The situation is dire. The other day, someone decided to do a vox populi asking whether anyone wanted a sexual revolution to happen in Azerbaijan. Most of the respondents, puzzled, asked what was meant by a sexual revolution. And the guy holding the microphone was telling them, “free sex, free sex!” Immediately the respondents became reticent and standoffish – how can we talk about such things with our cultural and social mentality?! There is nothing surprising about that reaction; it is to be expected if the whole notion of a sexual revolution is an unfamiliar and uncomfortable concept.
There was another group of people as well; those who said that although they understood the question perfectly well, the community at large is not ready, that it would be misinterpreted and so on. And these were the educated ones. Whatever…
First of all, it is not a sexual revolution but a sex revolution;
1. One must know what the sex revolution is about. It is not just about free sex, but something far beyond that. It stands for the inviolability of intimate life. No one can intrude in your intimate life, just like no one can question your loss of virginity prior to marriage, no one can disseminate videos of intimate nature of you and most importantly no one has a right to punish you for any of these. This is what the sex revolution is about.
The sex revolution isn’t just about having sex anywhere or everywhere. It is a long process that involves using the “f” word in Azerbaijani freely, being able to independently develop sex marketing, and protect all of the freedoms mentioned above. I would like to provide an additional explanation here. My inclusion of marketing here is because conservatism is the main reason behind the massive gap in creativity of the “halal” chicken or “halal” sausage advertisements that permeate our daily lives. But none of these can explain what I mean unless you watch “Generation P”.
2. One group claims that the sex revolution will lead to HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. But this is wrong, because the sex revolution is also about not feeling ashamed when going to buy condoms at the local pharmacy. Two years ago, police detained one of our activists, Araz. When they found a condom in his pocket they asked what it was for. Araz naturally said it was for sex. Police told him to be ashamed of himself! Yes, the sex revolution is also to prevent incidents like that.
3. What about the question of what would happen to the dudes in “black jackets” if the sex revolution were to happen? There is only one answer to that; they too are going to become normal human beings. There is no other way. Take for instance Diyarbakir, a conservative town in Turkey. If you try walking there in a mini skirt, you risk being killed. But if you take men from Diyarbakir and bring them to Bodrum (one of the holiday resorts in Turkey on the Aegean coast) they will see so many of girls in bikinis or naked that they would finally change. The longer they stay there, the more human they will become. They won’t attack anyone. In addition to this, and as I mentioned earlier, at the basis of every culture there is political culture. Political culture influences people’s views on the culture of personal life. If there is one thing in this country that is holding back the sex revolution, it is the poverty of political culture.
4. You shouldn’t imagine thousands of people having sex on the streets just simply because the word “revolution” features in “sex revolution”. 99% of the time, the sex revolution actually takes place inside the people’s heads. You don’t have to go on the streets and yell, “Sex, oh yeah!” for this to happen.
And lastly: this is not something we can prevent. Some 30% of sexual revolution has already taken place in this country. Even if you cannot see this change, it is what it is.
