Sexual Education in Ireland Compared to Russia - Essay Example

Sexual Education in Ireland Compared To Russia It has been until the recent years around the 1990s that Ireland attained the reputation as the most sexually represented nation in Europe. Here women were taken for second class citizens while the Catholic Church was the undisputed authority, virtually unchallenged. However most of these things have changed. A 1973-1974 survey indicated that every three out of four individuals were convinced that sex outside wedlock was sinful. Another survey taken in 1997 indicated that individuals between 21 to 24 years of age had 13 varying sexual partners on average (Cronin, 2006). There was a memorable incident in Dublin where a Virgin Megastore was fined £500 for the sale of condoms. On the contrary, the same government of Dublin spent over £500,000 in promotion of condom use (McCormick, 2009). In brief, improvements in capitalism led to these changes in the lives of the Irish women, family and the attitudes around sexuality and sex. Despite this country being tagged with sexual repression, nothing inevitable or ‘Irish’ was involved. The season behind the feminine rights lack can easily be traced to the changes in the forms of family, and to the format reproduction was organized since the mid 19th century (Cronin, 2006). Up to around 150 years, marriage in Ireland was informal similar to the present day Ireland where many individuals living as married under the penal law introduced by the British in the mid 17th century that saw Catholics recognized as second class citizens. This implied that the church was then identified in the lines of the oppressed where it had very reduced effect on the day to day lives of the oppressed. This saw the actual 1:1,587 ratios of priesthood to Catholics in 1793 and 1:3,023 in1840 (McCormick, 2009). The church structures were very few in Ireland. This way the church had reduced influence on sexual morals and family in general. There was a historic period when there were changes in the women’s roles within the production that followed the Great Famine concerning how reproduction was organized in the family. Sex attitudes before this famine had remained open where they were often earthy. There was celebration of both men’s and women’s sexuality (McCormick, 2009). The church came in to provide the ideological concept toward sexual repression ensuring the pattern in late marriages. This is what came to be known as the permanent celibacy that turned to be a norm in Ireland to the period up to the 2nd part of the 20th century. Under normal circumstances, altering the sexual mores did not prove to be easy. The catastrophe that almost the population almost halved from 8 to 4.5 million in 1841 and 1861 consecutively was not any normal circumstances and undertaking normal lives after the famine was challenging, impossible (McCormick, 2009). This is where the church was able to chip in to spread explanations of traditional education for the catastrophe. They provided spiritual consolation and mainly directed to the survivors aimed in consolidating the church’s position. Coupled with the absence of clear economical role in women and the current situation offered the church an opportunity to get intimate involvement in the Irish family lives. Priests’ numbers that had dwindled over the past decades rose from the dominant established farmer milieu. There was a dramatic rise between 1861 and 1911 during the time when the entire population was declining. Come 1911, the former ratios of priest to Catholics had moved to 1:210 while in 1962, 2% of male, single men, of ages 45 to 54 were either monks or priests (Cronin, 2006). The church was positioned to preach the centrality of family and marriage and the evils of sexual related activities that were not aimed to procreation whilst at the same time upholding the Virgin Mary who formed the model among all women. Women acquired new roles as transmitters in the Catholic Church emphasizing that sexual activity outside wedlock or those activities that were not directed to conceiving was evil. Under the sexual repression in the late 19th century and the early 20th century, it came to suppress the traditional methods of contraceptives. Literature from those days enlightens us that women controlled their births through fashioning a form of cervical cap developed from bees’ wax. Use of tree barks and herbs was also evident as a way of inducing abortions (Tombs, 2006). However, this entire information was suppressed, although midwives were available and willing to assist other women in terminating intolerable pregnancies, a great deal of women eventually accepted the issue that sexual activities and bearing children were inextricably linked. It changed the situation to a perspective as something the males sought whereas women feared it. There were even jokes conjured around sex that it was the price paid by women for marriage whereas marriage was the price men parted with foe sex that reflected the reality in the lives of most people. Inevitably, contraception was available to better the situation off, they could visit qualified doctors for diaphragm fitting or travel abroad to bring bulk supplies of condoms. This is felt to the present day where any family in Ireland that has two children is considered as a gentlemans family. Sex was taken as the poor man’s opera (McCormick, 2009). Men in Ireland have also played a major role in transforming matters of sexuality in Ireland where eventually women gained rights. The 1970s and 80s, a period when there were Catholic-dominated hospitals ethics’ committees provided a situation that made it impossible for females to acquire sterilized. This period saw Ireland ranked extraordinarily for the high rates of vasectomies that were available on out-patient basis within the illegal clinics dealing with family planning and therefore men escaped the ethics committees. This was one way that men showed solidarity using the snip to their female counterparts. The dress code was also controlled to a great extent by the Catholic Church (Cronin, 2006). Sexual education in Russia was not as deep as that of Ireland; however, there are distinct aspects that define it. The Orthodox Church in Russia contributed in a major way in curbing what they referred to as the ‘satanic temptation’ after it started regaining strength around the 12th century. Midwives were named mollies damned by God and that the needed to be eradicated. Contraception was greatly condemned unlike the early years in Ireland through use of herds, it was considered as terrible murder (Matich, 2005). Sexual intercourse even amongst spouses was considered a sin apart from sexual activities aimed for conception. The church introduced several fasts leaving only 50 days in a year where spouses could have sex, permitting only a single sexual intercourse per day. Body kissing was condemned and only the missionary sex position was allowed. Those wives who were indifferent to sex were considered as good wives. The intimate part of life was supposed to be narrated to the clergymen during confession by all churchgoers (Matich, 2005). The Russian populace was not eager to heed to the church’s call. Men and women did all they could to defy the church such as marrying ladies with big busts while ladies did their best to enlarge their busts (Lalo, 2011). By the 16th century, ethnographer Galkovsky Nikolai became the first individual to publish about Russia’s fornication when it was though too be at its peak when sex was not only in the streets but also in the taverns. Weddings saw very few guests that had no sex with around 2 to 3 persons of the opposite sex. This went p an extent the syphilis came to Russia through foreigners starting from the 6th century. Empress Catherine, the Great lead in forbidding common bath houses since 1784, a lady who begun fighting against sexual sins (Lalo, 2011). Reference Cronin, M. G. (2006). Impure thoughts: sexuality, Catholicism and literature in twentieth- century Ireland. : . Lalo, A. (2011). Libertinage in Russian culture and literature a bio-history of sexualities at the threshold of modernity. Leiden: Brill. Matich, O. (2005). Erotic utopia: the decadent imagination in Russias fin-de-siècle. Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press. McCormick, L. (2009). Regulating sexuality women in twentieth-century Northern Ireland. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press ;. Tombs, D. (2006). Explorations in reconciliation new directions in theology. Aldershot, Hants, England: Ashgate Pub.. Read More