ABSTRACT
At the beginning of 2021, a team of the Field Research Center of the Institute for Social Analysis and Forecasting (RANEPA) conducted two online surveys as part of the research work “Partnership and romantic relationships during the pandemic and afterwards”. The surveys deal with the issues of sexual behavior of Russian people. The topic of sexuality is tabooed no more, but remains sensitive, thus, men, people with an upper middle income, and with a higher education are more inclined to talk about sex in public. Sexual education and satisfaction with sex life are directly related to status, including not only money, profession, or gender, but mostly the presence of a permanent sexual partner. Despite the proliferation of traditional family values, it keeps being a basis for sexual well-being and a meaningful approach to intimate practices. The pandemic only reinforces the tendencies which have already been indicated: Those who have a partner turn out to be more successful in their intimate life than those who rely on fleeting or casual relationships. At the same time, the quality of intimate life for many people is reduced due to subjective factors (fear and stress), as well as to objective problems and losses (loss of a spouse, illness, etc.). The affection of these tendencies in the longer term has yet to be explored. A discussion about sexuality open to all ages, requires redefinition of intimate life in terms of tenderness, care, altruism and positive communication, the search for “body language” demonstrating attention to the other than direct sexual intercourse. Positive sexuality includes three basic elements: 1) the rejection of any violence and the priority of “negotiation”;2) acceptance of one’s own body and its changes;3) lifelong sexual education as an experience of one’s own mistakes as well as readiness for them. Such discourse on sexuality makes possible further studies of various social groups’ intimate life in Russia, making one of the factors of their subjective well-being less obscene. © 2021, Russian Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.