Lifestyle blog: Sex traditions in Ukraine

Sex is everywhere in modern Ukraine – in advertising, pop music, cinema and, of course, on the internet – but even so, it is still embarrassing for many young Ukrainians to talk about it, or to express their sexuality.

Ukrainian sexologist Oleksandr Kolomyichyk told the Kyiv Post this was a hang-up left over from the days of the Soviet Union.

“Parents, born and raised in Soviet Union, where, as we know, ‘there was no sex’, are still afraid or don’t know how to tell their kids about sexuality, Kolomyichyk said.

“Religion, where sex is sinful, has also had a huge impact,” he said.

As a result, young people get most of their initial knowledge about sex and reproduction from Western cinema and TV – which can present a confusing and distorted picture.

Ukrainians from earlier generations also lived in a conservative and hypocritical world, where a woman was expected to still be a virgin while walking down the aisle, on pain of a public shaming, and sometimes even had no knowledge of the facts of life. But despite that, Ukrainians in centuries past had a rich sexual culture and customs.

Sex games

Iryna Ignatenko, an ethnographer and assistant professor of the history institute of the Taras Shevchenko University has collected facts about sexual traditions and marriage relationships of Ukrainians in her books “The Female Body in the Traditional Culture of Ukrainians” and “The Male Body in the Traditional Culture of Ukrainians.”She has studied numerous books on Ukrainian ethnography, and visited more than a hundred Ukrainian villages to interview locals.

Sex before marriage was forbidden in Ukrainian society in the past, but at the same time a woman was expected to be desirable and a good lover for her future husband.

Parents would not talk to their children about sex, thinking this inappropriate and sinful, so instead they sent their sons and daughters from the ages of 15 to 18 to “vechornytsi” or “dosvitky” – basically all night parties, where young people would discover their sexuality by experimentation. This was their preparation for their future married life.

Although the Orthodox Church criticized vechornytsi and even banned them under a canon law in 1719, parents still encouraged their children to take part in them, and even gave them money to hold such parties,as this was the only way they would be able to get to know the opposite gender.

In every village during spring, winter, summer Orthodox holidays, young women and men used to rent the house of a widow and spend the night, chatting, flirting and exploring each other’s bodies.

“Young men and women would lie down together right on the floor, which was covered with straw, and slept together. Every woman chose a man to sleep with,” Ignatenko writes in one of her books.

According to her information, 45 percent of young women who went to vechornytsi lost their virginity before marriage.

Ukrainians from the Polissya region (Volyn, Rivne, Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy oblasts) had a sexual game “prytuly” (literally meaning snuggling), which was basically an imitation of sex, but sometimes even went as far as sexual penetration.

Ignatenko says in her book that the prytuly game was extremely dangerous for young women, due to the high possibility of an unintended pregnancy. If it was discovered that a girl had lost her virginity and got pregnant before marriage, she would be ostracized and dubbed a “pokrytka” (literally meaning “knocked up”).

Love potions

To prevent public disgrace, Ukrainian women used what they thought were contraceptives – magic spells made with period blood and various herbs that induce bleeding.

After marriage, the rules of sexual behavior were much less strict. A man could have an affair if it didn’t damage his marriage.If a woman was unfaithful she might be criticized, but not particularly harshly. Indeed, it was considered normal for a widow, or for a woman who was much younger than her husband, to have a “lubasok” (a lover).

According to spadok.org.ua, a website dedicated to Ukraine’s traditions and history, the Hutsuls, an ethnic group of Ukrainians living in the Carpathian Mountains in Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi and Zakarpattya oblasts, were the most sexually unfettered. During a Hutsul vechornytsi, young men were known to molest, pinch, kiss and even bite their love interests.

Sex between males and female of equal age was taboo. But older women, especially widows, would often take younger men as lovers.

If a girl liked a boy, she could allow him to touch her breasts. To charm a boy, young female Hutsuls would also cast various spells and brew magic potions.

Zchesy, period blood, was considered the most effective ingredient for a love potion. It was enough to add one drop of the blood to a man’s drink or food and he would love the girl until the day he died, it was believed.

Hutsul marriages were also quite open: Both the husband and the wife could have many lovers. Women expressed their interest in men by special signs, for example presenting a pysanka (painted egg) to their love interest on Easter day.