27/10/2025
The Academy of Private Life, which claims to have served more than 150,000 women, has several national outposts in Russia and a large syllabus of classes: Flirtation from A to Z, The Art of Walking Beautifully, Mysteries of the Jade Cave: How to Use Your Intimate Muscles, How to Play the Magic Flute: The Art of Fe****io. (These last two offerings aroused the most interest during an open house.) In all of the courses, the pedagogy is an awkward pastiche of traditions, combining Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Slavic paganism, Siberian shamanism, and Asian spiritual practices, spiked with elements of Jungian and American pop psychology.
Larisa Renar founded the academy, in 2000, to help women who craved the economic security of a marriage. “I think the real problem is that modern society, not just in Russia but in the whole world, forces women to live according to male standards: to be like a man, to act like a man, to look like a man,” she told Julia Ioffe. In Russia, this problem was especially acute. “Women carry all the responsibility,” she explained. “A lot of women are too active, too independent. It’s related to historical events, to wars and revolutions when men were killed and women had no choice but to take on leadership roles. . . . A man gives us women a home, physical protection, and a woman gives him pleasure, enjoyment of s*x, beauty.” Read the full story: https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/--rgXi
