Contents*

• Demographics and a Brief Historical Perspective 359

1. Basic Sexological Premises 360
2. Religious, Ethnic, and Gender Factors Affecting Sexuality 361
3. Knowledge and Education about Sexuality 361
4. Autoerotic Behaviors and Patterns 361
5. Interpersonal Heterosexual Behaviors 363
6. Homoerotic, Homosexual, and Bisexual Behaviors 369
7. Gender Diversity and Transgender Issues 370
8. Significant Unconventional Sexual Behaviors 371
9. Contraception, Abortion, and Population Planning 373
10. Sexually Transmitted Diseases and HIV/AIDS 378
11. Sexual Dysfunctions, Counseling, and Therapies 379
12. Sex Research and Advanced Professional Education 379
13. References and Suggested Readings 379

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Demographics and a Brief Historical Perspective

ROBERT T. FRANCOEUR

A. Demographics

The northernmost of the three Baltic states, Estonia is located in Eastern Europe, north of Latvia and west of Russia. To the north of Estonia is the Gulf of Finland and Finland. Estonia’s western border is formed by the Baltic Sea and Gulf of Riga. With a total area of 17,462 square miles (45,226 km²), including 1,520 islands in the Baltic Sea, Estonia is slightly smaller than the states of New Hampshire and Vermont combined. The terrain is marshy and lowlands, with maritime, wet, moderate winters and cool summers.

In July 2002, Estonia had an estimated population of 1.42 million, or 1.37 million in the last national census of 2000 (Estonian Board of Border Guard, Statistical Office, http://www.stat.ee/). (All data are from The World Factbook 2002 (CIA 2002) unless otherwise stated.)

B. A Brief Historical Perspective

KAI HALDRE

In the area that now forms present-day Estonia, the first settlements occurred some 11,000 years ago, after the last ice cap retreated. During the 12th century, the Baltic region was in the hands of the Teutonic Knights. Estonia was incorporated into Christendom at the beginning of the 13th century, under the pressure of crusaders from Germany and Denmark. During the 14th century, the power shifted to the Hanseatic League, with several Estonian towns and cities belonging to the League, including Tallinn (Reval), which had received its city charter as early as 1248.

In the first half of the 16th century, the Protestant Reformation reached Estonia. Since that time, Estonia has remained a part of the Lutheran cultural space. From 1558 onwards, Estonia became the battleground for a war involving Denmark, Sweden, Russia, and Poland. Sweden won the war and Estonia remained under her sphere of influence until the beginning of the 18th century. During Swedish rule, the first university in Estonia was founded at Tartu in 1632. The Great Northern War left Estonia under Russian rule (1721). Estonia became a window through which Peter the Great wished to gain access to Europe.

In the 19th century, the winds of numerous national movements blew through the whole of Europe. In Estonia, the period of national awakening began with the publication of Estonia’s national epic Kalevipoeg in 1862.

The Estonian Republic was declared on February 24, 1918. At first, this was merely a decision made on paper. True independence was fought for between 1918 and 1920, during the War of Liberation. The struggle was crowned with success, and a treaty was finally signed with Soviet Russia, which revoked in perpetuity all claims over Estonia. During independence (1918-1939), Estonia established diplomatic relations and made its existence felt throughout Europe. Independence was curtailed by the signing of the Pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939.

Following the Soviet occupation in 1940, Estonia became part of Nazi Germany from 1941 until 1944. The Soviet Union incorporated Estonia in the fall of 1944. A large proportion of the population fled abroad. Many others were arrested and deported to Siberia. Those who remained had to adjust to a new way of life. Estonia succeeded in regaining its independence when the Singing Revolution was signed in 1988, with full independence once more since 1991.

1. Basic Sexological Premises

According to the Estonian sexologists Imre Rammul, Olev Poolamets, and Tõnu Ots (2000), the sexological premises behind contemporary sexuality and sexual life in Estonia has deep roots:

Before Christianity, Estonians were quite liberal about sexuality. It was not a sin for a woman to be sexually active before marriage, in some places it was appreciated to have a child already before the marriage as it indicated the reproductive capacity of the woman. Folk merrymakings contained orgiastic elements. Special holy places were defined to carry out fertility rituals, using totemistic items and figures of the Fertility Goddess, Maaema. Thunder and rain were connected with male Gods; fertility and the harvest were influenced by female Goddesses.
            Something like trial marriage was accepted for a period of one year. However, it was more a trial of reproduction rather than a testing of psychological compatibility.
            These liberties were mostly accepted silently for non-married people. Later the society, especially men, tried to keep genetic purity with repressions aimed at those not following the rules. It seems that later as a result of Christian attitudes and traditions, abortions and killing of newborns became more common. Though Estonians have had some gender role models similar to those in neighboring countries, the historical background did not contribute to the opposition between genders. The reason is probably that marriage had traditionally been more like a social agreement rather than a trade. Also, women in the Estonian household had more power than men who were more involved outside the household. Marriage was not complicated by the rule that the manor lord had the right to intercourse with the wife on the wedding night.
            Bridal ransom has never been a tradition in Estonia, the reason for that being unclear. It was enough to bring a bottle of alcoholic drink to the parents of the bride while making the proposal. The parents also considered the economic capability of the man or made him work for the family. Even today the word to depict the son-in-law and the farmhand/servant is the same in Estonian and Finnish sulane/sulhanen. On the other hand, the bride was commonly required to have an amount of property—a special box that was called veimevakk/dowry-chest. Its contents included different handwork and jewelry and symbolized that the woman was industrious and not poor. In Estonia, many Christian sexual manners were combined with traditional paganistic habits.

Estonia was part of the Russian Empire in 1721-1918. It might sound surprising, but Russia, even before the beginning of the 20th century, was quite liberal in matters of sexuality. Probably, it was because of the early spread of atheistic ideas and later because of the attitude that during communism, everything is common (except one’s own wife). Already in 1848, Shavrov issued his research about female sexual satisfaction. Later, Tarnadovski published Female Sexual Disorders. However, most research described statistics or deviant sexual behavior, mostly among men. A 1904 presentation by Nenadovitsh at Pirogov Institute in St. Petersburg, on “Anaesthesia sexualis mulieris” (including classification of female sexual dysfunction), was an early cornerstone of Russian, and hence Baltic sexology.

A widespread study of students’ sexual behavior was carried out by Tshlenov in 1909. It was already influenced by the coming Revolution and remains one of the last studies in the country. The results of the study were confiscated by the police.

The period of independence in Estonia between the two World Wars was a sort of pre-revolution before the real sexual revolution in the 1960s, with contradictory attitudes. There was an increase in prostitution, the coming out of sexual minorities, and the cult of nudity, but this raised opposition, creating moral police and organizations to promote the moral way of life. There were also some medical publications taking a stand against masturbation and polygamy as harmful practices. At the same time, nice romantic literature became internationally popular in The Ideal Marriage (1930) by Theodore Van de Velde and other similar works. Meanwhile, sexuality in school and university curricula was limited to its medical aspects.

During the Soviet occupation, human sexuality was a taboo in Estonia as it was all over the Empire until the end of the 1980s. This taboo was illustrated by the TV bridge between the USA and Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s, when one Russian lady announced, “There is no sex in Soviet Union.”

In spite of that, already in the 1960s, several people tried to touch on sexual issues. For example, in 1964, urologist Mihkelsoo at Tartu University started to use human ribs to perform operations in the case of erectile dysfunction. At the end of 1960s, psychiatrist Heiti Kadastik from Tartu University started offering lectures on sexology for students. Kadastik also initiated translation and publication of a book by Finnish psychiatrist Martti Paloheimo, Openly About Marriage. This book, published in 1974, remained almost the only source of literature about sex for Estonians thereafter and became a cult itself. Psychoanalysis was represented by V. Vahing, who for several years had a private practice as well as taught students. Another key person in the development of Estonian sexology was psychologist Tõnu Ots, who started to answer questions about relationships in a youth magazine Noorus in 1971. He used the name Dr. Noormann, which remains a synonym for sexology counselor until today.

2. Religious, Ethnic, and Gender Factors Affecting Sexuality

A. Source and Character of Religious Values

The dominant religion in Estonia is Evangelical Lutheranism. Estonians were Christianized by the Teutonic Knights in the 13th century. During the Reformation, Lutheranism spread, and the church was officially established in Estonia in 1686.

At the same time, Estonian culture and politics influenced the traditions of the church. The privileges granted to the Baltic-German nobility by the Russian Czarist powers in 1743 to supervise the church, the schools, and hospitals paralyzed church activities, as the church lost its relative independence. The 1832 ecclesiastical law reduced the Evangelical faith in orthodox Russia to the status of a “tolerated” religion. In 1919, in the newly independent Republic of Estonia, control of the church passed into Estonian hands. Religious freedom was granted to all persons and all denominations. The Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church with an Episcopal-synodical structure was created and soon grew to be the largest church in Estonia, with 80% of the population as its members. In 1925, the church was separated from the state, but religious instruction remained in the schools and clergymen were trained at the Faculty of Theology at Tartu University.

With the Soviet occupation and the implementation of anti-Christian legislation, the church lost over two thirds of its clergy. Work with children, youth, publishing, and so on, was banned, church property was nationalized, and the Faculty of Theology was closed. Although some church services were tolerated (Sunday church services and presiding over funerals), by the 1970s, less than 10% of Estonians were prepared to publicly state that they were Christians. It was not until 1988 that the state’s religious policies became tolerant, and by 1990, repressive legislation was annulled.

Today, the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church is the largest church in Estonia, with 169 congregations and approximately 175,000 members. Although Estonia has never had a “state church,” the predominant position of Lutheranism is based on a centuries-long tradition. The next in size, also with long historical traditions, is the Estonian Apostolic-Orthodox Church, with 58 congregations and approximately 18,000 members. Other Orthodox in Estonia belong to the Russian Orthodox Church, whose activity has not yet been coordinated with local laws. Third in size is the Alliance of Estonian Evangelical Baptist Congregations, which consists of 89 congregations with 6,100 members. Although official statistics imply one congregation for every 2,700 inhabitants, only 16% of the population has formalized their ties to a specific congregation. Most Estonians do not belong formally to any religious community. According to the Estonian sex survey of 2000, 22% of Estonian-speaking men and 19% of Russian-speaking men, and 37% and 50% of respective women consider religion important in their life.

B. Source and Character of Ethnic Values

Most of the religious adherents among the country’s Russian-speaking population are Orthodox, while the Estonian majority is predominantly Lutheran. There is a deep-seated tradition of tolerance of other denominations and religions. Although the majority of citizens are nominally Lutheran, ecumenical services during national days, Christian holidays, or at public events are common. Tension between the ethnic Estonian and ethnic Russian populations generally do not extend to religious matters.

According to the population and housing census in 2000, there are 1.37 million people living in Estonia. 80% of them are citizens of Estonia, 6% citizens of Russia, 0.7% citizens of other countries, 0.6% with unknown citizenship, and 12% of the population are with undetermined citizenship. About 83% of Estonian citizens speak Estonian as their mother tongue, 15% speak Russian, and 1% speak other languages. One of the main priorities of the state integration program is to teach the state language, while at the same time creating opportunities for the different ethnic groups to learn their mother tongues. There are more than 140 ethnic groups represented in Estonia, forming around 32% of the population. The largest non-Estonian ethnic groups are Russians, Ukrainians, Byelorussians, and Finns.

The tensions between the ethnic groups in Estonia have culminated in citizenship laws. Estonian citizenship demands officially accepted Estonian language skills shown by a test. Non-citizens in Estonia are guaranteed basic rights under the Estonian Constitution, including the right to unemployment benefits and social services. Although they have no voting rights in Parliament elections, they can vote in local governance elections. This has caused problems in the process of joining the European Union, which will take place in 2004.

3. Knowledge and Education about Sexuality

In the late 1960s, a growing demand for sexual counseling initiated an idea to create a family counseling center in Tallinn. In 1975, this center started sexuality education lectures for the adult public and schoolchildren. Sexological counseling was provided by gynecologists, urologists, and psychiatrists. People from different specialties, mainly gynecologists and psychiatrists, could get postgraduate training in sexology in St. Petersburg (Leningrad), Moscow, or in Ukraine at Harkov or Kiev. Being a medical person gave a sort of “permission” to talk about sex. Educators generally lacked an interdisciplinary approach and presented the views of their own background.

Nowadays, sex education is included in the school health education curricula. There are nongovernmental organizations established in the first half of the 1990s, which provide information materials. Young people can visit the 15 youth counseling centers in different parts of Estonia to get individual counseling on reproductive and sexual health issues. Sexologists work in Tallinn and Tartu. Sex education had improved a lot at the end of the 1990s thanks, to NGOs and the empowerment of schoolteachers, the Internet, youth and women’s magazines, and many other sources. These rapid recent developments are not yet reflected in statistics or research data. (See Section 5B, Interpersonal Heterosexual Behaviors, Adolescents, for survey data on sexual education and knowledge.)

4. Autoerotic Behaviors and Patterns

ELINA HAAVIO-MANNILA

A. Children, Adolescents, and Adults

Masturbation is a common harmless practice. Nowadays, men and women with sexual problems are encouraged to masturbate in order to overcome their inhibitions (Kay 1992). People with a high interest in masturbation have been found to be less afraid of intimacy than those with no interest in masturbation (Rinehart & McCabe 1998). The way in which individuals view masturbation is linked to their perceptions of its nature and the consequences associated with it in a given culture, particularly during one’s teenage years (Kontula & Haavio-Mannila 2002).

Prevalence and Frequency of Self-Pleasuring

The Estonian sex survey of 2000 (see Haavio-Mannila & Kontula 2001) shows that 64% of men and 47% of women respondents had practiced masturbation at some time in their life. In the past month, 33% of men and 22% of women reported having masturbated. In a Multiple Classification Analysis (MCA) with five predictors: gender, age group, type of relationship, education, and national group, Estonian-speaking respondents reported self-pleasuring more often than Russian-speaking Estonians. Younger and more-educated respondents reported masturbating more often than older and less-educated subjects. Type of couple relationship (married, cohabiting, living apart together (LAT), and being single) had no statistically significant association with masturbation. Compared to Finns and Swedes in the 1990s, Estonians were less likely to report masturbation, whereas, compared to people in St. Petersburg (and Finland in 1971), they were more likely to do so.

In 1996, Eesti Kirjandusmuuseum (The Estonian Literature Museum–ELM) in Tartu collected sexual autobiographies in response to advertisements in 17 newspapers and journals. Sixty-two sexual life stories were received. Thirty-eight of them were translated into English. The examples cited here are from the translated autobiographies. In terms of autoeroticism, these Estonian sexual autobiographies, especially those written by men, included a lot of stories about autoerotic behavior. Women less often wrote about autoerotic behavior than men. [This collection of autobiographies was organized by Rutt Hindrikus, supported by a grant received by a grant to J. P. Roos from the University of Helsinki. Merle Karusoo edited 21 of the autobiographies into a book (Karusoo 1997).]

These stories confirmed the common-sense assumption that young Estonian males learn autoerotic behavior from other youngsters:

Once one of my classmates invited me to their sauna. His two brothers, who were studying in technical school, and a boy from next door, would also be there. We five would have a real men’s sauna! I went! The sauna was good and hot and soon all the youths were sitting lined up in a row, on the top step of the “stage,” all naked of course. My classmate suggested we give ourselves erections and measure to see who has the longest tool. We had a wooden, folding ruler with clear numbers (meters). The erections were achieved with the help of soap and by sliding the foreskin back and forth until my tool was as taut as a bowstring (I felt it would snap any minute). My classmate and I measured 18 cm. His one brother’s and the neighbor boy’s measured 20 cm. and the third brother’s was 22 cm. After we had finished measuring one of the older brothers said, let’s jerk off and see whose sperm shoots the furthest. All five boys masturbated to climax and exploded with that great feeling and a huge spurt of white liquid. The first stream landed near the wall at the opposite side of the narrow washroom and every one thereafter increasingly closer until it merely trickled down the head of our shafts: Our tools were all swollen close to bursting—red, and with veins bulging. We were perspiring heavily and silent for a while, while we recovered. Then began the real sauna. We washed, birched and swam in the lake behind the sauna. This was the first time I had masturbated and have done so again later in life. (ELM 1996)

Getting intense pleasure from autoerotism makes the following young woman hypothesize that she will continue self-pleasuring also after marriage:

In about the ninth form (or earlier) I discovered something pleasant! Taking a bath I accidentally found out that it was awfully pleasant to direct the spout of water on my clitoris (at that time I did not know what clitoris was). I felt how my body became tense; meanwhile the feeling was so strong that I could not direct the spout, and then the frantic end, and I was not able to continue that activity even for a moment. Soon I discovered that when to stop it for a while I could stand the feeling again. I was very happy about that discovery and thought that if the intercourse with a man was as pleasant, it was worth to be desired. I could take a bath several times a day and you may presume that someone might wonder why it took me so much time. I did not tell anyone about that, and even now that I am going to be thirty already I have confided in one friend only. I do not deny that I have to do that also when married. (ELM 1996)

Masturbation compensated for the lack of sexual commitment by men. Married and cohabiting men masturbated less often during the previous month (29%) than single men (40%) and men living in a separate steady relationship (36%). Nevertheless, having had intercourse during the past month was not connected to masturbation in the same time period.

Autoerotic behavior of women seems to be a more private, secret matter than that of men. Contrary to men, autoerotism and heterosexual activity during the past month were associated among women. Women who had had intercourse in the previous month masturbated more often than women who had not had intercourse—27% compared with 15%, respectively (p < .003).

The gender difference was also apparent when one looked at the masturbation of women in different types of couple relationships. Twenty-two percent of married and cohabiting women had masturbated during the past month, slightly more than had single women (19%). Women who were living apart together in a committed relationship (LAT) were most active in self-pleasuring. As many as 33% of them had masturbated in the previous month. These connections are partly because of the different age composition of the four couple-relationship types. Separately living and cohabiting women were, on average, ten years younger than the single and married women subjects.

Predictors of Masturbation

Beyond the influence of gender, age, relationship type, education, and nationality on experiences of self-pleasuring during the lifetime summarized above, is our deeper study of how the social background and some characteristics of the present relationship predict recent masturbation using stepwise regression analysis. Because we wanted to explore the impact of relationship factors, we excluded from the analysis people not living in a couple relationship as married, cohabiting, or having a steady sexual relationship without living together (LAT).

We found that recent masturbation (seven alternatives; see Table 1) was connected to mutual oral sex¹ (standardized beta coefficients were, for men .17 and for women .29), and finding pornography arousing (both genders .15).

¹ Oral sex. A sum scale composed of the five response alternatives in the following two questions: “In the last five years, how often have you had oral sex in your sexual relationships, that is, caressing a man’s penis or a woman’s genitals by mouth? Partner has/I have done [it] mostly, sometimes, seldom, 1-5 years ago, and not at all” (range 2 to 10).

For men only, being an Estonian-speaker instead of a Russian-speaker (beta .19), dissatisfaction with sexual life as a whole (beta .18), practicing manual sex (.21), frequent use of alcohol² (.14), and having had parallel relations during the present couple relationship (.13) predicted masturbation too.

² Alcohol usage. The six alternatives were: Daily, twice a week, once a week, a couple of times a month, once a month, and once in two months or more seldom.

For women only, masturbation correlated with young age (beta .12), number of sexual partners during the past year (.18), and wanting to have intercourse more frequently in the present couple relationship³ (.11). In addition, masturbation was associated with low quality of the present couple relationship⁴ (.12).

³ Wanting to have more intercourse. The four alternatives were: I would like to have intercourse clearly more often, somewhat more often, I am satisfied with the present frequency of intercourse, and I would like to have it less frequently.

⁴ The quality of the relationship was measured by a sum scale based on dichotomic variables of happiness of the couple relationship, open communication on sexual matters with the partner. The opposite of low-quality relationship is high-quality relationship, HQR (see Kontula & Haavio-Mannila 2003).

The regression model predicted 29% of the variation of recent masturbation by men and 22% by women. When the influence of all these variables was controlled for, masturbation was not statistically significantly explained by, for example, education and recent intercourse.

These findings indicate that recent masturbation among people having a steady couple relationship is part of a liberalized and versatile sexual lifestyle (oral and manual sex, accepting pornography, having had several sexual partners, and frequent alcohol use). It is also connected to problems in the couple relationship. For men living in a steady sexual relationship, this can be seen in the association of recent masturbation with dissatisfaction with their sexual life and having had parallel relations. For women in couple relationships, the compensative nature of masturbation emerges as a connection between self-pleasuring and a low quality of the present steady sexual relationship and longing for more frequent intercourse with the permanent partner.

For single people, autoerotism is sometimes the only way to get sexual release, as is evident in the autobiographical passages above. According to the survey data, masturbation did not compensate for the single men’s lack of a steady partner. Estonian men without a steady sexual partner practicing self-pleasuring were dissatisfied with their sexual life as a whole (beta .28). Their sexual lifestyle was versatile with recent experiences of oral sex (.30).

Among single women, the young ones (.30), those getting aroused by pornography (.24), and those having practiced oral sex (.24) had engaged in masturbation more recently than other women. Single women with recent experiences of masturbation were as satisfied with their sexual life as a whole as were the women who had masturbated a long time ago or never. For single women, masturbation seems not to be a desperate attempt to cope with the “misery” of not having sex with a partner, which may cause dissatisfaction. In sum, autoerotic behavior is part of a liberated sexual lifestyle more often for single women than for single men.

5. Interpersonal Heterosexual Behaviors

A. Children

There is autobiographical, but no statistical information.

B. Adolescents

OSMO KONTULA

Behavior and Knowledge

After the incorporation of Estonia into the Soviet Union, sexuality was a taboo topic for decades, making it difficult to obtain sex information. As a consequence, the state of sex education in Estonia was poor until the 1990s. In the KISS (Küpsemine Inimsuhted Sõbrad Sesksuaalsus) survey (conducted in Estonia in 1994 among 1,080 schoolchildren at the 9th grade—15 year olds), a good level of sexual knowledge among Finnish boys was five times as high as among Estonian boys, and among Finnish girls eight times as high as among Estonian girls. In Estonia, the sexual knowledge level of the girls was lower than that of the boys. Adolescents with a low level of sexual knowledge mostly had not discussed these issues with their parents or friends, nor had they sought information from alternative sources (Papp et al. 1998).

Estonian society accepted adolescents’ romantic feelings towards the opposite sex but disapproved of sexuality in the relationships of adolescents. Courtship in Estonia has had significantly less sexual intimacy than in Finland. Estonians had much less sexual intercourse in their courtship than did Finnish adolescents. A double standard for males and females was common: 18% of boys and 5% of girls reported that they had experiences of sexual intercourse. For masturbation, these figures were 14% and 6%, respectively. During the occupation, articles published, as well as programs of sex education for schools, presented masturbation to adolescents as a vice and recommended weaning oneself away from it.

In 1999, another KISS survey was conducted among 1,676 students in the 9th grade. In this survey, girls showed a marked improvement in their knowledge compared to 1994. The number of pupils with poor sexual knowledge had been cut in half. Topics concerning sexuality began to be discussed more frequently in schools during this period. However, a fifth of Estonian pupils and half of the Russian pupils said that questions concerning sexuality had not been discussed in the classroom in this or in previous years. As a source of information, video films and pornographic magazines were popular among boys, and articles in women’s and youth magazines among girls. Sexual intercourse was experienced by 9% of the 15-year-olds in 1994 and by 14% in 1999. The increase was much more pronounced among girls. Slightly over half of the respondents of Estonian origin had used a contraceptive (mainly a condom) in their first intercourse. Condom use had not increased during the five-year follow-up (Papp et al. 2001).

In a 2000 sex survey of adult Estonians, only 10% of the people who belonged to the middle-age group (35 to 54 years) and an equal proportion belonging to the old-age group (55 to 74 years) reported that they had received enough sexual knowledge from their parents. In the youngest generation, this proportion was almost a quarter. More-open discussion about sexual issues had started in homes, although only in exceptional cases.

According to the responses in the 2000 survey, there has not been much sex education in Estonian schools before the 1990s. Only a few percent report that they have received enough knowledge in sexual issues in their school. Even in the youngest generation, this proportion was only around 10%; the comparable figure was two thirds in Finland. Even though the available knowledge and material (including pornography) have increased in the 1990s, there is still a major deficit in sexual knowledge in Estonia.

Dating

Forty-eight percent of Estonian-speaking men and 43% of Estonian-speaking women had dated before they were 18 years old. For Russian-speaking men and women these proportions were 38% and 41%. The average age for the first dating was 18.2 years for men and 18.3 years for women. This age had decreased for both genders. In the oldest generation (age 55 to 74), the average age at first dating was 20.0 years.

Young Estonian men dated for the first time when they were around 17 years old, about the same age of their Finish cohort. Compared to their Finnish counterparts, Estonian women dated for the first time at an older age, having started dating, on average, at 17 years old. This was a year later than in Finland. Among Estonian women, the average age of first date was comparable to that one generation ago in Finland.

Sexual Debut

According to the Family and Fertility Survey carried out in 1994 in Estonia, 40% of those age 20 to 24 had started sexual life by age 18, compared with 14% in the age group 40 to 45 years. The mean age of first sexual intercourse in these age groups was 18.4 and 20.1 years, respectively. According to the Estonian Health Interview Survey carried out in 1996, 40% of women in the age group 20 to 25 and 10% of women in the age group 40 to 45 had had intercourse by age 18 years.

In the 2000 sex survey, 42% of Estonian-speaking men and 29% of Estonian-speaking women had had intercourse by the age of 18. For Russian-speaking men and women, these proportions were 38% and 21%, respectively. A third of Estonian-speaking women and half of Russian-speaking women had experienced first sexual intercourse after they were 20 years old. The age of sexual initiation has been higher for those whose level of education has been higher than average.

The age of first intercourse has been changing in Estonia in much the same way as in most other European countries, only the timing of this transition has been one generation later than in most Western European countries. In the female generation born in 1927 to 1931, the average age of first intercourse was 22.3 years; in the female generation born in 1972 to 1976, intercourse came, on average, at 17.5 years. During these years, the average age of first intercourse had decreased by as much as almost five years. Among men, a similar decrease occurred from 19.7 years to 17.3 years, a smaller decrease of only two and a half years. A couple of generations ago, men had their first intercourse two years younger than women in the same age group. In today’s youngest generation, there is no longer as much difference between genders in sexual initiation.

In comparison to the neighboring countries, young men in Estonia experienced their first intercourse almost at the same age as in Finland. The other men in Estonia had had their first experience when somewhat older than men in Finland, but roughly at the same age as men in St. Petersburg.

Estonian women had experienced their first sexual intercourse significantly later than women in Finland. In each age group, Estonian women had their sexual debut on the average of one or one and a half years later than Finnish women. This difference was even bigger between Estonia and Sweden. The decreasing trend in Estonia has followed the trend measured in Finland, with a 20-year delay. The decrease in the age of sexual initiation started earlier in Estonia than in St. Petersburg.

Estonian women had a higher age for sexual debut than men, and they also married younger than men. In the 2000 survey, the average age at first marriage was 23.8 years for men and 21.8 years for women. This implies that, on the average, women have had several years less sexual experience than men before they marry. Almost half of women and a quarter of men married their first sexual partner. This proportion had been higher among Russian-speaking men and women than among Estonian-speaking men and women. It has also declined from one generation to the next.

The Western sexual revolution that reduced the average age of female sexual debut in Western European countries by two to three years from the 1960s to the 1990s, arrived in Estonia and Russia one generation later than in the West (Bozon & Kontula 1998; Kontula 2002; Kon 1995). This one-generation difference has been found, for example, in attitudes towards sexual activities of teenagers. Sexual initiation in Estonia has been more limited to engagement and marriage than in the other Western European countries, and young men have had more sexual freedom than young women. A sexual double standard still exists in Estonia. However, among the young generation, already four fifths of Estonian men and women approved of teenagers’ sexual intercourse, provided they are going steady.

In a European comparison, the age of sexual initiation in Estonia was found to be fairly high, even though trends have followed the Eastern European trends. The Estonian male debut age in the last two generations has been one of the highest in Europe. The Estonian female debut age was as high as in Portugal, which had the highest debut age in Western Europe, but lower than, for example, in Romania, Moldova, and in some cities in Russia (Kontula 2002).

C. Adults

ELINA HAAVIO-MANNILA

Here, we look at marriage and family structures and patterns in Estonia using several indicators: people’s couple relationships at the time of the surveys, and then their lifetime relationship patterns (numbers of marriages, cohabitations, and sexual partners, and experiences of love at work). A brief passage discusses the number of sexual partners in the past year. A considerable part of this section is devoted to parallel or extra sexual relationships and attitudes toward marital fidelity. Finally, we look at the ideal sexual lifestyles of people in Estonia.

Sexual Relationships

Type of Couple Relationship. More than 40% of the respondents in Estonia were married, one fifth was cohabiting, and one fifth had a permanent sexual relationship without living together—living apart together (LAT). About 20% of men and 30% of women were at present living without a steady sexual relationship. Estonian-speaking men were more often single (26%) than Russian-speaking men (15%). Compared to people in Sweden, Finland, and St. Petersburg, people in Estonia were less often presently married. There was, however, quite a lot of cohabiting and separately living (LAT) people. Thus, the proportion of people in a couple relationship (marriage, cohabitation, or LAT) was about the same as in the neighboring countries.

Duration of the Present Relationship. On the average, people in Estonia had lived 15 years in their present couple relationship. According to MCA, there was no statistically significant gender or national difference in the duration of the relationship. Self-evidently, the unions of younger people were shorter than those of the older ones. The unions of the officially married persons had lasted on the average of 20 years, those of the cohabiting people 11 years, and those of the people with a steady relationship living separately only 8 years. There was a weak association between the education of the respondent and the duration of his or her relationship. The unions of the least educated had lasted longer, 17 years, compared with 15 and 14 years for people with the middle and highest education, respectively.

Number of Marriages or Cohabitations. Quite a lot of Estonians were not with their original marital or cohabiting partner. Thirty percent of the ever-married or cohabiting Estonian-speaking men and 26% of Russian-speaking men in Estonia had been married or cohabiting more than once. For women, the proportions were 34% and 28%. On the average, the ever-married or cohabiting persons had been married or cohabiting 1.4 times. MCA showed that there was neither gender nor educational differences in the number of unions. Older, cohabiting, and Estonian-speaking people reported more marriages or cohabitations than the others.

In Finland in the 1990s and in St. Petersburg, fewer people than in Estonia had been married or cohabiting more than once. In the older age groups, multiple marriages were more common in Sweden, Estonia, and St. Petersburg than in Finland.

Lifetime Sexual Partners. The average number of sexual partners in a lifetime was 13 for Estonian men and 16 for Russian men in Estonia. In both ethnic groups, women had had, on average, 5 sexual partners. Very few, 12% of men and 22% of women, had had only one sexual partner. A large gender gap can also be seen in the finding that 40% of men and 17% of women had had at least 10 sexual partners. There were no significant age, educational, and national-group differences in the number of partners. Married and cohabiting people had had fewer partners (8) than the separately living (13) and single people (10).

Finding out the large number of partners of her partner was a shock to a 71-year-old woman teacher:

I found his notebook, where he had put down the names and birthdays of his girls, and the dates when the relationship had began. My name occupied the 78th place. I cannot describe the disgust I felt reading that list. It was just as if I had sunk into deep, stinking and sticky mire; the taste of it was in my mouth. Where was the deep and happy first love, which should have given support in all hardships of life? . . . Oh how right had been my father, trying to persuade me to give him up. I told myself that as I had chosen that path myself, I had to bear my cross without letting anybody know about my sufferings. (ELM 1996)

For a 54-year old Estonian man, it was not a big deal to have several lovers:

Anyway, that bottle of cheap, 1.60 rubles wine set me going on a merry-go-round of sex affairs, which did not stop for a number of years and involved a frequent change of partners. There were women whom I did not even ask the name and there were some who I kept seeing for a long time. The older I got, the more “luck” I had with women older than myself and married ladies. I liked the latter because with them there was no need to talk about love or promise to be true to the end of my days (which in fact I never did); it was enough to pay them some compliments and hear the usual story of a drinking, unfaithful or brutal husband and find the words of consolation. (ELM 1996)

The number of sexual partners in Estonia was about the same as in Sweden and Finland. Inhabitants of St. Petersburg had had fewer partners. In Sweden and Finland, the middle-aged respondents reported the highest numbers of sexual partners in a lifetime, and oldest people the lowest numbers. Contrary to this, in Estonia and St. Petersburg, the number of partners of the youngest people was the largest. This indicates that sexual liberalization has been quite recent and most powerful among young Estonians and Russians in Estonia.

Sexual Partners During the Past Year. A majority of Estonians who had had intercourse in the past year had only one sexual partner: two thirds of the men and 85% of the women. One quarter of Russian men and 14% of Estonian men had had at least three partners. In Estonia, having had several sexual partners during the past year was much more common in the younger age group (average 2.1 partners) than in the middle and older age groups (1.4 and 1.6 partners). Married and cohabiting people had fewer partners (1.5 and 1.3) than people living apart together (2.5) and single people (2.6). Education did not predict the number of partners during the past year. In the past year, Russians in Estonia had had more partners (2.0) than Estonians (1.6).

Love at Work. In Northern Europe, most women work for pay and there are plenty of opportunities to find interesting love objects in the workplace. About every second Estonian had experienced “falling in love” at work, with a coworker or someone else met at work. Only 2% to 6% of the respondents were in an affair at work at the time of the survey; the others reported past affairs or infatuations. There were no statistically significant differences between men and women or in the type of their steady relationships. Middle-aged people, as well as those with higher education had fallen in love at work more often than the others. Estonian men had experienced a work romance slightly more often (51%) than Russian men, 51% versus 40%. The incidence of love at work in Estonia did not differ from that in Finland or in St. Petersburg.

Incidence of Parallel Relations. Having had parallel or extra sexual relationships in addition to a present marriage or cohabitation was more common among men than among women. In Estonia, 35% of Estonian men and 39% of Russian men had engaged in a parallel relationship during their present marriage or cohabitation, compared with only 24% and 21% of respective women. Most of the parallel relationships had been casual. Only 7% of Estonian men and 12% of Russian men in Estonia reported regular parallel relationships; for women it was 6% and 4%, respectively.

Age group, education, and nationality did not predict parallel relations, but the type of couple relationship did. As many as 43% of people living apart together had had a parallel relationship during their current LAT. Only 30% of the married and 17% of cohabiting persons had had parallel relations during their present union. Parallel relations of men were more common in St. Petersburg than in Estonia. The proportion was about the same as in Finland in the 1990s. Women in Estonia and St. Petersburg had been unfaithful more often than women in Finland.

The quality of the couple’s relationship predicted faithfulness in marriage or cohabitation. This was especially true for men. For Estonian men with a “high quality relationship”—defined as a happy couple relationship with easy communication and mutual love (see discussion of Sexual Satisfaction below)—only 28% had been unfaithful during their marriage or cohabitation. For men with a poorer quality relationship, as many as 52% had had one or more affairs. For women, the proportions were 24% and 41%. Also in the sexual autobiographies, parallel relationships were often explained as a consequence of a poor marital relationship. The same connection between fidelity and the quality of the relationship was found also in St. Petersburg and Finland (Kontula & Haavio-Mannila 2003).

Four excerpts from the ELM archives illustrate the varieties of parallel relationships, starting with the most common type: extramarital relations of men with non-married women.

The following married male teacher was asked by a single woman to take her virginity and even make her pregnant:

There was a girl from the Faculty of Medicine who was especially keen on helping me, even after her graduation. And what came out, she had been in love with me. She was already twenty-eight years old, but still a virgin. In the end, she asked me to help her to lose her virginity. I had never in my life had sex with a virgin before, I agreed willingly. We drove out of the town, it was June and a very beautiful day. It was near Tartu, on a nice grassy meadow, where we managed to get rid of her virginity. But that was not enough for that girl. Later, she asked me to give her a child; she promised to raise it herself, without bothering me. Now I regret it, but then I agreed. She chose the most suitable time for conceiving and got pregnant from the very first effort. She kept her promise and had a very fine son all by herself! Her son is a grown man already, a bright and energetic person, his mother is still grateful to me. (ELM 1996)

Affairs by married women with unmarried men were rare. The following story is from a married woman architect who had had a satisfying extramarital romance while studying abroad:

In summer after my fourth year of university I had the chance to go abroad through the student exchange. We visited the Bratislava Art Institute. Half of the group was from Tallinn Art Institute and half from Kiev Art Institute. It happened somehow that I became friends with a young man from Kiev called Vassili. We went together through the wonderful art galleries of Prague and went walking in the evenings. We had our first sexual intercourse somewhere on the park-bench. I was awfully ashamed because I was married but Vassili said there was no difference if I was with him just once or more and so I went with him also to his hotel-room. Vassili was very good but I understood it really when I went to visit him in Kiev in my fifth year. Vassili liked to sex long and energetically. I do not know where he got his endurance. He trained himself at yoga. Maybe it helped? (ELM 1996)

Men enjoyed when they happened to have ample opportunities to get new women (and good food) through their work. A 68-year-old male teacher took advantage of tourist trips on which he met women traveling alone:

In the Soviet Union I went on the tourist trips that took me all over the country, as a rule, these were quite long ones, and many women were traveling alone. I usually went in August, as the grapes and other fruits were ripe by that time. The fruits were helpful with sex too. And in the southern republics it was possible to taste all kinds of local wines, which was also very helpful in forming relationships. So I met plenty of willing women on those trips. The local women tended to appreciate a man from a Baltic country very much. (ELM 1996)

For some married women, it was difficult to abstain from sex because of the absence of the husband who was working or studying far away. A 69-year-old chauffeur writes about these women as follows:

There is also another group of women and men who have extramarital affairs. These are women whose husbands are away from home for a long time, they are either taking some courses, in the army or long business trips. They just need a partner who would be alive and there with them. I once met one such woman. She worked in our ministry. Her husband was sent to some course in Leningrad; it had something to do with the Communist Party. One day she dropped me a note to meet at our common friend’s place. I went there but my friend wasn’t home. The woman had a lot of difficulty explaining that she just wanted to make love. I freed her from tormenting herself. Through my wife I knew that some women have really bad time when they don’t have a sexual partner. (ELM 1996)

Attitudes Toward Marital Fidelity. Attitudes toward temporary infidelity of a husband were more liberal than toward an unfaithful wife. In Estonia, men were more permissive than women, especially when it was a question of male unfaithfulness. A very clear ethnic difference could be seen in the attitudes of Estonians and Russians in Estonia in permitting temporary infidelity by a husband. As many as 60% of Russian-speaking men, but only 27% of Estonian-speaking men accepted it. On this issue, Russian men in Estonia were even more permissive than men in St. Petersburg. Also, in respect to temporary infidelity by a wife, Russian-speaking Estonians were very permissive compared to Estonians. The results of MCA showed that age group and education did not explain the attitudes of people in Estonia toward fidelity, but the type of couple relationship did. People in LAT relationships were more liberal than the others.

In comparing people in Finland and St. Petersburg, russophones in Estonia were very permissive in regard to marital infidelity. Only men in St. Petersburg were close to them in accepting male infidelity.

The attitudes of Estonians on infidelity were amply expressed in the sexual autobiographies. Most of those who gave their opinion on this issue were quite permissive. A 28- year-old unemployed man reports:

Adultery? On the one hand I consider marriage to be a holy union, but on the other hand I do not think that husband and wife belong to each other only and are each other’s property. Sexual intercourse can happen out of love of adventure or of friendship or it can just be a casual act between two people. A person is still a very many-sided creature, and why cannot s/he have friends outside of marriage, with whom occasionally to go to bed with? Simply one’s feelings should be under control and not let the situation grow beyond oneself. But I still think that if one of the partners finds a new one for him/herself, there is still something wrong in the relationship and it should be an alarm signal. Before that, one should still think whether the “danger” exists and how serious it is. (ELM 1996)

The same opinion is expressed by a 68-year-old divorced woman worker:

And I am not so negative about extramarital relations—that might sometimes improve the situation, the man or the woman might find that another partner is no better than the old one. (ELM 1996)

But there were also negative attitudes. The following 58-year-old woman teacher was ashamed of her extramarital relations and strongly condemned them.

I, too, at first out of defiance, later simply because of opportunities had some extramarital affairs. . . . I would give much . . . to undo it. Out of my own experience it is perfectly clear to me that the highest value of a woman is her moral pureness, not the number of men whom she can get into her bed. On the basis of present-day attitudes I could even look for justification. Maybe my marriage did not satisfy me. . . . [But] I am ashamed and regret until now, more than thirty years later. (ELM 1996)

Ideal Sexual Lifestyle. The ideal sexual lifestyle of Estonians varied a lot. The most-often-chosen lifestyle was living married without other sexual relationships. It was chosen by about 30% of men and 40% of women. The next-popular lifestyle was living together with a partner without marriage (cohabitation) and without other relationships—about 15% of both genders. Thirteen percent of men, but only 3% of women preferred marriage with parallel relations. Seven percent of men and 2% of women preferred cohabitation with parallel relations. Women were more likely to choose separate living as their favorite sexual lifestyle than were men—12% versus 6%. Surprisingly, 12% of the women did not have any sexual relationship in their life; 4% of the men were also in a celibate lifestyle. The gender differences can be summarized by saying that men preferred marriage or cohabitation with other relations, women preferred separate living or no sexual relations. The differences between Estonians and Russians in Estonia were very small.

Compared to Swedish and Finnish men, Estonian men more often preferred as their ideal lifestyle marriage or cohabitation with parallel relations. Estonian women would choose celibacy as their sexual lifestyle more often than women in Sweden and Finland. (Haavio-Mannila & Kontula 2001, 150-151). This indicates that there may be some problems in the couple relationships in Estonia.

Sexual Behaviors

Sexual behaviors were studied using the time since most recent intercourse, position in last intercourse, attitude toward women taking an initiative in sexual contact, manual and oral sex, orgasm in intercourse, and erection problems.

Time Since Last Intercourse. In answering the survey question “When was the last time you had sexual intercourse?” men reported more-frequent intercourse than women. Seventeen percent of the men and 12% of the women had had coitus in the last 24 hours; 34% and 27% in the past 2 days (cumulative percentages); 44% and 38% in the past 3 or 4 days; 56% and 46% in the past week; 66% and 55% in the past 2 weeks; 74% and 61% in the past month; 83% and 67% in the past 3 months, 90% and 73% in the past year; 93% and 78% in the past 2 years; 98% and 89% in the past 10 years; and 2% and 11% more than 10 years ago.

There was very little difference between Estonians and Russians in the time since last intercourse. Fifty-seven percent of the Estonian men and 54% of the Russian men in Estonia had had intercourse in the past week, of the women 48% and 44%, respectively. Younger people were more active than older people, persons living in a steady relationship more active than singles, and Estonian-speakers more active than the others. Education did not make any difference in sexual activity, when the influence of the other factors was controlled for in the MCA. Fewer Estonians had had intercourse in the past month than people in Finland and Sweden and men in St. Petersburg. Especially the older Estonians and Russians had stopped having intercourse when they have grown older.

Position in Last Intercourse. The most common position in sexual intercourse was laying face-to-face, man on top and woman underneath. As many as 37% of men and 40% of women in Estonia reported that this “missionary” position was the only position used in their last intercourse. The reverse position, with the woman on top and man underneath, was the only position used by 12% of men and 7% of women. Lying side by side was the only position in the intercourse reported by 8% of both genders; 6% of men and 7% of women used other positions, and 30% of men and 28% of women used two or more different positions.

Using several positions in the latest intercourse did not differ by gender or national group. Young people had used versatile positions more often than the older ones. People in LAT relations had most often used several positions (42%, people with other types of relationships 25% to 28%). More-educated persons were slightly more likely to engage in different positions than the less-educated. People in Estonia used several positions in their last intercourse to the same extent as Finns in the 1990s and people in St. Petersburg (and clearly more than Finns 30 years earlier).

Attitude Toward Gender Equality in Initiating Sexual Contacts. In the Western world, initiation of sexual contacts by women has traditionally been rare; women were expected to be passive and men active in sexual interaction. In Estonia, 93% of Estonian-speaking men and 69% of respective women and 86% of Russian-speaking men and 67% of respective women totally or somewhat agreed with the statement: “Women have every right to take the initiative when they want sexual contact with men.” Supposedly, it is taken for granted that men have this right. Thus, we take the attitude toward the statement as an indicator of attitudes toward gender equality in sexual initiation.

According to MCA, men were more favorable toward female initiative than women themselves were, young people more favorable than older people, people in a couple relationship more favorable than singles, and Estonian-speakers more favorable than Russian-speakers in Estonia. Compared to Finns, people in Estonia and St. Petersburg were less gender-equality oriented. Only the Finnish female respondents 30 years ago were as reluctant to give women the right to initiate sexual contacts with men as were women in Estonia and St. Petersburg.

Oral Sex. A majority of the respondents had engaged in oral sex. This was measured by the question: “How often have you had oral sex in your sexual relationships, that is, caressing a man’s penis or a woman’s genitals by mouth in the last five years.” The response alternatives were presented separately for passive oral sex received from a partner and active oral sex given to a partner.

About 60% of the respondents in Estonia had received or given oral sex in the past five years. Men reported oral sex somewhat more often than women did. There was no difference between the Estonian and Russian speakers in Estonia. Younger people were much more likely to report mutual oral sex (81% of the 18- to 34-year-olds) than middle-aged (53%) and older people (13%). Living in a LAT relationship and having higher education were connected to the practice of oral sex. In Sweden and Finland, mutual oral sex was more common than in Estonia. In St. Petersburg, men reported mutual oral sex as often as in Estonia, but women less often. Among young people, national differences in having practiced oral sex were small. Estonia and St. Petersburg differed clearly from Finland and Sweden in the older age groups, where oral sex was rare.

Manual Sex. Giving a partner satisfaction by hands was quite popular in Estonia. Men reported it somewhat more often than women did: only 28% of men, but 37% of women had never given manual sex. Twenty-two percent of men and 16% of women had given manual sex to his or her partner during the past 7 days, 26% and 31% at most a month ago (cumulative percentage), 40% and 40% 1 to 6 months ago, 47% and 46% 6 to 12 months ago, 55% and 54% 1 to 5 years ago, and 62% of men and 63% of women more than 5 years ago. Younger people had practiced more oral sex than the older ones; people living in a LAT relationship more than the those living in the other types of sexual relationships; the more educated more often than the less educated, and Russian speakers more often than Estonian speakers. In Finland, manual sex was somewhat more common than in Estonia, especially in the older generation.

Orgasm in Intercourse. Having defined an orgasm as “sexual pleasure ending to relaxation and very good feeling,” the question was: “Have you got an orgasm during sexual intercourse?” Men reported orgasm much more frequently than women did. Only one in ten women reported that they had always reached orgasm in intercourse, of the men about 60%. Russian-speakers reported orgasm more often than Estonian-speakers did.

Frequent orgasm in intercourse was, according to MCA, related to male gender, young age, living in a permanent sexual relationship, and higher education. The statistical significance between the national groups disappeared when the impact of the other variables in the model was adjusted for. International differences in getting orgasm (almost) always were very small, both among men and among women.

In Estonia, Finland, and St. Petersburg, getting an orgasm (almost) always in intercourse was more common among younger than older women, with the excerption that in the youngest age group (18 to 24 years), it was not very frequent. In Sweden, however, elderly women reported orgasm as frequently as middle-aged women.

Erection Problems. Two thirds of Estonians reported having at least sometimes encountered problems with male erection in their sexual encounters. The question was phrased as follows: “It is not uncommon that a man cannot enter into sexual intercourse because he cannot get erection or his penis becomes flaccid right when sexual intercourse is started. In the last year, has something like this happened to you/your partner?”

Men reported erection problems somewhat more often than women did for their partners. Estonian-speaking men had had more erection problems in the past year (49%) than Russian-speaking men (33%). Female respondents of both ethnic groups reported equally often that their male partner had had erection problems—38% and 32%. Erection problems strongly increased with age. The less educated reported them much more often than the more educated. Type of relationship was not related to erection problems.

Erection problems were a little more common in Estonia than in Sweden and Finland in the 1990s. There was a large regional difference in the share of men with erection problems among the 35- to 54-year-olds. More than 70% of people in Estonia, but only 50% to 60% of Swedes and Finns reported erection problems in the past year. Erection problems were very common among the 65- to 74-year-old Estonian speakers—96%.

Sexual behavior of the Estonian- and Russian-speaking people in Estonia was, in most respects, very similar. Russian respondents in Estonia reported more often to giving their partner manual sex, always reaching orgasm in intercourse, and having less often had erection problems than Estonian-speakers.

Sexual Satisfaction

In the Estonian sex survey 2000, we asked about satisfaction with sexual life as a whole, satisfaction with the frequency of intercourse in the present couple relationship, pleasure derived from intercourse, quality of the steady relationship (happiness of the couple relationship, easiness of talking about sex with the partner, and mutual love), and sexual self-esteem (to what extent the respondent considers him- or herself to be sexually skillful, active, and attractive).

Satisfaction with Sexual Life as a Whole. About 25% of Estonian-speakers in Estonia and 33% of Russian-speakers were very satisfied with their sexual life as a whole. Forty-two percent of male Estonian-speakers and 40% Russian-speakers, and 36% and 22% of women, respectively, were fairly satisfied with their sexual life. About 20% found it unsatisfactory. The rest considered their sexual life as neither satisfactory nor unsatisfactory. Russian women in Estonia gave more-extreme responses (very satisfied or not satisfied) than Estonian women, but the average satisfaction of the two female groups was the same.

According to MCA, there was a bimodal relationship between age and sexual satisfaction in Estonia. The younger and older people were more satisfied with their sexual life than the middle-aged were. People with a steady sexual relationship were very much more satisfied than single people. People in Estonia were less satisfied with their sexual life as a whole than Swedes and Finns were. Estonian men of both ethnic groups were as satisfied as men in St. Petersburg. Estonian women were more satisfied than women in St. Petersburg.

In the four research areas, satisfaction with sexual life as a whole varied by age in different ways. In Sweden and Finland, age differences were small. In Estonia and St. Petersburg, there was a sharp decline from the age group 25 to 34 years to the 45- to 54-year-olds, but then an increase toward the oldest age groups.

Pleasure from Intercourse. Thirty-five percent of Estonian-speaking and 34% of Russian-speaking men considered their sexual intercourse very pleasurable; of the respective women 19% and 23%. A majority, about 57% of men and 61% of women, reported that intercourse is quite pleasurable. Six percent of Estonian- and 11% of Russian-speaking men, and 18% of women in both ethnic groups evaluated intercourse as not pleasurable.

Younger people in Estonia enjoyed coitus more than middle-aged and older people. Cohabiting and separately living people found intercourse more pleasurable (mean on a 5-point scale was 4.2 to 4.3) than married (4.1) and single (4.0) people. The more-educated people enjoyed intercourse more than the less-educated ones. An international comparison reveals that Finns found intercourse more pleasurable than people in Estonia and St. Petersburg.

Preferences for Frequency of Intercourse. Two thirds of men and 45% of women in Estonia would like to have more-frequent intercourse in their couple relationship than they have at present. This indicates that there is a lot of unsatisfied sexual desire in Estonia. Only 1% of men and 6% to 9% of women wanted to have intercourse less often. The rest considered the frequency of coitus to be suitable.

More younger and middle-aged (64% and 60%) than older (46%) people would have liked to have more-frequent intercourse with their steady partner, in spite of the fact that the younger and middle-aged persons actually had had more recent intercourse than older persons. People’s level of aspiration in regard to frequency of intercourse seems to decline with growing age. Also, the generation one is part of may have an impact: In the older generations, people may have had learned to demand or expect less-frequent sexual activity. Type of relationship and education did not predict preferences for frequency of intercourse. Compared with Finland and St. Petersburg, more people in Estonia would prefer more-frequent intercourse in their couple relationship than they have at present. The wide gender gap in the attitude toward frequency of intercourse was visible in all research areas. Everywhere, men would like to have more frequent intercourse than women did.

Quality of the Couple Relationship. Three indicators of the quality of the couple relationship were used in the Estonian sex survey of 2000: mutual love, happiness of the couple relationship, and ease of communication on sexual issues with the steady partner.

About 55% of Estonians of both genders and both nationalities felt that there is a man or a woman whom they really love, and the same proportion thought that they are really loved by some man or woman. The very young ones least often felt love. In the middle-aged and older age groups, the feelings of love decreased with growing age among women, but in the older male groups, love did not decrease with age. On the contrary, the oldest men very often felt love and being loved. This may explain their satisfaction with sexual life, which will be described below.

Married and cohabiting people reported mutual love most often—66% of men and 67% of women. Women in LAT relationships told of mutual love more often (58%) than LAT men (46%). Single people very seldom (men 9% and women 7%) thought that they loved and received love. The feeling of love was equally rare in Estonia and St. Petersburg. In Finland in the 1990s, three quarters of the respondents felt love and being loved. In their lack of love, Estonians and Russians resemble Finnish men 30 years ago.

A 61-year-old woman teacher tells about companionate marital love that has lasted for a long time:

I have been loving my husband for almost 40 years. Our marriage is continuously directed and guided by mutual respect and decency but we have certainly had the moments of excitement, burning passion and exaltation. I have never liked ambiguous conversations on the topics of love and sex. . . . I know that he does not watch erotic shows on TV and is mostly at home. Only his two main hobbies, sports and fishing make him go out. He usually goes fishing with children. For us, mutual understanding, trust and support have been more important than sex. Yet, we have also enjoyed the happiness of a complete unification with a person you can trust as much as yourself. (ELM 1996)

People in couple relationships (married, cohabiting, or LAT) were asked about the happiness of their relationship. Men reported happiness a little more often than women did. Twenty-one percent of men and 16% of women considered their couple relationship as very happy, 46% and 44% fairly happy, and 33% and 40% neither happy nor unhappy. There was no ethnic difference in this issue.

Discussing sexual matters with the partner was considered not at all difficult by 46% of men and 42% of women. Gender and ethnic differences in the easiness of communication were small.

The indicators of mutual love, happiness of the couple relationship, and open communication on sexual matters correlated with each other. They were combined to an index of High Quality Relationship (HQR). There was neither gender nor national differences in the quality of the relationship in Estonia according to MCA. Younger people rated the quality of their relationship higher than the middle-aged and older people. Married and cohabiting people found more love, communication, and happiness in their present couple relationship than people living apart together (LAT). The more-educated people reported more quality in their relationship than the less-educated.

International comparisons revealed that the quality of the couple relationship was lower in Estonia and St. Petersburg than in Finland. In all three areas, more younger than middle-aged and older people reported that the quality of their relationship was high. The exception was that, in Estonia and St. Petersburg, the oldest respondents aged 65 to 74 years reported higher quality of relationship than the 55- to 64-year-olds.

Sexual Self Esteem

“What is your opinion about the following statements concerning your sexual life and characteristics: I am sexually skillful, I am sexually active, and I am sexually attractive.” In Estonia, men considered themselves more often sexually skillful and active than women did. Women had a little more belief in their sexual attractiveness than men had. Russian-speaking men considered themselves more attractive than Estonian-speaking men. Otherwise, the ethnic groups were similar. The three indicators of sexual self-esteem correlated with each other. The reliability of the three-item sum-scale of sexual self-esteem was 0.78 (alpha).

In Estonia, according to MCA, men, the younger, and the more-educated people had a higher sexual self-esteem than women, older people, and the less-educated people. Cohabiting and separately living (LAT) persons reported more self-esteem than married and single people. When we compared the three areas in which sexual self-esteem was studied, we found that men in Estonia and St. Petersburg had about as high sexual self-esteem as people in Finland in the 1990s. Women in Estonia had a lower sexual self-esteem than women in Finland in 1999 and in St. Petersburg.

6. Homoerotic, Homosexual, and Bisexual Behaviors

ELINA HAAVIO-MANNILA

A. History

Male homosexuality was not punishable in the independent Estonian Republic before World War II. In spite of this, there is no information about gay structures in Estonia in that era.

During the Soviet occupation, male homosexual behavior—specifically anal intercourse between men—was forbidden everywhere in the Soviet Union. Homosexuality was considered as a psychiatric pathology. This repressive legislation prevailed until June 1, 1992. However, the situation seemed to be more liberal in occupied Estonia than in most other parts of the former Soviet Union. Gay men who had no public sex or political problems, were not persecuted. Usually, no more than 10 men were imprisoned per year. Up to the mid-1980s, there was an unofficial gay bar in Tallinn. Also, there was at least one cruising area in both Tallinn and Tartu.

A decisive year for Estonian homosexuals was 1990, when the International Scientific Conference on Sexual Minorities and Society in Twentieth Century Europe took place in Tallinn, the first of this kind in Eastern Europe. Also, during 1990, the first advertisements for gay and lesbian acquaintances were published in independent newspapers. The first gay/lesbian organization in Estonia was the Estonian Lesbian Union, founded in 1990, followed two years later by the Estonian Gay League.

According to A. Raudsepp, an expert in the field, the situation of homosexuals has changed with the overall liberation and democratization in Estonia. The position for gay and lesbian youth in 2003 seems to be very different from the situation, for example, at the end of 1980, when some people started to come out as gays. During the Russian occupation, there was no information about homosexuality other than rumors, penal code, and psychiatric manuals. It was very difficult to meet other gay people.

B. Attitudes Toward Homosexuality

The ambivalence of the attitudes toward homosexuality is clearly shown in the sexual autobiography of a 49-year-old male chauffer written in 1996:

In US homos want to become quite official. I just can’t understand such people. Once one of my friends told me a story about them. He had a small joint-stock company and went to Cesis (in Latvia) to get some goods. He stayed the night with his Latvian business partner. At night this man came to his bed and behaved the same way that a man does when he starts making love to a girl. My friend tried to push him away but he kept coming back. This lasted half of the night. In the other room there was a nice pretty wife of this man; they probably even had children. I tried to look upon this as some kind of disease that should be cured. During the Soviet times they tried to cure this with prisons but this isn’t probably right, except in cases where the other party is a minor. I can understand women who make love to each other even less. But this has been a taboo, so we don’t know much about that at all. (ELM 1996)

In Estonia in 2000, 50% of surveyed men and 63% of women agreed with the statement “Homosexuality among adults is a private affair of the people concerned with which officials the law should in no way interfere.” Twenty-one percent of men and 12% of women disagreed with the statement. Quite a number of the respondents, 29% of men and 25% of women, found it hard to say what their position was. Women considered homosexuality to be a private affair more often than men did. There was no difference between the national groups in the attitudes toward homosexuality. Younger people were more liberal than older people. Type of couple relationship and education did not affect homosexuality attitudes.

C. Sexual Orientation

In 2000, 12% of people in Estonia reported homoerotic feelings, i.e., they were sexually interested in the same sex. Most of these people were also interested in the other sex, that is, they had a bisexual orientation. Only 2% of men and no women were interested only or mainly in the same sex. People with lower education reported same-sex interest more often (16%) than those with middle or higher education (9%). Age, type of relationship, and ethnicity were not associated with sexual orientation.

Compared to Sweden and Finland, homoerotic interest was more common in Estonia and St. Petersburg. The highest rates appeared among Estonian-speaking women in Estonia (13% of the 18- to 54-year-olds) and St. Petersburg women (12%). In Estonia, contrary to the other areas, middle-aged and older people reported homoerotic feelings at least as often as younger people.

D. Same-Sex Experiences

In 2000, 6% of men and 8% of women in Estonia had had sexual experiences with persons of their own sex. These encounters were more common among younger (14%) than among middle-aged and older people (3% to 5%). Type of relationship, education, and ethnicity did not predict homosexual experiences.

A 55-year-old Estonian unemployed man was not sure of his sexual orientation. He had had sexual experiences with both women and men.

I was still quite helpless in intercourse later, but my kissing had developed much and I would still enjoy it, even on “some other places” . . . A week after our encounter she started suffering from awful pains, which made her scream. She was taken away, and forever—she had leukemia and it killed her. With her gone, my intimate world collapsed. I buried myself in sport, until the next sexual experience, which was with a man when I was sixteen. It may seem that I have been a homosexual already from an early youth, but that is not true. My sharpest and most exciting memories are still of those overwhelming kisses and the first entry into a vagina. . . .
            . . . We were lying on the mattress and talking about all kinds of things. Then he started caressing me, and as I had experienced it already from a man, I was quiet and a sort of expectation came over me. Gradually he moved closer and closer to my genitals, pulled down my underpants and took me into his mouth. A sudden rush of pleasure gave me a start and I almost moaned aloud. He sucked me very skillfully, taking almost the entire length of my penis into his mouth and licked the tip of it. Stroking my balls he put one finger into my anus, which also gave me a new kind of pleasure. I had the feeling that my member would truly explode, it was so full of blood, stone-hard, really painful. He went on, caressing and stroking my penis with his tongue. He felt the throbbing of my member and sucked it deeper and deeper into his mouth. I couldn’t stand it any more and ejaculated into his throat. I heard him swallow and his satisfied grunting, and felt myself totally pumped out. He asked me whether I wouldn’t want to do the same to him. I suppressed the thought that the same thing is used to urinate; besides, he smeared something sweet-tasting onto his penis. At the beginning it felt disgusting, but he continued rubbing me and I felt a sort of passion arise. His member was very big and veined, my mouth got tired, but he encouraged and taught me all the time. He said he wanted to ejaculate into my mouth too, and if I couldn’t (or wouldn’t want to) swallow it, I could pass it from my mouth into his mouth, he would swallow it himself. I tried to follow his teachings and do the thing as well as possible. In the end I felt his member grow even more, then it started to jerk and a kind of salty greyish-white slime came out of it like from a fountain. I couldn’t help but swallowed some of it, but passed the rest over into his mouth. We kissed for a long time with our sperm-smeared mouths and all this was simply indescribable. I still want to stress once again that actually I am not a gay or bisexual, only the circumstances developed this way. (ELM 1996)

Homosexual or bisexual authors of some sexual autobiographies in Estonia complained about their alienation and mental health problems. One should notice that the majority of the population has a favorable attitude toward homosexual behavior between adults; it is seen as a private affair with which officials and the state should not interfere.

7. Gender Diversity and Transgender Issues

KAI HALDRE

Health System. After regaining independence, health reform was carried out in Estonia. The Sick Insurance Fund was formed on a solidarity basis—up to every salary (payment to a person), 33% of a sick insurance tax has to be paid. After that, the person becomes insured and can have the majority of health services either free or for a very small payment. All minors up to 18 years old and retired persons are automatically insured. A list of pharmaceuticals is defined, which are compensated to a different extent according to the diagnosis and drug. Together with health reform, a family doctors’ system was introduced.

Currently, there is no legal regulation for organizing help for transsexuals. In October 2002, a new law on organizing medical services was adopted, and all old regulations are not valid any more. Helping transsexuals will be organized in accordance with the principles adopted in the European Council’s Parliamentary Assembly session No 41 in 1989.

There is a draft of a new regulation, according to which an advisory committee for helping transsexuals is formed. The task of the committee is to be the final body that makes the proposal to the Minister of Health to change the gender of a person. It can happen only if the person has felt that he or she belongs to the other gender/sex group for at least two years, after any psychiatric illness is excluded and the genetic sex is defined. Then, the Minister gives a decree, according to which hormonal therapy and surgical therapy can be started. Both are not obligatory and the person can stop at any stage. The passport is changed only after two years of treatment. If the person wants to change back to the initial gender/sex, it is done according to her or his written directive.

Transsexuals are entitled to get both psychological help and buy medications in the same way as all other people who have sick insurance. If they decide to have surgery, this cost is not covered by health insurance and they have to pay for it by themselves. Treatment of intersexual persons (both medical and surgical) is covered by sick insurance.

8. Significant Unconventional Sexual Behaviors

A. Coercive Sexual Behaviors

The Legal Situation

Until the year 2002, the old modified Soviet law regulated legal penalties for sexual crimes. There was a differentiation according to how natural or unnatural a sexual act was. Sexual abuse/coercion performed by woman was not possible. The new law active since 2002 is based on the principle of sexual freedom of the person—a person him- or herself has the right to decide with whom and how he or she has sexual relations.

The penalty for rape is five years imprisonment. If the rape was with a person less than 18 years old, carried out by two or more persons, if the victim’s health was damaged or death caused, if the victim has taken to a stage of suicide or attempt of suicide, or if the offender had raped earlier, the penalty is 4 to 12 years imprisonment. If the rape was inflicted on a person less than 14 years, the penalty is 6 to 15 years imprisonment.

In 2000, there were 676 criminal acts against a person. Of these 676, 54 were registered as rape (in 1999, there were 58 cases registered as rape). Out of these 54, 39 person’s court decisions were put into force. At the same time, while criminal acts against a person have been decreasing since 1995, rape and attempts of rape have remained the same.

The Bureau of Equality of Rights in the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Estonian Open Society Institute has carried out some research on sexual violence. In 2001, the Estonian Open Society Institute studied the incidence of violence in the family and against women. Twenty-one percent of women and 16% of male respondents answered “yes” to the question “Have you experienced against yourself either physical, mental, or sexual violence during the last 12 months?” According to this study, it is estimated that every day, 252 women experience physical violence and 33 women experience sexual violence. Two thirds of the violent acts take place at women’s homes.

In terms of social response, sexual violence still seems to be quite a taboo topic. Many professionals (medical persons, police, teachers, etc.) feel themselves uneasy while meeting the problem. At the same time, a lot of education has been provided to different groups (including police, medical personnel, etc.) since the mid-1990s. Two children’s support centers have been established. They deal with counseling and rehabilitating mistreated children and families. The Children Support Center in Tartu has been active since 1995, while Tallinn’s Children Support Center was opened in 1999. The Open Estonia Foundation is financing both centers. Additionally, specialists are being trained to work with children, and a network of specialists is being established for solving cases of child abuse.

A sign of immaturity in the Estonian legislation is perhaps that the law on Equal Gender Rights (Soolise Vordoiguslikkuse Seadus) was not adopted by the Parliament in 2002. Parliament declared it “unnecessary” and some members of Parliament ridiculed it. Since sexual violence is mainly a problem for women, an equal-rights law would help in fighting against it.

Child Sexual Abuse, Incest, and Pedophilia

ELINA HAAVIO-MANNILA

Incest. In the Estonian sexual autobiographies, there is a detailed story by a 16-year-old girl about the sexual abuse by her father:

It was winter. I went to school and had my 15th birthday in September. Father drank every day. One night when he came home he appeared in my room. I had heard nothing. I woke up when he touched me. I did not dare even to move and was breathing with difficulties. I pretended to be sleeping and was terribly afraid. My heart was pounding. He touched my breasts and thighs. We sleep on a “double-decked” bunk with my brother and it seems that my brother moved in his sleep. Father went away pulling the blanket over me before that. I could not sleep till morning. I went to school broken and sad; I could not concentrate at the lessons and was terribly tired. A few days passed and everything happened again. I thought I would lose my mind out of fear and was having constant nightmares. I did not venture to speak about all that to anybody. It all went rather far. He began kissing me, taking out his penis and caressing me until it hardened, then tried to enter me but I could not bear it any longer, moved myself and pulled the blanket over my head—I felt myself totally defenseless. Father left. Next night he tried it again, again luckily without any result. At last he satisfied himself between my buttocks. He wiped the sperm off his penis, covered me and went to sleep beside mother in the other room. I was awfully scared. I went to the toilet and wiped myself clean. I wept from fear.
            After some days he came again, I pressed my teeth together and thought I now would get up and scream but fear fixed me to the bed, I was afraid, paralyzed by my own ignorance. At the same moment mother came in. I let out an imaginary sigh of relief, at last it was all over. But no, that was but the beginning. It seems mother had felt it strange that father was lingering in the kitchen so long (for my father had a habit of eating at night) and had decided to come and have a look. The only thing she said was: “So it is the child you are at now.” That was said with great bitterness. Mother seemed to collapse inwardly as if some huge waves had carried her away. She could say nothing else. (ELM 1996)

Other Abuse of Children by Adults. Sexual abuse of children by adults was frequently mentioned in the autobiographies. A 39-year-old Russian-speaking woman writes:

When I was 10 or 11, the other bachelor who was about 20 and half-wittedly asked me to come to his room so that the neighbors would not see me. He promised to buy me candy when I show him my “thing.” Our life was poor and Mother used to borrow from the neighbors to buy us food. I must have wanted candy so much I agreed to climb in through his window so that the others did not see me. (ELM 1996)

Peer Harassment. A married 59-year-old retired male teacher with two children writes about the after-play of peer harassment of girls in his own school-age.

Toilets were the centers of sex lore for boys. When the girls could break off from their tormentors, they ran into the girls’ WC. It was called a sanctuary by angry boys, but the girls themselves also called it so, because it was a safe place. When the boys had touched and pawed girls in the classrooms or corridors, they were quite aroused and ran into the boys’ WC, where they jerked off. It was quick, and then they compared, who could shoot higher. I was 8-9 at the time, and knew everything, watching the “real men” and learning the trade. (ELM 1996)

In addition to schoolmates, the members of youth organizations could harass each other, as the following story by a 40-year-old woman architect shows:

There is also one unpleasant experience from form 7 after a game of pioneers that we had had. All the girls had probably gone home already; I remained there in the wood with boys, to come home together with them. I trusted them; they had always been my good fellows. Then suddenly they dragged me down to the ground and tried to get my trousers off. I didn’t realize at all what’s going on. There was someone holding his hands on my mouth to prevent me from crying and someone climbed over me and tried to stuff something between my legs.
            I don’t remember how I escaped from there. I probably began to cry so loud that they had pity on me. Or maybe there was someone with more common sense to stand up for me. The more active ones threatened me that they would catch me with a net the next day after school and take me to the wood. It was such a terrible threat for me that I didn’t dare to go to school for two weeks. Luckily, the boys had lost interest in me by then. (ELM 1996)

Gang Rape. Gang rapes of girls occasionally took place in Estonia, even though the formal and informal punishments were very serious. A 60-year-old locksmith told stories of gang rape by peers.

The schoolboys were running after girls too, trying to “make them.” I know an occasion, when an eleven or twelve-year-old girl was caught and gang raped in the forest, the boys were telling about it afterwards. They described how the girl had tried to fight them off, but couldn’t, and later they often visited that girl, she even sort of expected it. So a gang of boys spoilt a girl, who was too afraid to tell about it. (ELM 1996)

Adult Sexual Harassment and Rape

According to the 2000 Estonian sex survey, 2% of men and 14% of women in Estonia had been sexually harassed, 0.4% of men and 8% of women had been raped, and 3% of women had been both harassed and raped. Russian-speaking women in Estonia had been sexually harassed or raped more often than Estonian-speaking women had been—30% versus 22%. Three percent of respondent men and 13% of respondent women reported being the subject of physical violence from a long-term partner.

In the ELM archives, there are many stories on physical violence in relation to sexuality. Kelly (1988) has divided these into five groups: 1) harassment from flassing to assault, but not attempted rape, 2) pressurized sex against one’s own will, 3) coercive and forced sex involving elements of threat or fear, 4) (attempted) rape, and 5) general mentions about violence including domestic violence. There are not many stories in the sexual autobiographies about the author perpetrating a rape, but most of the authors told about attempting rape of another person or animals.

General Family and Sexual Violence

Violence in the family was sometimes upheld by the older-generation family members. The following 61-year-old Russian-speaking woman teacher writes:

When he came home again, I told him about money [the mother of the author had demanded her to ask money from the husband for the upkeep of the family] but he did not give me any. He simply lived with me, used me and beat me. Whenever he had had alcohol he found a reason to beat me, cruelly, with his feet. Once he beat me on the head with his fists and it seems I even lost consciousness. Mother watched and told him: “It is right to educate her, otherwise she will not listen to me any more and there is nobody who could tame her.” Yes, that was my own mother who allowed her daughter to be beaten in such a cruel way and never came to help me, to rescue me from the drunkard with whom I had refused to go out because he was drunk.
            I thank God I was saved from that sadist [the husband was put in jail for killing a man]. I wish he had got death penalty but it was our child that saved him from that. I thought that from now on I could live peacefully but no . . . he began to write me from the prison, threatening me in his letters. I have lived in fear all my life. When I started receiving those letters I must have thought about seeking defense from somebody and also I was fed up with my mother’s scolding. I wanted a home of my own; I wanted to marry, to find a father for my child. (ELM 1996)

Women were more often than men victims of sexual harassment and violence, as can be seen in the lack of autobiographic stories by men on general family and sexual violence.

B. Prostitution

Since the beginning of the 1990s, combined with fast socioeconomic changes, there was a rapid booming of prostitution in Estonia. Kristiina Luht (2003) estimates that more than 1,000 prostitutes work in Tallinn. Since a prostitute’s working time during the life course is quite short, 5 to 10 years, many more than a thousand women and men are involved.

According to Juri Kalikov (2003), two main tracks can be followed: first, girls go to bigger cities (half of the prostitutes come from Russian-speaking northeast Estonia), and second, women are taken abroad—mainly to Finland, Sweden, Poland, Germany, Denmark, Holland, and Spain. The human trade can appear in different forms: to work as a prostitute, to work as an au pair, cleaner, and so on, to work as a dancer (striptease), escort, and so on, and getting married with the aim of making a person work for free or as a sex worker. The local criminal organizations profit from prostitution and work closely together with foreign club or brothel owners.

In the 2000 Estonian sex survey, people gave their opinions on the following statement: “I have nothing against people earning money by selling sexual services (prostitution).” Fifty-five percent of men and 30% of women agreed entirely or almost completely with this statement. There was no difference between the national groups. Young people accepted it more often than middle-aged and older people. Type of relationship and education were not significantly connected with prostitution attitudes. Compared to the neighboring countries, Estonia was the most permissive to prostitution. People in St. Petersburg were particularly very much against it. But in the sexual autobiographies, many authors expressed their negative attitudes toward prostitution. The following 71-year-old woman teacher supports legal, controlled brothels:

I do not justify prostitution, but those who want to sell themselves always find ways to do it. But this shouldn’t ruin our youth. The ads in the newspapers where girls invite men to have coffee with them, giving addresses and phone numbers should be condemned. When I read the ads  in  the newspapers where somebody wants to find a boy- or girlfriend for extramarital relationship, I think that these people should be mad.
            There should be a house in town, where those who cannot do without it, could find satisfaction. This house should be under medical surveillance and the persons working there should be issued passports of different color than the other citizens. This lush sex is disastrous for the nation. (ELM 1996)

Twelve percent of men and 28% of women in Estonia had been solicited to have sexual intercourse in return for money or equivalent economic advantages, but had refused to take it. Three percent of the Estonian-speaking men and 1% of Russian-speaking men accepted the financial offer, as did 2% and 5% of the women. Younger and Russian-speaking people had been offered money for sex more often than older and Estonian-speaking people. Type of couple relationship and education did not predict persuasion to have sex for money.

Taking money for sex was more common among Russian-speaking women in Estonia and St. Petersburg than in Sweden and Finland. As many as 14% of the 25- to 34-year-old russophone women in Estonia had accepted money or other economic advantages for sexual services.

Ten percent of men in Estonia had paid for sexual intercourse. Only 2% admitted that they had been offered money for intercourse, but had refused to take it. Two women, both Russian-speaking, had paid for sex. National differences were not significant. The younger and the middle-educated had offered money for sexual services more often than the older and the least- or most-educated people. Type of relationship did not have any impact on paying for sex.

In Estonia, fewer men had paid for sex than in Sweden (15%) and Finland in 1999 (13%). In St. Petersburg, 10% had done it. Contrary to the situation in Estonia, where mostly younger men had paid for sex, in Sweden and Finland, middle-aged men most often reported having paid for sex.

C. Pornography and Erotica

During the stagnation times of the Soviet system, before 1991, all sexual literature, sex aids and substitutes, films, and so on, were strictly forbidden in Estonia, and there were legal codes and sentencing procedures for offenders. But it was not totally absent from the society as the following passage of the sexual autobiography by a 45-year-old man reveals:

An acquaintance of two of my classmates was having a birthday party in Tallinn and we were all invited to go. I was sixteen. Nothing predicted the course of following events as it really happened. At the party, we ate and had a few drinks. The walls of the flat of that man were covered with all kinds of pornographic pictures, which excited us all a lot. For the first time I saw all kinds of positions of intercourse, group sex, oral and anal sex. It all had a very strong impact on me and for a long time I saw them in my erotic fantasies. I don’t know from where he had got those pictures, but Finland is only some 80-90 kilometres off Tallinn and it was possible to smuggle things in. (ELM 1996)

After the independence, pornography became legal and easily attainable. The following 27-year-old man uses it as educational material:

Sex magazines, porno films? I don’t buy them except when I come across them when I’m alone, I look them through, trying to remain independent. I am more interested in the contents, pragmatical advice that I can share with my wife. I would also like to watch realistic films of deep thoughts and ideas, including erotica elements, in case it does not embarrass my wife. But cheap, downright hardcore porno films I wouldn’t watch more than just once. (ELM 1996)

In 2000, attitudes toward pornography were very positive: 68% of men and 55% of women considered pornography very or quite arousing. Young people enjoyed pornography more than the older persons. People in different types of couple relationship, educational, and national groups found pornography equally arousing. Estonians considered pornography more arousing than Swedes and Finns did in 1992. But in 1999, the Finnish attitudes resembled those of the Estonian people.

9. Contraception, Abortion, and Population Planning

KAI HALDRE and ELINA HAAVIO-MANNILA

During the last decade of the 20th century, major socioeconomic changes took place in Estonia. At the same time, many reproductive and sexual health indicators abruptly changed: The beginning of sexual life took place at a younger age; the number of induced abortions and deliveries, including teenage pregnancies, decreased rapidly; the availability of contraceptive methods improved; and their use increased. Nevertheless, much less contraception is used in the first sexual intercourse than in other developed countries, and often the sexually active people used unreliable methods of contraception—coitus interruptus and the rhythm method.

A. Contraception

General Usage

There are no systematic and accurate data about contraceptive usage in Estonia. According to the statistics given by the Estonian Ministry of Social Affairs, there were 182 users of hormonal contraception and 145 IUD users per 1,000 women of fertile age in 2001. These data are collected only about women who visit state women’s outpatient clinics. The definition of which data should be included in statistics is not well defined, and the collection of the data is not on the same level in all of these institutions.

According to the available statistics, the number of women using hormonal contraception has increased about fourfold, and the number of women with an IUD has decreased a little, when compared with the year 1992 statistics of 39 and 209 per 1,000 women of fertile age, respectively. These statistics of hormonal contraception do not tell us whether the figures refer only to the combined oral contraceptive pills or include also usage of other hormonal methods (POP, depo progestogen, or levonorgestrel-IUS). Nor do they tell use about how constant is the usage. The statistics reflect the usage per 1,000 women of fertile age, but do not distinguish how many of these women are in need of contraception.

The Estonian Health Interview Survey carried out in 1996 shows that the usage of different family planning methods during the previous four weeks by sexually active women in age groups 20 to 24 years and 25 to 29 years was as shown in Table 2. From the EHIS 1996 data, one might conclude that every user of a contraceptive method used only one method at a time. Our practical experience does not support this conclusion, and it was possible to select two main methods while answering this particular question in the interview. One, then, cannot consider the EHIS data reliable. The data depicting contraceptive usage do not reflect how many of these women were pregnant, infertile, or wishing pregnancy at the time when the interview was carried out. No reliable methods were used by one quarter of the women; at the same time, there are no data about their plans in case of pregnancy. Twenty-five percent of the 20-to-24 age group and 21% in age group 25-to-29 did not have intercourse during the previous four weeks.

According to