The phenomenon of a cult sex magazine
How a sex legend began
The phenomenon of a cult sex magazine
The brightest and most forbidden magazine at the newsstand, and the 90s forefather of Purpur and today's sex-education projects.
At Purpur we joke that we are its modern-day heir. After listening to the new podcast from our friends at a medical foundation, we decided to look back at the cult publication about sex. In their podcast, the foundation's team talks about HIV infection and everything connected with it. About the history of the virus and its place in pop culture. About important facts and the strange, often silly, but still popular myths.
Thank you to that magazine for talking about sex and HIV. We've taken up the baton.
First issue, 1989
The magazine's creators played their trump card right away: the cover of the very first issue featured a bare female breast.
It also had condom promotion and an interview with an actress who was the first Soviet woman to appear in Playboy.
An HIV fact sheet
One of the newspaper's first issues carried a detailed guide on how you can and can't get HIV. The health authorities kept quiet about the problem, while the newspaper was publishing a superb breakdown of even non-traditional sex practices. How many Soviet citizens had heard of anilingus before this publication?
Short and clear
A regular column in which doctors answered questions from curious Soviet citizens.
Any topic was covered here in detail and with complete seriousness: circumcision, menstruation, the whole spectrum of sexual practices and questions about sexual health. In short, the sex education that had been missing.
Art
The newspaper regularly printed nude photography and pieces about erotic cinema and recently banned literature, to broaden its readers' horizons and develop their aesthetic taste.
Advertising
Every kind of advertising: from muscle-building guides to a dating service. There's even a subscription to a medical journal. No wonder the newspaper's editorial board was full of renowned doctors and professors.
The Tao of love
"Awkward" topics got a huge amount of space in the newspaper. Here, for example, they analysed premature ejaculation with reference to ancient Chinese philosophers.
And it doesn't just describe well-known techniques: it also gives advice on how men can enrich their sexual experience and stop being preoccupied with ejaculation. Very progressive.
The 90s: the start of trash
By the mid-90s, the newspaper was drifting away from sex education towards trash and tabloid headlines.
The quality of the material dropped noticeably and there was more clickbait. But sex, of course, didn't go anywhere, and serious topics still came up sometimes. Here, for example, the paper discusses domestic violence and why a woman can become aroused in a situation that is stressful and traumatic for her.
Native advertising
Articles regularly became the basis for advertising in the newspaper.
A piece about the history of beds, marriage beds and bedtime habits through the ages advertised Italian furniture. An article about flowers invited readers to call the listed number about wholesale flower supplies. A piece about equestrian sport, and whether it makes female riders more aroused, advertised horseback rides.
For its time, the magazine was a breakthrough: no one had ever talked about sex so boldly and daringly. In fact, hardly anyone talked about sex at all.
The magazine never became a model information product about sex, although at the very beginning it focused on scientific material.
The job of sex education has moved online, and the magazine has been succeeded by brands and NGOs. This post is a thank-you to how the conversation about sex began.
