The key issue is that in the western world, sex has mainly been a matter of personal choice, and in the Communist countries, an instrument of state policy, like almost everything else in life. So the main result was that the Communist world "zigged" whenever the western world "zagged," and vice-versa.

As this article on the Soviet Union pointed out, "sex was one of the ways to resist totalitarianism. No wonder Orwell wrote that the goal of a totalitarian state is to subject the body and squash all sexual pleasure." This was one mechanism by which a Communist regime tried to control its people from time to time. At such times, sex would be a taboo topic.

Perhaps a more important issue was that sex was one way in which the Communists, particularly the Russians, tried to define itself in opposition to the West. As the article noted, "In the 1920s, the Soviet authorities relaxed the reins on mores. Sexual freedom and the emancipation of women were seen as part of the struggle" against the pre World War I Tsarist society, and also the "Victorian" society of the West. After World War II, when sexual freedom swept the western world, the Russians (officially) went the other way and made public discussion of sex taboo to create a contrast with the "decadent" West. At other times, Communist ideology argued that women had better sex under socialism, because of greater equality of the sexes, using East Germany vs. West Germany as an example.

The key issue is that in the western world, sex has mainly been a matter of personal choice, and in the Communist countries, an instrument of state policy, like almost everything else in life. So the main result was that the Communist world "zigged" whenever the western world "zagged," and vice-versa.

As this article on the Soviet Union pointed out,

"Sex was one of the ways to resist totalitarianism. No wonder Orwell wrote that the goal of a totalitarian state is to subject the body and squash all sexual pleasure."

This was one mechanism by which a Communist regime tried to control its people from time to time. At such times, sex would be a taboo topic.

Perhaps a more important issue was that sex was one way in which the Communists, particularly the Russians, tried to define itself in opposition to the West. As the article also noted,

"In the 1920s, the Soviet authorities relaxed the reins on mores. Sexual freedom and the emancipation of women were seen as part of the struggle"

against the pre World War I Tsarist society, and also the "Victorian" society of the West. After World War II, when sexual freedom swept the western world, the Russians (officially) went the other way and made public discussion of sex taboo to create a contrast with the "decadent" West. At other times, Communist ideology argued that women had better sex under socialism, because of greater equality of the sexes, using East Germany vs. West Germany as an example.