Igor Kon. Screenshot from the video “«Он открыл нам секс». История первого советского сексолога Игоря Кона”on the Meduza YouTube channel. Fair use.

Russian opposition media outlet Meduza has released a documentary about the first Soviet sexologist, sociologist, psychologist, and doctor of philosophical sciences Igor Kon on Meduza’s YouTube channel.  The documentary received a prize for the best director, Meduza writes, at the  international documentary film festival Artdocfest in March 2025. The documentary, “Why I Swam Against the Current,” was made by the Berlin-based studio Narra and the independent journalist cooperative Bereg.

You can watch the documentary here.

Igor Kon was born in 1928 in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and lived with his mother, his father barely participating in his life.  He endured the evacuation during the Siege of Leningrad, and at the age of 15 was accepted to study history first at the Chuvashiya State Pedagogial University and then in Saint Petersburg (at that time, Leningrad), upon his return. 

Because of the difficult history of social sciences in the Soviet Union (which, depending on the period of time, were in turn either allowed or banned , and have always had to follow the Marxism–Leninism framework, even if only formally), he changed jobs multiple times. People with Jewish origins were discriminated against at the labor market in the late USSR, including in academia, where they always had a glass ceiling, so sometimes he could not find a job for months.  In the mid-1980s, he became widely known as the first (and for many years, the only) sexologist in the USSR — Igor Kon frequently appeared in the media and spoke openly about a subject that was one of the most taboo in Soviet society. The first TV programs about sex had appeared at that time, and homosexuality was excluded from the list of criminal offences in 1993.

By the end of 1980s, numerous video salons were showing Hollywood and other movies, including soft porn, and the Soviet movie “Маленькая Вера” (“Little Vera”) released in cinemas in 1988, and depicted (a very modest) sex scene for the very first time in Soviet history. 

Screenshot from the movie Little Vera on the GorkyFilmStudio YouTube channel. Fair use.

It was watched by a stunning 55 million people. Igor Kon at that time was the only real expert on sexuality with a scientific background because he learned extensively from foreign academic literature (and was frequently invited to lecture in the Western academia, too). He was the voice of reason in many of the popular TV shows and publications that for the first time in history taught the Soviet people about the taboo topics of sex, sexuality and gender.

Audience at one of the TV programs with Igor Kon. Screenshot from the video “«Он открыл нам секс». История первого советского сексолога Игоря Кона”on the Meduza YouTube channel. Fair use.

He was also active in trying to push the policy around AIDS, the epidemic of which had also started in the late USSR, so that it would not be imagined as a “Western” virus of homosexuals, drug addicts or prostitutes. He fought with stigma surrounding the epidemic, and managed to succeed somewhat (protocols for treating HIV have been in place in Russia since 1990, and treatment with foreign effective drugs was available for free, at least before the invasion of Ukraine started in 2022). 

In the 1990s, Igor Kon researched homosexuality, including that in the Soviet Union, and, in the early 2000s, gender roles. During the Putin era, when conservatism and “traditional values” became official ideology, Professor Kon became an enemy of both the state and the church. The documentary shows how on January 30, 2001, Kon was giving a lecture at Moscow State University. Right after it began, firecrackers were set off in the auditorium, offensive posters were unfurled, and someone threw a pie at him. A week later, a fake bomb was left at the door of his apartment, and he began receiving anonymous death threats.

In 2002, so-called Orthodox activists published an entire pamphlet about Professor’s Kon work, essentially a ready-made accusation, about him supporting LGBTQ+ people and being a pervert in the newly found Russian ‘traditional’ society of ‘family values’. 

At the same time, political homophobia as an ideology started to appear in Russia. While it started in Chechnya, where homosexual men were (and are) tortured for their sexuality, it spread and was upheld by the Russian state. At the moment, the nonexistent LGBTQ+ “movement” is considered “extremist” under Russian law, thus even showing the slightest indications of belonging to LGBTQ+ is now dangerous in the country. 

Igor Kon did not see the full scale of this ideology of hatred being spread.  He died in 2011 and, as the film’s director Igor Sadreev emphasizes, he defended the ideas of personal freedom, equality, and tolerance until his final days. 

Kon’s ashes, as the movies’ authors say, were buried secretly in the same grave as his mother’s, without any indication, so that the haters, who appeared in great numbers during the Putin era, would not vandalize it. 

In the words of  Igor Sadreev:

Igor Kon did not hide from reality behind his desk, but changed it to the best of his ability. He spoke on the most painful and taboo subjects, and stood up for the most vulnerable members of society. In essence, this film is about scientific courage, moral responsibility, and inner freedom.