sexuality in Serbia during the 90’s
“In an imagined continuum of “transition” Serbia is both an extreme and an exception. It is an exception because it was a part of ex Yugoslavia, which itself was an exception in many ways, because “transition” is conected to the wars where Serbian regime had a decisive role and because it was an object of NATO intervention. It is an extreme in a sense of level of destruction of institutions, of making institutional blocade, of sacrifising its own and other nations citizens, i.e. the total price that, in the case of Serbia, one “perverted” transition means.”
(Marina Blagojevic, Mapiranje mizoginije u Srbiji, diskursi i prakse, Mapping of misogyny, discourses and practises, Beograd, 2000. page 35)
To deal with sexuality in Serbia is, like dealing with anything else, a multilayered and pretty heavy task. At the very beginning one encounters the lack of contemporary literature in Serbian language, followed by the lack of any systematic gathering of the information about sexuality related subjects.1
In the field, inside the population of Serbia itself, the situation is even worse. Although they are exposed daily to the explicit sexual content in the media, respondents in different sexological researches are unwilling to talk about their sexual lives and experiences. During the research of the student population of the town of Kragujevac in Central Serbia, researchers (Magdic & Veljovic, 2000 Sexual behaviour, comuncation with friends, in school, in family, Collection of works) note that “when confronted with sexually related subjects a huge number of respondents has not been interested in cooperation.” Sexological and psychological research, conducted by the Society of the Biheviorial Theory and Practice2 was meant to cover the total number of 4000 respondents. Yet, after two years of research, only 1328 questionaires have been collected. Also, even though it was planned to cover the population age up to 77, only 97 subjects in the age group from 47 to 77 have agreed to provide answers to the questionary, which is 6.7% of the total sample. Middle-aged people are particularly unwilling to provide answers to sexological questionaries and therefore most of the researches are conducted in population of younger people, high school and university students.
There is no institution with the system of gathering information on sexual behavior. This kind of research is usually to be found as part of other research3 (medical, sociological, criminological) while their clumsily formed questionaries prevent any form of comparative analysis.
The main aim of this work is to try to picture Serbia and the general atmosphere around the question of sexuality and sexualy related subjects to all of you who have not been in the position to participate during the last decade in this specific experiment. Although at first the idea was that this work should show the cross section of different empirical research, during my investigation, another subject have became dominant – the sexual politics of the state and its acute consequences.
Specific conditions under which we have lived for more than a decade could show interesting results in some professionaly executed and precise sexological research. Before something like that is executed, we must gather our information from different sources and compose the qualitative sexual map of Serbia almost like puzzle.
Excitement (The Awakening of the Nation)
Following the ill-concieved comunist project of unification, new national politicians “have used simplifed neo-patriarchal discourse and selected symbols of the past, and by misusing the values of the rural society combined with rosy visions of future managed to mobilise a big number of followers among rural and urban masses” for their nationalistic goals.4 Almost overnight, the nationalism have replaced former values and very soon after all nations that formed the structure of one country have been dragged into a completely new kind of mutual relationship.
For the Republic of Serbia (as well as for the whole of former Yugoslavia), the nineties have been a decade of wars. Although in Belgrade itself, up until the NATO intervention of 1999, the war was not directly perceived. Nevertheless, as on all teritories directly affected by the war, consequences such as economical misery and crime were raising permanently. It is well known that many citizens of Serbia have taken part in different wars led in the vicinity. These wars provoked great migration of the population and they have dramatically changed the structure of urban population. Well-known term “brain drain” concerns the imigration of the great number of the citizens of Belgrade that kept leaving towards the outside world constantly in the past decade, some of them in order to gain further education, some in order to find work. On the other hand, only those that were forced to do so were migrating to Belgrade that could offer next to nothing.Thus, after the huge wave of migrations in 1991 when several thousands of people have left almost simultaneously, the first groups of refugees expelled from Croatia due to the beginning of the war arrived to Belgrade. Then came Bosnia and, at the end, Kosovo. By bringing a completely different culture with them, these newcomers have deeply changed structure of Belgrade while perfectly matching the new turbo folk5 milleu. The rapid changes in the society and the formation of new values are the two elements that characterize that decade.
The nationalism of the majority of the population awakened through the active propaganda of the electronic media has been constantly kept alive by the political and turbo folk elites, through speeches and songs. Male population was encountering some new and until then unknown tasks. “To be brave and ready to face dangers of the war is the biggest chalenge and proof of maleness. The war propaganda and particularly the invitations to join the flag of war are often based on such arguments, identifying the participation in war with initiation in the world of adult males.”6 Thus, the real man was defending “Serbian fireplaces”7 while at the same time leaving at home his wife and his children. The most explicit model was the assasinated mafia boss and war criminal Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan. Raznatovic, who was placed on the international wanted circular on account of his criminal and therorist activites, was furthermore beleived to have commited certain assasinations for the secret police of Tito’s communist state. First of all, he was engaged in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia and later the general image about him was heavily romanticized8. After that it was quite easy for him to become a MP and a succesful bussinesman. The movie about his paramilitary group called SRPSKA DOBROVOLJACKA GARDA (The Guard of Serbian Volunteers) was presented before the beginning of the war in Bosnia even on the Independent Television Broadcasting Service STUDIO B. The accusations that this formation has comitted different war crimes were justified by the comments suggesting that the formation of the tribunal for war crimes is in final consequence directed solely against the Serbs.
The Serbian State television network was producing different programs about “black pearls” in which the criminal files were boiled down to the conclusion that the hero was nothing but a naughty boy. The personality of Kapetan Dragan was also turned into a myth. He was the military instructor of the Knin warriors, and the creator of the fame of “kninjas” – Serbian Rambo-inspired fighters. It was indicated that his wild past of the international adventurer is not well known, not even his real name, but the fact that he returned to his native country on the white yacht was used to launch the metaphor of the hero who usually arrives on the back of a white horse. His Kapetan Dragan Fund was formed in order to collect the money for wounded soldiers. Because of that he enjoyed a strong media and popular support.9
The brave soldiers, “on the baricades of fatherland” and massacred victims were shown continually during newsbroadcast of RTS. Only the scenery was changing (Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo). Through constructing a new man – the aggressive warrior always ready to fight – the politics of the regime have directly enceroached on the families. After viewing the news broadcast loaded with images and language of hate the men who stayed in their homes vented their fury and hatred primarily on their wives. At the beginning of the nineties, the greatest number of calls received by the SOS Center for Women and Children – Victims of Violence came straight after the main daily newsbroadcast of RTS at 7:30 pm. This phenomenon was entitled as the “Violence after the second daily news syndrome”. The sequence of the events was in the majority of cases very similar: watching the news, argument with the wife and beating transformed in some cases into a forced sexual intercourse.”10
Besides such explicite way, this call to arms, to defend the fatherland, was executed also through music11, movies and commercials, at one point even appearing in the form of the after-shave bottled as a hand-granade. It was called SRB (The Serb). The support for the warriors was a political duty; even magazines with pornographic content were addressing them with messages of such support12. The vicinity and circumstances of the war and the warmongering politics have somehow created a new model of maleness that was dominant throughout the first half of the nineties: the model of warrior.
The question that arises is whether and if yes, how such social construction of the gender role of the male combined with pornography and wars influenced on terrible sexual crimes which have been commited. Besides the Hague Tribunal report, the data about sexual violence is also provided by numerous centers in Yugoslavia opened to help the victims and to do research on raped women in the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo (dr Nikolic-Ristanovic, Victims of war in ex Yugoslavia: size, structure and patterns of victimization, Temida, magazine of Victimological Society of Serbia, May 2000). In the wars conducted on the teritory of Former Yugoslavia rape was common for all sides disregarding the nationality, as well as these “patterns” of raping were common:
“- before the start of the full frontal war in different regions of Former Yugoslavia, in the time when the pressure in these regions is raising and the ethnic group which controls the power starts terrorising its neighbours, some individuals and small groups of bullies, who often also rob and terrify members of opposing ethnic group, break into their homes, beat them up, steal their property and rape their women;
“- in those areas which have not been directly affected by war, but in which nevertheless exist a mixed ethnic compound, the individuals kidnap, spread fear of rape and actually do rape the female members of other ethnic group;
– individuals or groups execute sexual violence against women according to the politics of ‘ethnic cleansing’
women are often sexualy abused with different objects such as: broken bottles, guns, batons, and there are also indications of the use of animals for the same purpose”13
It should be noted that “the rape was only one of many different forms of sexual abuse directed against women during the wars. Namely, besides rape, these other forms of abuse include the verbal threat with rape, all kinds of sexual harrasment and blackmail, sexual slavery in the context of forced concubinate, as well as forced prostitution.”14
However, the documents of this type also pay attention to the fact that the number of raped persons was often manipulated in public, in order to creat confusion and to form the atmosphere of revenge in the warring armies. All that made the work of court investigators quite difficult, but also the lives of the victims. However, it is the fact that all of us that led these latest Balkans wars are still living together with a certain, undefined number of agressive rapists because they haven’t been brought to justice.
War also put up the long neglected gender question, because women were raped “not only for the personal enjoyment of the rapists, but also because of political intentions of the war lords and their executors. Through humiliation of women and desecration of one of the highest values of the patriarchal society – the family – the whole “enemy” community is also humiliated, and its collective identity in jeopardy. “15 In such way there are connecting ellements among soldiers who were fighting under different flags.
In the autmun of 1994 the war with Croatia was long over (at least, this is how it seemed then) and the war in Bosnia was slowly reaching its end. “The cult of warrior who finds it easy to fight not only with Ustashas, Balias or Mujahedeens16, but also with the rest of the whole wide world, while is in the same time not capable to respect the laws of the community, ceased to be of any use. Furthermore, it was pottentialy dangerous. Rebelious and often wild youth and men in full strength were returning to Serbia dissilusioned, angry and ready to carry on with their abbusive behaviour and acts.”17 Serbian regime had, due to its survival, to calm down the agression and the nationalist passion which it provoked itself. Instead of heroes and warriors different patterns are offered. Aproximately at that time starts to work “Pink” Television, that is very tightly related to newly founded party of Slobodan Milosevic’s wife, Yugoslav United Left (the owner of “Pink” Television was the Secretary General of that party). This television was counterpart of Radio Television Serbia. Editorial politics of RTS was of hard-line nationalist orientation, warmongering and brutal in language towards anyone who did not stand beside the regime in power. “Pink” Television, as its name says, was from the very begining giving only “the bright side of life”. As in the reality that side did not exist “Pink” built up a false world, formed its own establishment. On this television one could never see real events (war, confrontation of citizens with the regime, social poverty etc). The people who did not belong to the regime were never invited as guests18. That was a closed circle, a system that maintained itself through its own music, book, newspaper, radio and TV production. As considering the “pink” conception it was not allowed to talk about war, economic poverty, imposibillity to travel abroad, sanctions, riots and politics in general, the number of topics of conversation in many shows was rather limited. In fact shows could only deal with lives of musicians, folk singers, TV hosts, models and that way they were promoted to stars. Naturally this television would not gain as much space in this work if at that time it was not the best rated television, and the only one besides RTS to be seen in the whole Serbia, and to offer people films, series, music, humor and daily lottery. So through this television Serbian regime tried to calm down the agression that slowly started to turn against it. Adressing in the first place to young people, through the most transparent models of males that host “City” show which has rerun several times a day, this television created a new young man dedicated to his looks and carrier.
Dominant models are young handsome men of softer sensibility, but also both small and big enterpreneurs, businessmen that recover their contry that is exhausted by economic sanctions and war.”On individual level, a dominant value is “individual utilitarism”: material and other social goods, egoistic interest. Gaining of wealth as a value existed also in state-run socialism, but it was implicit and sofocated in public discourse. Now getting rich became an explicit, legitimate and socialy desired value, under condition that it stays in frames of new law and business ethics.19 Those who did not have strength or power to transfer themselves from communist security to the new business ethics, have stayed in the vacuum of gray economy, smuggling, poverty and misery, unfortunately, that was the major part of the population. That part of population could not use the recepy for successful man that was prescribed by the media: money and power – unreachable characteristics of “real man” have left an average citizen in a gap between wishes and possibilities, between malehood and reality.
Data on sexual abuse and violence against women, which can be very rarely heard from non-governmental organizations dealing with them, but never from official sources, lead to conclusion that sexual abuse and violence against women do not represent a social problem of Serbian society. However, data of SOS Center for help to the endangered, that were recently announced are frightening. According to the activist of that NGO the size of the problem is large: “Every third girl is a victim of sexual violence before the age of 18, i.e. every fifth to seventh boy before the age of 18. Every day there is sexual violence in primary and secondary schools and at universities. This form of violence comes from the side of persons of authority and, very often from the side of persons of credit”.20
Rape, however, is not a threat only to girls and young women. Institute for Criminological and Sociological Studies conducted a research based on random sample of 192 women. Even 18,7 percent of them stated that their husband raped them. Also, three years lasting analysis of work of SOS phone shows that of the total number of reported cases of sexual violence 15,5 percent was rape in marriage. That behavior is explained by the fact that violence against women is often justified. As a member of the group for Female rights of European Movement, Marinka Cetinic states that facts of widespreadness of rape in marriage are underestimated, it is accepted as something normal in the relation between a man and a woman based on native psychobiological characteristics of genders. This attitude is justified through “opinion that women are totally receptive to physical violence, and that during the rape they have sensation of pleasure, that masochism is typical for women in sexual relations.”21 In spite of requests of many NGOs rape in mariage is not legaly sanctioned.
Molested women seeked help, before all from the police (24,3%), social services (16.5%), doctors (13.1%) and lawyers (10.3%). 79.3% of those that seeked help from the police did not get it. The other institutiones give help that is not satisfying. 52% of victims threatened by murder did not get help and also did not 51,1% of victims of sexual violence. These data do not reflect real state, because many women seek help from no one.22
Plateau (Turbo folk)
In the begining of nineties in Serbia, together with nationalism, a special phenomenon has been developing that is nowadays clearly defined as turbo folk. Turbo folk in its base designates musical direction that developed in the beginning of nineties and it represents a mixture of comercial electronic dance-sound and kitsch folk music with oriental tone. Unfortunately, turbo folk is not just a passing musical direction in one temporal continuum. It is the whole system of values that besides music, certain iconography, fashion, life style, body & sex politics was one of the levers of regime of Slobodan Milosevic for one whole decade. After the regime went down it continued to exist.
As the creators of false world of wealth and glamour they represented counterthesis to the misery on the streets and made the illusion that life has a quite normal flow. When there was any kind of threat to the regime they would stand in “first battle lines” singing provocatively dressed on bridges and squares under the photos of Slobodan Milosevic held by a minor number of his followers, while in some other parts of the country NATO bombs were killing sacrified victims. At the end they were groupies on preelectorial campaigns of former leading party, and stayed as the last defence of regime on the streets.23 Naturally that did not stop them to cross over, on the first so called revolution night, to the other side and continue their “cultural politics”.
Beside tasteless music, mostly stolen from foreign television channels and rewritten in Serbian, turbo folk was slowly building its system of values and through the media was forcing up an elite that promoted those values. Cultural patterns were now issued by singers, composers, and other instant stars, like hosts, sportsmen and some politicians. Lives of those “stars” through television became available to the public, attention was put to them through different other media (daily newspapers, magazines and books). With their looks and success they set an example. Sociologists have in vain already in 1994 (in time of sanctions) warned: “Interrupted comunication with the world has significantly shrunk cultural sights.Young people turn to the lowest culture that is the most available to them. Kitsch always attacks the emotions, that’s why it is appealing. Deminished space is also an excellent opportunity to promote always the same people in front of the public that sees it and accepts it because it is not in the position to choose. Folk representatives are agressive and devour everything in front of them. On the other hand, rock is dead, rock generation is in defensive, they are run over. Their fans are the ones that left the country. Those who stayed are passive. I think that there is no solution to this situation. It can only get worse. The majority of young people has totaly lost orientation and they do not feel like doing anything.”( Jasna Janićijević, professor of Cultural Sociology on Faculty of Filology) 24
The first woman25 that in front of the cameras undressed and behaved with sexual allusions was from the world of turbo folk, it was in middle of eighties. She opened the door for all those women who wanted to show their bodies.
Some sociological studies (M. Blagojevic, Women, pictures, imaginings, page 181) already had dealt with the model of turbo folk women, in concrete with phenomenon of Ceca, star of nineties, singer of emphasized female attributes and Arkan, boss of Belgrade mafia and war criminal, recently murdered in Belgrade. “Married to Arkan, Ceca reguraly appears on TV pregnant and therefore she is the first woman to take off the taboo of pregnant women in media”.26 But even as a mother she continues to represent a sex symbol.
Basic quality of turbo folk woman is her sexuality. She does not need that much to be pretty, as much as she has to take care of herself and be sexually appealing. If she has any sexual attributes she must point them out in all ways, and if she does not have them she must implant them. This is supported by active advertising on “Pink” Television, of implanting silicons in breasts and that is shown in promoting silicon heroines (phenomenon of Jelena Karleusa, Serbian Lolo Ferarri), as well as showing the act of implantation of silicone in positive context.
Sexuality is the fact that turbo folk manipulates with, sex is the way to advertise and make profit. Open disclosure of singer profession came exactly from the silicon sex symbol Jelena Karleusa: “All of us in this business are in fact whores. Not in literal sense of that word, but something similar to that. The real skill is to sell your self well. I count my self in top whores, that can sell themselves for the highest possible price, in the smoothest way”.27 Also, singers from group “Models”(as the name says those are four models) in »City«28, through laughter, say that the price for an evening wiht one of them is 10 000 DM. The influence of these and similar declarations on the attitudes of total population would also be interesting to research. Sreten Vujovic in his work “Young people and AIDS” points out the specific social problem that exactly this kind of statements could induce: “In Belgrade in recent years among teenagers appeared a new way off offering sexual services for money, expensive clothes and luxurious dates, that “sponsored girls” offer mostly to mobsterlike nouveaux riches.”29
The second model of female gender role, that is permanently imposed, is the model of the fashion model – in the context of previous paragraph, that could be called selling body in more subtle way. In couple of last years modelling is flourishing. A model is tall, good –looking , young, beautifull, with “good maners”, with intention to get educated in the future, in front of her are nice future, fashion shows, travelling and a good match to marry. Modelling is presented as a nice but not an easy job, as it needs a lot of sacrifice, but reward is adequate. And what is even better, everybody can find place in modelling, new faces are always needed and young forces ripe every year. A large number of candidates applies to very frequent and well advertised auditions for models, and various Miss elections. They are of different age and bottom limit is 13. Education and intelligence, are not appreciated extremely on a value scale, good looks impose as imperative. A young, attractive woman has chances for life success. She becomes a status symbol of new economic elites, and that is the phenomenon of “sponsored girl” that we have mentioned.
“To be beautiful and sexually appealing” is set to be a task of every woman. Research data (Vukovic & Pesic, Relation to the body and self image in the period of adolscency – Collection of works – Proffesional-scientific gathering, Behaviour concerning health of highschool and University population, 2000) do not show the significant influence of this kind of media construction: only 12.17% of respondents (teenagers) feel unsatisfied with their own looks. However, of significant influence of those “models” on middle-aged women, especially if we have in mind their financial incapability to take care of themselves will maybe tell, some future researches.
Gender role is a set of standards, or culturally defined expectations that determine how people of certain gender should behave (J. S. Hyde). Beside the influence of parents, school mates and friends, some studies (Ashton, 1983) show that gender sterotypes in media can influence on behavior. In situations of war, totalitary regime, falling apart of the system of the old values and family and educational institutions, new values, permanently imposed through media, could have a great influence on attitudes and behavior of major part of the population.
Media reducted gender roles to extreme, biological limits: sexy mother and agressive warrior. That however did not have a significant influence on transformation which was going on led by socio-economic circumstances30 , at least some sociologist say so.
“In reality of relations between men and women in Serbia in nineties dominates the model of “selfsacrificing micro-matriarchate”31, in which women undoubtedly take over domination in private sphere, favored by “economy of survival”32.
But this is not a final response to the gender question, “because there is a strange relation between local patriarchate that ritually humiliates woman in public discourse (Denitch), even when in private space it respects her as a partner (Erlich), and the fact that in these last wars victims have not only suffered violence, but were also additionaly humilliated by the cruelest and the most unnusual tehcniques (V. Nikolic-Ristanovic)…”33. Which kind of relation is it about and does it realy exist we have to find out.
Orgasm (Pornography)
When I was a little girl, in the beginning of eighties, it was almost impossible to see a naked human body on TV, not to mention a sexual intercourse. Magazines like “Start” published in each edition double pages of “Playboy” type, “Erotika” was the only erotic magazine, night program somethimes ran films like “Decameron”. Porno movies were on in two cinemas in the city: “Partizan” near the railway station, in the neigbourhood that was always gathering place for prostitutes, and “Slavija” in the very center of town, that does not exist anymore. And that was all. In that context I use the term sexual liberalization.
Sexual liberalization arrived in Serbia long before political liberalization of media. Exactly these, in every other way closed media, “opened sexual views” of spectators which without having choice were in fact condemned to their program. Beside new gender roles promoted by TV, that we have mentioned before, almost for a decade porno films were run every night. Third Channel of RTS in 1990 started, once a week in late night hours, to run erotic movies. Already next year out of Criminal law of Yugoslavia were takn out articles issuing penalties for all those that “produce, sell, publically expose or for sale purpose keep and hold acts, pictures and other objects that are offensive for the moral”34. In that way a path was opened to free running of explicit adult material. However, when private television “Palma” started running hard-core porno movies every night at 2, public opinion was so alarmed that one whole Parliament session was dedicated to adult movies. Then to defend porno movies stood up Serbian Radical Party, and as a main argument “for” stated thesis that porno films induce people to sex, and that way to breeding. Porno movies were in the beginning of nineties Serbian national politics led with the goal of increasing the birthrate. Naturally they had no knowledge that sociologists will later prove that pornography is one of desensabilizating factors in phenomenon in heterosexual world called Endlust (Schmidt)35.
Although no one in Serbia conducted research on influence of pornography on consumers under given circumstances, however there are data on watching rates and attitudes towards that. Men and women differ when it comes to pornography, while more than a half of women claim that they do not like to watch pornography36, somewhat less than a half watches it (Vukmirica I., Nikolic T., Djapovic A. Seksualno ponasanje i stavovi urbane populacije, N=200, unpublished research). Men naturally in a greater number respond that they like pornography (Zdravkovic J., Kostic P. Seksualno ponasanje Jugoslovena, N=1328, unpublished research) and large majority watches it (84.5%) (Vukmirica I., Nikolic T., Djapovic A. Seksualno ponasanje i stavovi urbane populacije, N=200, unpublished research).
However, porno movies were not only an aphrodisiac emitted from state TV, but served also for a certain message to be sent. There are two remarkable examples.
The first is editing of abstract of porno movie where was inserted the face of at that time independent journalist Aleksandar Tijanic (now counsellor of President of FRY). Previously in weekly magazine “Gradjanin” this journalist mocked the editor in chief of TV “Palma” in ironic tone alluding to financial fraud and pornography. The revenge was immediate. In the middle of the adult movie this television offered to spectators a video clip with a photo of Tijanic and a title “Mister X has not succeded in anything in life, and he succeded in that in two ways”. Porno movie continued, but instead of face of the character engaged in the scene of oral sex with unidentified artist appeared face of Tijanic. In the scene No. 2, the author of “video clip” showed Tijanic again but with another partner – edited face in the second scene was engaged with male sexual organ. The video clip that was directed and signed by vengative editor in chief37 ends with moral that “Now it is clear why mister X has bad and dirty tongue.”
The other is a porno movie about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinski, that this television during NATO intervention emitted several times. It was also interesting that during the bombing porno movies were cancelled in the first days, and then during the whole period of bombing there was a new issue, and that was just a part of porno movie: one sexual intercourse with felacio and ejaculation. We were mourning for all those victims, but continuity had to be kept. Porno movies have been completely canceleld, after the change of regime, although director and editor in chief of “Palma” remained the same. Pornography in Serbia in past years could not be put under sex for sale, it was more sex for free, one of the rare things that the authorities could give to the people as a present.
Of course it does not mean that sex for sale does not exist. Ads for business escort and paid sex can be found in most of big daily newspapers. Generally, sex for sale is one of the most widespread branches of economy. Precise data on prostitution do not exist. In daily newspapers appears a figure of 5000 to 10000 prostitutes as stated by unofficial police sources. More and more frequently is heard the request for legalization of prostitution, as more and more often are heard bizarre data on prostitution of highschool girls (Rajakovic-Capakovic)38. Question of prostitution is rarely mentioned in researches. Those that, however, deal with it note that aproximately similar number of men and women, more than half of them, consider that there is nothing bad in prostitution, as long as the health control is good (Vukmirica I., Nikolic T., Djapovic A. Seksualno ponasanje i stavovi urbane populacije, N=200, unpublished research). However, somewhat less than half of men (48.9%), consider that prostitutuion should be legalized, which is much more than a number of women that are in favor of legalization (22.5%) (Zdravkovic J., Kostic P. Seksualno ponasanje Jugoslovena, N=1328, unpublished research). Men are greater consumers of prostitution (26.8% men to 1% women) what can explain their higher liberality towards this kind of sex for sale (Zdravkovic J., Kostic P. Seksualno ponasanje Jugoslovena, N=1328, unpublished research).
Before pornography appeared sex was a taboo subject, inherited from ancestors. That is proved by ethnographic research of village communities. Girls in second decade of this century totally unprepared and uninformed waited for their first menstrual cycle, as well as for their first sexual intercourse. “Adult women almost never openly spoke about intimate ‘female matters’ in front of female children. Since childhood they were taught that female matters are something ‘dirty’, something that is shameful to talk about. A girl knew, no matter fear and ignorance, how to hide from the others, as her deepest intimate secret, what is happening to her.”39 Equally girls were unprepared to enter sexual intercourse. It is interesting to compare this research, referring to beginning of the century, to the research that daily newspaper “Politika”40 writes about : “Survey responded by around 200 girls and boys of the age between 16 and 18 showed that teenagers somethimes wish to address parents when it comes to first sexual experience, but they do not dare to do that”, which indicates that in no way parents address children first. M. Rasevic, that has conducted this survey estimates that “from the answers it is seen that high level of openness is not present not even in generation contact, and also that shame is the basic reason that questiones related to sexual intercourse are not discussed with parents. Young people say that in the family and at school everything related to sex life is a taboo. Therefore a lot of young people have partial or inexact information.” One third of sexually most active population learned about sex from sex partner, then from porno magazines, movies and TV (24%) which is twice more than those that learned about sex at school and in the family (Vukmirica I., Nikolic T., Djapovic A. Seksualno ponasanje i stavovi urbane populacije, N=200, unpublished research). However, majority (89.5%) agrees that children should learn about sex in the primary and secondary school. (Zdravkovic J., Kostic P. Seksualno ponasanje Jugoslovena, N=1328, unpublished research). Still, there is no iniciative concerning that matter from institutions of the system.
But, “compared to life of ancestors, sex life of our contemporaries is caracterized, before all, by its higher liberty. Innocence and shyness are as old fashioned virtues replaced by largest sexual freedom, which through vulgarization of sexology and other sciences in media often impose as obligatory to avoid suspicion of an anomaly”.41
In patriarchal framework the way that sexuality was treated served to regime in power for gaining political points. Sexuality was exploited in many ways, depending on the need.
When there was a need to gain political points, regime exploited sexuality (mostly female) showing it in affirmative context. The best proof for that is the case of Maja Nikolic, silicon turbo folk singer followed by sex scandals, member of then leading party, sexually provocative, who on the last congress of her party half-naked provocatively danced and sang Serbian nationalist songs in front of entire Socialist Party of Serbia.
The other way was to use sexuality when one of political oponents had to be slandered. Those were the rare moments when state RTS talked about sexuality. When one of the high officials of leading party was murdered and when so called murderer was arrested, one of the key arguments stated by then Minister for information and member of YUL, was that the accused is a person of “doubtable sexual affinities” and therefore “convenient for manipulation and blackmail”.42 Naturally, it was never found out on what basis was concluded that the accused had “doubtable sexual affinities”, which those were or how were they manipulated with. In that way, place was given to posibility that everyone can possess “doubtable sexual affinities” if he or she for example is not politicaly correct. Given posibility was used on the first occassion. That way after the arrest of members of National movement “Otpor” there was more to find out about their sex life than about real guilt. Daily newspaper “Politika” of May 8th 2000, referring to that, writes, and state television anounces, that one of them is not married, due to his nature “he did not have serious relationships with persons of the opposite sex”, although “there are no data proving that he is homosexual”. Another, however, has relationships with women, but those relationships are “limited and generaly those are contacts with Rumanian and Bulgarian girls temporarily staying in FRY”. Communication of the third are “very limited, especialy with women”, but he, points out the anchor, “also is not a homosexual.”
Even more drastic example of using sexuality for somebody’s degradation we find in the article “Psycho-pathological portrait of today’s world people in power”, that was published on April 12th 1999 (during the bombing of Yugoslavia) in daily newspaper “Vecernje novosti” that would may be not so interesting if those were not the words of director of Psychiatric Institute “Laza Lazarevic”.
“Sexual frustrations, strong complexes and hatred that comes out of them are the common characteristic of todays “map-makers”. According to the words of director of Psychiatric Institute “Laza Lazarevic” and dean of Faculty of Defectology in Belgrade, present leaders of the world order are in every case psychopathological personalities, but in no way lunatics, because if a lunatic commits a murder – he does it because of his frantic idea, and most frequently he kills only one person. Here we have specific people, of necrophilic character that wish to convert everything live to dead. I am of the opinion that those psycho-pathological personalities of mass murderers were carefully chosen by some people that pull strings from the shadow, and we do not know their names. Those people that act from the back stage are also psycho-pathological personalities, but intelligent enough not to leave their names written in the history of crime. Therefore they find one Bill Clinton, a man of probably lower inteligence, which is confirmed by expression of his face and his ineloquency. The most powerful man of the world is a possible homosexual, which is confirmed by constant insisting on his affairs with young ladies. Predispositions for homosexuality also posseses Tony Blaire, Prime Minister of feminine apperance and most probably in love with Clinton. Madeline Allbright draws her traumas back from the childhood spent in Yugoslavia. Being physicaly unappealing it looks most probable that in competition with beautiful Serbian girls faced mockery in every step and refusal of the boys which in her created aversion towards Serbian people and men that did not accept her. Her wish as, after all, the wish of all the women in the world is to be appealing, so that lady although middle-aged still provokes mockery of men wearing mini skirts on extremely ugly legs. Robin Cook with 150 cm of his height and with devlish face is a very convenient person for mass murderer, while Kofi Anan kept colonial menthality of “nigger” and with his servantil character does everything what he is told to do.”
This xenophobic politics of closing led by the very beginning of regime of Slobodan Milosevic already in 1994 showed its results. Openness to the world and orientation towards modernism in majority of young people already was replaced by xenophoby and social authism. On basis of research that agency “Argument” conducted on 2134 highschool students in 1994 it can be concluded that colectivism, authoritarism and tradicionalism dominated in orientations of Serbian highschool students. 43
By pointing out somebody’s sexual orientation or preferences in negative context on state television on one side, and by letting “release” of sexuality on private televisions on the other side, former regime put patriarchaly-brought up population in inconvenient possition of double standards. Sexuality was something that everybody could be publically held against.Young people found themselves in similar gap. Mass media means openly or under cover suggested cherishing of sexual appeal, personal freedom in choice of sexual behavior, which meant that in a way they approved of and supported sexuality of young people. At the same time from those same media, and especialy parents and school, came messages of disapproval and reproach to premarital sexual relations. K. Savin and V. Korac44 in 1997 researching risky behavior showed that among young people there is still a strong influence of traditional patriarchal pattern of bringing up, including also widely accepted “machismo”, on sexual education and therefore on behavior. However, authors point out that: “It could be said that there are two socio-cultural frameworks: one, which is larger, more traditional, in essence patriarchal, more typical to rural and semi-urban communities and the other, lesser, which is more open, less rigorously structured and varied, as well as typical to urbanized communities.” This work does not consider that second cultural framework. Also other researchers, in latest works, conclude that patriarchal relations even nowadays determine behavior of young people in our community.45
Resolution
“A massive part of male world population has in great number unconsciencly gone under female influence down to the unimaginably low level which could lead our species into unknown and uncertain direction. That is not the case with Serbia. Women have always known to follow malehood of their husbands and daughters respected malehood of their fathers and grandfathers.”
(dr Jovo Tosevski, sexologist and university professor, Kazi NE, (Say NO), Papirus, Beograd, 1997)
Previous chapters have attempted to describe the path that Serbia took when former Yugoslavia fell apart. They in larger part deal with characteristics of period of Slobodan Milosevic’s rule: nationalism, war, wrong cultural and sexual politics and inmediate consequences of all of that. Various sociological texts, analytical newspaper articles and different books wrote about lethal influence of the whole politics of regime on every person. Cultural politics of kitsch, patriarchal patterns and nationalist tradicionalism were related to it. Existence of that kind of regime, it was considered, provided the existence of such a politics. However, this chapter deals with present.
On October 5th 2000 after civil riot (during which buildings of Parliament of Yugoslavia and state Radio Television Serbia were put on fire) Democratic Opposition of Serbia (that united 19 political organizations) forcebly took power previously gained on elections held on September 24th 2000. And that was that. We entered the reality.
Seven months later happened the first sex scandal in political public life in Serbia. First pompeusly called “sex scandal” sexual harassment that happened for the first time opened some questions.
In May 2001 for the first time a politician was publicaly and officialy called to responsibility related to sexual harassment of his female colleagues. The president of Social Democracy and President of Comitee against corruption Vuk Obradovic46 was accused from spokeswoman of his party Ljiljana Nestorovic47 for sexual harassment. As this term does not exist, it was never spoken about nor is it defined by the law, very soon according to public opinion statements of Ljiljana Nestorovic were doubted in various ways.48
Only one of four women that were sexualy harassed decided to stand in front of the cameras. Although public opinion was alarmed for a moment, more due to expression “sex scandal” and less due to the harassment done, basicly happened what could be expected. Coalition partners of Social Democracy that constitute coalition of DOS that is in power “in gentlemenlike manner” let SD solve their problems within the party.49 Some stated “that it has to be proven”, “that those are private matters”, “that media is fooling with nonsense”, many of them a priori did not believe that it happened. Vuk Obradovic accused his oponents of trying to make a coup, but with a smile he said “that he is glad that of all the labels they put that one on him”. Fifteen members of that party who stood beside their colleagues were excluded from the party, and those female collagues were called “whores and prostitutes” by the other members of the party.
Stigmatization imanent to the very act of announcing harassment to the public did not stop Serbian female politicians to stand up for their sexual rights. Only then it has been understood that sexual rights are not defined at all, nor are women’s rights, and that putting justice into effect will have to go through National Parliament in order to reformulate and update the laws. However, President of Serbian Parliament announced that Assembly session concerning sexual thematics will be closed to media for the first time since the fall of former regime. This decision of “democratic” parliament can be interpreted in numerous ways. I could be realistic and say that it is the protection of citizens from bunch of bad words (due to impossibility of articulation of sexual terms) that could fall from pullpit. I could be pessimistic and say that it is renovation of patriarchal – traditional treating of sex, making taboo out of it and putting it in the sphere of male domain. And I could be malicious and say that it is a protection of women from cruel truth of what men really think of them.
What are the attitudes of public opinion showed surveys TV and radio surveys moved by this happening. Comments of listeners, for example, of Belgrade Radio station B92 were various. Women had comments like: “why did not that all go first to the court, why did it go first in public” or ” man behave like that in all institutions… it is normal”, “well, that happens every day I do not know why do they need to drag it through newspapers, it is private business”, “why are there no witnesses, she must find witnesses in order to prove it”. With suspiciousness and insecurity, with weakness to protect not only their rights, but principle of all people being free and having their choice, women gave space to men to say openly what do they think. One male listener, giving his full name and surname, said the following: “For a Christs sake, 85000 naked women in town. Why do women dress like that? Vuk Obradovic is personally repulsive to me, but I belive him entirely. Women in Serbia do not have sex, so they have gone completely mad, they can hardly wait for sex. I have to run away from women in public transport. Why do they dress that way if they are moral and nice. They can hardly wait to get caught by a minister. And than later, they want to frame the man.” Of similar opinion, little bit more radical were some male participiants of the survey on TV “Politika”: “I fully support Vuk Obradovic. Women are pretending. And it is great when they deffend. All of them in fact want it, and they pretend they do not. That’s why it is sometimes justified to use harder approach.” said unanimously two young men surveyd in the center of city.
At this spot I can not help remembering the article from 1997 that was published in opposition weekly magazine “Gradjanin”, with the title “Serbian disaster” signed by journalist Aleksandar Tijanic50. In the text he accuses all women of trying to destroy the last Serbian myth – myth of Serbian masculinity. In a rather confusing text full of offenses this “important person” calls Serbia “the last oasis of machos”, accusing women of being agressive, manipulative with their sexuality and wishing to turn “phalusoid country” into “clitorial zone”. “Yak!” is the comment of that journalist, present Counsellor for information of President of Yugoslavia. “I do not want to be mean and say that all women were made out of one our rib, and if we maybe sacrificed an organ or two more, we could have got a creature that would give us more pleasure and more understanding, with bottom limit for size of tits: 3,5 up to 5 with prohibition of having flat feet and celulite.”
Those “destroyers of macho-culture” however can not do without men, because “what they blame in public they search in privacy and they perform the best show program”. Therefore, in conclusion of article Tijanic suggests the following revange: “So I suggest that while we do those things to them we should keep our eyes tightly closed, at least not to watch them enjoy in what they attack in public.”51
I do not think that this article from 1997 could have a significant influence on forming of public opinion. On the contrary, I think exactly that article represents that public opinion, thoughts of that majority that all these years with “eyes tightly closed” in order not to see,was voting for S.M, was going to wars, doing sexual violence to their own and other people’s wives, was protecting the regime till the last day and at the end when it had no place to turn crossed over to the side of new pater familias.
This first sexual scandal and the way that the public reacted say a great deal about Serbia, about men and women. Although long expected political change happened, it looks that patriarchal framework of thiniking is still dominant for both genders. Non-existance of adequate education, elementary self-consciouscness and culture of behavior are obviously those entries from which Serbia should begin essential changes. Sexual politics is one of them. Only when those conditions are met we will be able to talk about sex without shame.
References:
Abramson P. R, Pinkerton S. D. (1995) With Pleasure, Thoughts on the Nature of Human Sexuality, Oxford University Press
Biserko, S., Kovacevic-Vuco, B. (1995), Izvestaj o stanju ljudskih prava u Srbiji za 1995. godinu, http://www.helsinki.org.yu/god/god95.
Blagojevic, M. (2000) Zene, slike, izmisljaji, Centar za zenske studije.
Blagojevic, M. (2000) Mapiranje mizoginije u Srbiji, diskursi i prakse, Asocijacija za zensku inicijativu.
Cetinic, M. (1996) Nasilje u braku, da li je potrebno inkriminisati silovanje u braku? Vreme No.285
Colovic, I. (1997) Drustvo mrtvih ratnik, Republika No.145, http://www.yurope.com/zines/republika/arhiva/96/145/
DeLamater, J. & J. Shibley Hyde (1998) Essentialism vs. Social Constructionism in the Study of Human Sexuality. Journal of Sex Research 35: 10-18.
Djurkovic, M. (1999) Nadziranje i podvodjenje – Prilog izucavanju manipulativnih strategija Milosevicevog rezima, Republika No. 226 http://www.yurope.com/zines/republika/arhiva/99/226
Ivekovic, I. (1997) Neopatrijarhat i politicko nasilje – Prilog razumevanju etnickih sukoba na Balkanu i Kavkazu , Republika No.174, http://www.yurope.com/zines/republika/arhiva/97/174
Haavio-Mannila, E. & O. Kontula (1997) Correlates of Increased Sexual Satisfaction. Archives of Sexual Behavior 26: 399-419.
Hyde, J.S, Understanding Human Sexuality, University of Wisconsin – Madison;
Magdic, I., Veljovic, M. (2000) Seksualno ponasanje, komunikacija sa drugovima, u skoli, u porodici, Zbornik – Strucno-naucni skup, Zdravsteno ponasanje studentske i srednjoskolske omladine, Zlatibor 2000. str.128
Malesevic, M. (1986) Ritualizacija Socijalnog razvoja zene, tradicionalno selo zapadne Srbije
Nikolic-Ristanovic, V. Zrtve rata u bivsoj Jugoslaviji: obim, struktura i obrasci viktimizacije, Orlovic, Z. (2000) Seksualno ponasanje, komunikacija sa drugovima u skoli, u Zbornik – Strucno-naucni skup, Zdravsteno ponasanje studentske i srednjoskolske omladine, Zlatibor 2000. str. 188
Tasic, V. (2001) Homo-olos i homo-placenici. Reporter, february
Tosevski, J. (1997) Kazi NE, Papirus
Savin, K., Korac, V., Simovic-Hiber, I., Cucic, V. (1994) Sex, culture, law and AIDS, the conference AIDS in Europe – The Behavioural Aspect, Berlin
Savin, K., Korac, V., Fajgelj S. (1988) Social Perception of AIDS, Sociologija, Vol XV, No. 1
Savin, K., Korac, V., Fajgelj, S. (1997) Traditional-Patriarchal Cultural Pattern of Sexual Behaviour – Scales, Jurnal of Clinical Psychology and Social Patology, Vol. 4, No. 2: 115-127
Štulhofer, A. (1999) Hypnerotomachia Poliae: Seksualni stilovi urbanih zena u Hrvatskoj, Revija za sociologiju 30: 1-17
Vujovic, S. (1999) Mladi i SIDA, Socijalno-psiholosko istrazivanje o seksualnosti beogradskih srednjoskolaca i SIDI, Equilibrium
Vukovic M., Pesic, Lj.(2000) Odnos prema telu i slika o sebi u periodu adolescencije, Zbornik – Strucno-naucni skup, Zdravsteno ponasanje studentske i srednjoskolske omladine, Zlatibor 2000.
Published in Sexuality and gender in postcommunist Eastern Europe and Russia
Local sexuality in Serbia faced with demands of global sexual context
Thoughts about Globalism
Every idea in its birth could be ideal: communism, socialism, anarchism, globalism. But when it comes to realization, the results are far away from the original thought.
Things that we can see from Belgrade as global are: McDonalds, World Bank, access to Internet, Cosmopolitan Serbia/Montenegro edition, and increased use of English language.
Benjamin Arditi said in his essay: “Globalization, with its remarkable time-space compression and its impact on our perception of distance, presents us with an underside too. It has three salient aspects: the deepening gap between rich and poor countries, the creation of a mobile elite and an enclosed mass, and the resurrection of more rigid and less liberal models of identity as a defensive reaction to the dislocations brought upon by globalization under the guise of globalism.” The UN reports something similar: “The collapse of space, time and borders may be creating a global village, but not everyone can be a citizen. The global professional elite now faces low borders, but billions of others find borders as high as ever.”1
I think that people from Serbia belong to those billions of others in front of high borders, no matter that we believed that when Slobodan Milosevic is gone, borders will disapear.
At this moment I can’t avoid mentioning ecofeminists’ idea of Globalism. They identify globalization as an outgrowth of patriarchal capitalism, insisting on the primacy of gender as the determinant of social organization and arguing that it is the dichotomy between production and reproduction that essentially defines capitalism.2
In next section I will try to explain how global tendencies (after fall of comunism, then Slobodan Milosevic) arrive to Serbia and how they are mainly put in service of men and/or patriarchy.
Sexuality and global issue
Although the developed countries’ society is to a certain level sexually liberalized, filtered globalization reaches local level. It seems that the only useful and utilitary issues come to Serbia, only if some interest groups and communities recognize them as means of their own aims. For example, a pharmaceutical company sponsor a website referring only to conception and contraception, and not to all sexual problems. And all due to the fact that it produces contraception means.
There are several issues related to sexuality that can be bear the attribute of global.
1.Global changes in heterosexual relationships – serial monogamy, later and rarer marriages.
2.Commercialization of sex – Sex work in prostitution and pornography and sex trafficking
3.Sexual health concern – Including sexual therapy, education and medicalization of sexual problems
4.Tendency towards sexual diversity – spreading of LGBT movement, and what is for this paper important, some kind of female bisexual shick in this century.
5.Influence of new technologies on sexuality – Cybersex and new ways of sexual communication by broadcasting SMS messages through TV programs.
Sexuality in Serbia and global issue
Global changes in heterosexual relationships: serial monogamy, later and rarer marriages
There is a new form of relationships that Giddens described as “pure” (1991, 1992). Increasing number of heterosexual couples are approaching it, homosexual men and lesbian women have, to a large extent, already reached it. A pure relationship (the adjective is simply descriptive without moral overtones and means unmixed, unadulterated) is not based on institutions (like marriage) and is not
entered into for any outward, material, or official reasons but purely for its own sake. It exists in its own right, and lasts only as long as both partners are happy and satisfied with the “personal bonus” it provides.3 Funny thing is that homosexual population strives for things from which heterosexuals are running away right now.
A pure relationship is not necessarily monogamous; this is something to be discussed and agreed upon like everything else. Most heterosexual couples apparently decide to be faithful to one another (cf. Lauman, Gagnon, Michael, & Michaels, 1994; Schmidt, Klusmann, Dekker, & Matthiesen, Schmidt, Klusmann, Matthiesen, & Dekker, 1998), making serial monogamy the prevailing pattern or most obvious manifestation of the pure relationship. In the age of pure relationships, being faithful to each other is not bound up with an institution (marriage) or even a person, but with one’s feelings for this person.
The point is rather that heterosexuals have cautiously started to emancipate their pure relationships from (shared) sex. Many of them are nowadays taking part of their sex lives elsewhere, not so much into extramarital or extrarelationship affairs as into masturbating. Sex with each other and sex alone coexist quite peacefully.
There are other ways of escaping from obligations, negotiating, and sexual propriety. Some are quite common, like the “sexualized nonorgasmic relation to strangers” described by Bech (1997, p. 211), the anonymous contacts that men and women in urban and teleurban surroundings, in the real and telemediated worlds, are perpetually involved in, gazing at one another and showing themselves off, fantasizing and dreaming, enjoying being erotic “sensation gatherers” (Bauman, 1997). Others are rarer, like telephone sex, which I will mention further.
Recently, Marketing Agency “Medium Gallup” and Daily Newspaper “Blic” conducted a research on 1500 citizens of Serbia. According to their information, some form of serial monogamy exists among people between 18 – 25, even older. Getting married is moved to the age of 25 or 30, but according to the information, these marriages don’t live long.4 Coordinator of team for divorces in Center for Social Work in Sombor said that 90% of divorces encompass people aged 25- 30, which have been married one, two or three years. Traditional marriage that heterosexuals are forced to enter at a certain age, is of short breath, representing in that way some kind of “serial marriages” accepted in society, and desirable for women older then thirty.
Here I must mention how society forces peole to stay together. In order to get married you need 400 dinars (less than 7 euro), but to get divorced all expenses are 11 000 dinars (approximately 150 euros).
Commercialisation of sex
Commercialisation of sex is global in all meanings of that word. It is also closely related with patriarchy and men ruling. In sex bussines men are bosses and women are workers or slaves, it depends of what is in question.
Prostitution existed in all times, in all countries of the world. Due to bad economic situation, and impossibility to find a proper job, new forms, different from street prostitution, emerge. Those are so called call girls, who are working for Escort Agency. According to newspapers, lots of agencies exist in Serbia, and their clients are mostly rich and powerful. Girls that are working for them are mostly good looking and highly educated.
Second way of commercialisation of sex is well-known hot-lines. This is also a product of globalisation, at least something that relates us with the world trends. A lot of hot-lines emerged in recent years. One of the owners of these lines said that “thousands of people daily phone”5. Most of employees are women with different backgrounds: students, proffessors, shop-assistants, actresses, single, married, divorced. In commercialization of sex the orientation is not an issue, on the contrary, lesbian sex is very popular.
At the end of the twentieth century, local and international forces have merged to escalate the sexual exploitation of women and girls. Policies, practices and crises are combining to increase both the supply of women and girls vulnerable to exploitation and the demand by men for women and girls to be used for their profit and sexual gratification.6 It is sex trafficking, which is also in a way a commercial side of sex, because someone earns money. Sex trafficking has a lot in common with globalism, if we put in definition of globalism presence of American and European Army Forces in war zones. Women from former Eastern Bloc countries are being trafficked in large numbers to Former Yugoslav territories to serve as prostitutes for the areas’ large population of soldiers and aid workers.
In 2000 year, United Nations peacekeepers and police have rescued women from Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Albania.7 The police say that most of these women and girls — some as young as 15 — were transported from their home countries to Macedonia, which borders Kosovo to the south. There, they were held in motels and sold at auction to ethnic Albanian pimps for $1,000 to $2,500. The same phenomenon also exists in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the presence of peacekeepers and aid workers initiated a major trade in trafficked women from Eastern Europe that continues to thrive today.
The women were stripped of their passports and held in unsanitary conditions in bars or motels. They were then forced to engage in unprotected sex with local police and international peacekeepers for no payment. They were told that before they could keep any of their earnings, they first had to pay the pimps for their purchase price and the cost of their travel. If the women resisted, they were beaten. And all of that because of sex.
Sexual health concern
Sexual health in developed countries becomes one of the concerns of modern society, according to numerous organizations that are dealing with sexual issues (SIECUS, Society for the Scientific Study of Sex, AASECT, etc). In Serbia, there is only one organization, founded in 2000, and that is Centre for Sexological Studies, which work through website.
Global tendency that can be traced in this field of work is the emerging of the projects that are implemented by nongovernmental organizations with wide field of work, which have steady funders, and which can sell their project in a short time, no matter of the fact that they do not have any sexual education and skills. Another global induced issue is that they conduct peer education, through translated manuals of Planned Parenthood Federation or simlar groups.
a)Institutional Sexual Education
When we became a transitional country, a number of donations that were given to our country were meant for schools and education, which can be considered as a global help and, in that way, an influence. That included changing school programs, school system (9 grades instead of 8 existing), and a number of education seminars and workshops for teachers and education workers. So it was like forming a new school system, with a developed countries’ oversight.
Luckily, we still don’t have institutional sexual education. Luckily, because we do not have people who would properly conduct it. Anyway, if you are a girl in Serbia, you can learn about yourself as a sexual being in 8th grade at the age of 13/14, because most parents don’t talk with their children about sex, according to all researchers. So, a girl first finds out about this on biology classes almost in the last chapter of biology book, called: System of Reproduction Organs. Every book in English about sexual anatomy says: “The female sexual organs can be classified into two categories: the external organs and the internal organs”8. But the only book that mentions sexuality in Serbia in school is “Biology for 8th grade” does not say so. This book can be easily characterized as a nonprofessional and an untrue one. It begins with: “System of organs for reproduction in human provides internal conception and interior development of embryo.” A girl can find out that she only has: ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, vagina and bladder. In Serbian language vagina is called Rodnica (it means something that gives birth). Somewhere in the middle of the section the external female “reproductive” organs are mentioned. Mons pubis, Clitoral hood, Clitoris, Inner lips, Outer lips, all this different things in Serbian are packed into one word: Stidnica (free translation in English could be a shy one). And everything is put in the context of reproduction. When authors explain every mentioned organ, they explain its reproductive function.9
Then, after a detailed explanation of conception and pregnancy, sexual contacts are not mentioned again untill the part about to sexual diseases. “Sexual contact plays a significant role in spreading sexual diseases, when one does not pay enough attention on possibilities of infection. These kinds of contacts should be avoided. “10 Then they mentioned condoms in only one sentence.
Some researches conducted in towns in Serbia (Kragujevac, Cacak, Novi Sad) showed that young women have their first sex at the age of 14. It also showed that practically the only used contraception is coitus interruptus.11
To resume, sex education Curriculum given by, for example, SIECUS proposes that first sexual education must be carried out at all grade levels, not at the end of elementary school, and not in one week (or a day) as we do it now. And that every organ has its own name, which should be learned, and when external sexual organs are in question at the age of 5.
On the other hand, when sexual minority groups prepare sexual health manuals, they mention some things that do not even exist in Serbia, like but plugs or follies. Their manuals and education is not adjusted to system that works in Serbia. In explaining some things we should stared from the begining.
b)Sexual therapy
Sexual therapy is nowadays most common form of therapy in Europe and USA. It seems that it overcame psychotherapy.
In Serbia, things are quite different. There is no institution that can give proper education to future sexual therapists. Some of psychiatrists consider themselves sexologists, and sexual therapists too, or they put sex therapy together with psychoanalysis. Truth is that common women are interested in some basic matters, to say biological matters related to sexuality. Sexual therapy known in developed countries is far away from Serbia.
Research that “Medium Gallup” and “Blic” conducted showed that 18% of women is unsatisfied with their sexual life.12 But do they at all go to sexual therapy?
Another research conducted on 2000 people, conducted by psychiatrist J. Zdravkovic, discovered that 1/3 of women of whole sample taken fakes orgasm, and that every fifth woman gets involved in the sexual intercourse just to satisfy her partner.13 There was no research on the question do they ask for help or do they go to sexual therapist.
Through my web site Centre for Sexology Studies receive a lot of questions from people concerned about their sexual health. Lot of women are wondering how to reach orgasm, or how to enjoy sex. It brings us to conclusion that some kind of sexual therapy is needed in our country.
c)Medicalization of sexual problems
Medicalization of sexual problems, like using Viagra for dissolving sexual problems, according to ads and articles about it on the Internet, is in quite common use in developed countries. That form of global tendency, slowly comes to Serbia.
According to some Newspaper research Viagra is good seling product. Man of all ages, backgrounds and education buy it. It is selling through ads in newspapers, and internet.
Viagra for women still hasn’t arrived to Serbian market. And even when it arrives, would it be the solution for sexual problems?
Tendency towards sexual diversity i.e. Female bisexual shick
In this section I will not mention the development of LGBT movement and emerging LGBT groups in Serbia, no matter the fact that globalisation contributed somewhat to it.
Here I will put something accurate, which can by named as global Female Bisexual (or someone will say Lesbian) Shick. It is like the 70’s male bisexual shick with David Bowie, Mick Jagger etc. By female bisexual shick I consider Madonna and Britni and Aguilera famous kiss, then articles in our newspapers about Derril Hanna coming out as bisexual, as well as Angelina Jolie. I use term bisexual, because some of these women were married at that time, or got a boyfriend after that, like Angelina Jolie. Lot of newspapers wrote about these superstars and their lives, almost all TV stations in Serbia also had this news. And that made some influence on our society. But how did it really look like?
Some of local female stars admitted their experience with the same sex, not their sexual experiences, but how lesbians passed on them14, how they have lesbian friends and what do they do with them15.
Due to emerging of “lesbian” bend Tatu, 2 singers recorded an almost lesbian music video. One of them, asked many times if they were lesbians, answered “It is the fact that erotic scene between two women is far away acceptable than a scene with two gay guys… picture of two women is appealing to men and women both, to homosexual and heterosexual audience”. 16 There was one more video clip with a lesbian scene, of a Croatian singer, famous in Serbia also.17
Influence of new technologies on sexuality
On top of this come the untapped and bewildering opportunities offered by the internet and cyberspace that fire the imaginations of sex visionaries and culture critics. This is also one of the basic means of globalism. It is well-known that sexual dates are moved in cyber space, where Triple A Engine: Access, Affordability and Anonymity combines with turbo-charge online sexual ineractions.18 According to research of cybersex consumers, the truth is that men come in larger number, but also that the women are more likely to develop cybersex compulsivity.
Such a research has never been conducted in Serbia. But, as a number of personal computers is high. So we can only imagine that this form of sexuality will also develop in our nation.
Psychotherapist V. Milosevic in his practice finds that young people replace healthy sexual life with sex on Internet. He states that they exchange real sex for a virtual one.19
New ways of sexual communication by SMS messages with sexual content on TV programs, mainly are from men addressed to women.
These new types of sexual communication developed in past 5 or 6 years.
Global youth myth
Global imperatives for common women, related to sexuality are: beauty and youth, no matter if they are natural or artificial.
There are numerous magazines for women, covering from teenage to middle age women, and each one of them, in almost every issue, treats some sexual topics. It is interesting that magazines for elder women are rare, and even if they exist they have no articles about sexuality. It seems that when climax passes people stop to have any sex.
When beauty, care and youth are in question, it seems that life of local women is in contradiction with imperatives of feminity. From one side, a woman in Serbia is brought to a position of being the “head” of the family, and she is split between obligations at work and home, and she doesn’t have time, and what is more important, means to satisfy female standards imposed by globalism.
New authorities, that were comming after Milosevic brought new look and behaviour. Imperatives for young males are to be succesfull and have money. In reality, very few of them from the one generation succed in that goals.
We waited so long for some changes. We believed that all our problems were in Milosevic hands. But today, 5 years later, general situation, as well as attitude toward sexuality is pretty much the same. No body cares, as well as they do not care about helth, welth and peace of our nation. Why should be different with sexuality?
Tea Nikolic
Center for Sexology Studies
Article was original published in German with title Sexualität in Serbien unter dem Einfluss der Globalisierung, “Ost-West-Gegeninformationen”, Center for the Study of Balkan Societies and Cultures, Berlin 2004.
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