Socialist Sex Education and Its Transnational Entanglements: Monika Krause and the Effort to “Teach Tenderness” to the People

Abstract

This article traces the transnational circulation of socialist reforms in the field of sex education through the work of Monika Krause, a citizen of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) who migrated to Cuba and became the “Cuban Queen of Condoms.” For Krause, the overarching goal of sex education was to “teach tenderness” to the people. The socialist state’s mission to prepare the population for love, marriage, partnership, and family in Cuba and the GDR involved using complex measures. This paper describes these, contextualizes them in transnational debates, and explains some of the internal reasoning behind their institutionalization. It also explains why looking at state-level efforts to “teach tenderness to the people” matters for a transnational history of sex education.