There is no sex in the USSR

There is no sex in the USSR (В СССР секса нет) is a Russian catchphrase, that comes from the words of a Soviet participant of the Leningrad, Boston "tele-bridge" titled "Women Talk to Women", recorded on June 28 and broadcast on July 17, 1986.

History
In 1986, two television hosts, the Soviet Vladimir Pozner and the American Phil Donahue, organized one of the first "tele-bridge" broadcasts of the Glasnost era, directed by Vladimir Mukusev. During the discussion, an American participant posed a question to Russian women: Television commercials have a lot to do with sex in our country. Do you have commercials on the television? The Soviet participant Ludmila Ivanova, an administrator in Hotel Leningrad and a representative of the "Committee of Soviet Women" replied: We have no sex, and we are strictly opposed to it! The phrase was drowned in laughter and applause. Ludmila also added, concluding the sentence: „We have no sex — we have love“ Another Soviet participant said loudly: We do have sex, we don't have commercials! In popular culture, the phrase morphed into "There is no sex in the USSR", excluding the concluding "we have love".

In culture
The phrase "There is no sex in the USSR" is widely used in Russian to describe the prejudice and antisexualism of the Soviet culture and taboos of public discussion of topics related to sex. Conversely, supporters of the past Soviet regime mention it as an example of a phrase taken out of context by the Soviet Union's detractors.


 * A character of a bureaucrat played by Alexander Shirvindt in Eldar Ryazanov's 1987 comedy Forgotten Melody for a Flute is apologizing for allowing informal art by saying "There is no sex".
 * The phrase is mentioned several times in the 1990 Soviet-Polish comedy Deja Vu.
 * The phrase inspired the title of the 2004 Russian television drama Union Without Sex.

Historical notes
American ethnographer Kristen Ghodsee said that the sexual life of women under Socialism was, in fact, richer than under Capitalism thanks to the greater economic independence.

The "tele-bridge" incident was used by the Polish linguist Anna Wierzbicka as an example of the fact that even though sex as a phenomenon is "a given of human life", a word meaning sex does not exist in most languages of the world as it does in English, and when it does exist, it is often a loanword from English.

Ivanova herself later immigrated to Germany.