In this session, I will give a lecture on the Kádár regime's expert-driven sexual politics, focusing on the connection between the emancipation of masturbation and the liberalization of public nudity. The 1970s and 1980s in Hungary is today considered as a time when a more permissive approach permeated public discourses with relation to various areas of sexuality. It was a time of the rise of sex experts who, along with public intellectuals, could disseminate ideas as radical as open marriage. At the same time a more liberal regulation of ads contributed to what was called "democratic sex," a proliferation of erotic imagery in the public arena. Aside from the lecture, we will watch and discuss a Hungarian movie from 1986, entitled "Egészséges erotika" (Healthy Erotica) and a discuss it together with of Mago-Maghiar's article analyzing a popular magazine's erotic jokes.
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