In this ambitious and thought-provoking book, Dobrowolska offers a substantial contribution to the growing body of scholarship discussing the limits and understandings of what “sexual revolution” meant in different contexts. Rather than accepting the term as a self-evident historical category, the author interrogates its meanings, limitations, and applicability beyond the Western contexts that have traditionally dominated the historiography of sexuality as we know it. Through an examination of socialist Poland from the 1950s to the 1990s, Dobrowolska reconstructs the multiple, and often contradictory, processes through which sexual modernity was imagined, negotiated, and experienced by everyday people. In doing so, she proposes a more nuanced understanding of sexual change, one that moves away from linear narratives of progress and instead emphasizes the coexistence of competing actors, ideologies, and cultural practices that reconfigured the understanding of “socialist sexuality.”
The central argument of the book is that the notion of a singular “sexual revolution” is insufficient to explain the diversity of experiences that characterized the second half of the twentieth century. Building upon recent scholarship that questions the universality of Western models of sexual liberation, in this book, Dobrowolska argues that sexual modernity developed through multiple, intersecting, and often conflicting trajectories. The Polish case is particularly revealing in this regard due to the socialist state, situated between Soviet and Western cultural influences. Poland experienced transformations in sexual culture that cannot be understood solely through frameworks developed for Western Europe or North America. Consequently, Dobrowolska shifts the analytical focus from asking whether a sexual revolution occurred to examining what the idea of a sexual revolution meant to different actors at different moments, and how this played in a great configuration of “new” sexualities.
The chronological structure of the book allows readers to trace the gradual emergence of new sexual discourses in socialist Poland. Beginning in the 1950s, Dobrowolska highlights how reforms concerning marriage, divorce, women’s legal equality, and abortion reshaped understandings of intimacy and personal fulfilment. The legalization of abortion and the expansion of women’s rights increased individual autonomy, while simultaneously provoking anxieties about declining birth rates and family stability. As a result, socialist authorities promoted both personal happiness and pro-natalist goals, creating a contradictory framework that became more visible during the 1960s and 1970s.
These tensions became increasingly visible during the 1960s and 1970s, when debates about sexuality intensified, and Western influences became harder to ignore. Through an insightful analysis of the magazine Forum, Dobrowolska demonstrates how discussions of the Western sexual revolution introduced new ideas into the Polish public sphere. Reports on sexual permissiveness, youth culture, and changing gender relations both fascinated and alarmed Polish commentators. While they offered examples of modern lifestyles and expanded freedoms, they also provoked fears of moral decline. These debates contributed to the development of a socialist “third way” of sexuality, presented as an alternative to both capitalist permissiveness and conservative puritanism. This model aimed to combine sexual progress with moral responsibility.
Among the most compelling sections of the book is the analysis of nude photography and the famous Venus exhibitions. Dobrowolska uses these cultural phenomena to explore debates about sexuality, modernity, and consumption under socialism. Supporters viewed nude photography (mainly female) as a sign of cultural sophistication and modern attitudes toward the body, whereas critics saw it as evidence of westernization and a threat to socialist values. Dobrowolska argues that these controversies reflected broader questions about the place of sexuality in socialist society and the state’s role in shaping sexual culture.
The book also highlights how the growing visibility of nudity contributed to the commodification of the female body. Nude calendars, advertising, and popular media normalized the use of women’s bodies as consumer objects despite socialism’s official opposition to capitalist exploitation. Dobrowolska extends this analysis to pornography, consumer culture, and the economic crisis of the 1980s. Although officially banned, pornography circulated widely through informal networks, revealing increasing ambiguity in state attitudes toward sexual culture. Men’s magazines, erotic television programs, and “porno-chic” aesthetics reflected this transformation, while erotic media became associated with consumer aspirations and desires for Western lifestyles. During the economic crisis, sexuality also served as a form of escapism from political uncertainty and material scarcity. Yet sexual modernity remained marked by heteronormative and patriarchal structures, as new forms of expression continued to privilege male desires and heterosexual norms. In the same way, the study of naturism and nudism movements further illustrates the complexity of late socialist sexual modernity. Dobrowolska interprets naturism not merely as a leisure activity but as a site where competing understandings of freedom, morality, and the body were negotiated. Influenced by transnational exchanges, particularly with Germany, naturist communities provided alternative forms of sociability and embodied experiences of freedom. However, these spaces also reproduced gender hierarchies and heteronormative assumptions, revealing the limits of socialist sexual emancipation.
It is also noteworthy how Dobrowolska’s treatment of queer experiences offers an important contribution. Rather than focusing exclusively on the repression of male homosexuality, as much of the existing literature has done, the author adopts a broader perspective that incorporates diverse queer identities and practices. Her analysis of sexological discourse demonstrates how sexologists occupied an ambivalent position as both guardians of normative sexuality and advocates for the social acceptance of queerness (especially homosexuality). The examination of queer magazines, zines, and contact sections provides valuable insight into the formation of alternative networks and the ways nonheteronormative individuals negotiated and challenged the boundaries of socialist society.
Finally, I would like to comment on what I consider the book’s greatest strength: its methodological approach. Dobrowolska employs an exceptionally diverse and eclectic corpus of sources, including magazines, newspapers, sexological publications, nude photography, calendars, advertisements, pornography, television programs, naturist materials, queer zines, and even contact sections in magazines. This rich corpus allows the author to reconstruct not only official discourses but also the everyday practices and cultural imaginaries through which sexuality was understood. Furthermore, the book serves as a reminder of the fragility of archival materials related to sexuality. By incorporating sources that have often been overlooked, dismissed as trivial, and mostly poorly preserved, Dobrowolska demonstrates the importance of expanding the historian’s archive materials and rethinking what counts as valuable evidence for the study of sexual cultures.
Ultimately, the book’s best achievement lies in its reconceptualization of the sexual revolution as a plural and contested phenomenon. By emphasizing the coexistence of multiple sexual modernities, Dobrowolska challenges simplistic narratives of liberation and progress while offering a more sophisticated framework for understanding sexual change. Her analysis demonstrates that sexuality under socialism was neither merely repressed nor straightforwardly liberated. It was instead a dynamic field of negotiation shaped by state policies, consumer practices, expert knowledge, transnational influences, and everyday experiences. Through its innovative use of sources, its engagement with contemporary historiographical debates, and its nuanced analysis of sexuality under state socialism, this book makes a significant contribution to the fields of sexuality studies, gender history, and Eastern European history. It will undoubtedly become an essential reference for scholars interested in the diverse trajectories of sexual modernity and the complex meanings of the so-called sexual revolutions of the twentieth century.
