This is the second episode in a series of discussions that will feature Kristen R. Ghodsee with various guests reflecting on Alexandra Kollontai's 1923 essay: "Make Way for Winged Eros: A Letter to Working Youth."

Kristen Ghodsee's guest this week is her 17-year-old daughter who reflects on the relevance of Kollontai to high school life in 2019.

In this essay, Kollontai works out her theories of how love and sexuality will be superior under socialism as compared to the bourgeois capitalist past.  She provides a Marxist history of love and sex as ideals that change depending on how the ruling class uses them to promote their own economic interests. It is an essential essay in terms of thinking about the intersections of sexuality and political economy, and it was an important inspiration for Ghodsee's 2018 book: Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence. In this episode, Ghodsee and her daughter discuss the idea that having a large friend group, or a robust social life, takes pressure off of people to find everything they need – intellectually, emotionally, and physically – in just one person for the rest of their lives.

The intro music is a Russian version of The Internationale.

More info about the host can be found at: www.kristenghodsee.com

Also see: AlexandraKollontai.com – A Website for All Things Kollontai 

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Check out Kristen Ghodsee's recent books:

• Everyday Utopia
• Red Valkyries
• Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism
• Second World, Second Sex

Subscribe to Kristen Ghodsee’s free, episodic newsletter at: https://kristenghodsee.substack.com

Learn more about Kristen Ghodsee's work at: www.kristenghodsee.com

Kristen R. Ghodsee is the award-winning author of twelve books and a professor and chair of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.