Akt kobiecy i rewolucja seksualna w dekadzie Gierka. Historia wystaw „Venus” na tle przemian obyczajowych w PRL

The paper aims to critically analyse media discourse on the “Venus” female nude exhibitions, organized annually in Kraków between 1970 and 1991. By analysing discourse that legitimised nudity in the public sphere, the paper sheds light on ways in which attitudes toward sexuality and the body changed during the so-called Gierek decade. The source base consists primarily of press publications, newsreels, and photo books from the 1970s. As the paper demonstrates, there were three dominant frameworks of discussing nudity in state-socialist Poland: artistic, pornographic and educational. Moreover, historical discourse analysis allows us to observe the role female nudes played in setting the stage for the Polish sexual revolution in the second half of the 1980s.