Lithuanian historian Rasa Navickaitė feels conflicted about a book by a Latvian doctor Jānis Zālītis, titled In the Name of Love. Published in 1984, during late Soviet era, this sexuality education textbook was bold and innovative as it emphasized the importance of sexual pleasure. But at the same Zālītis time defined strict sexist roles and portrayed homosexuality as – perversion and crime.

How did this book – a sexuality textbook that served for at least two generations of Lithuanians – come to be? And who was the person who, in the 1980s, wrote with such authority about what was acceptable and unacceptable in sexual life?

Rasa embarks on a journey to understand the context of those times, questions the values the book sought to instill, and explores how sexual education today differs from that of the past.

Authors: Rasa Navickaitė Inga Janiulytė-Temporin.

Producer, editor and sound designer: Inga Janiulytė-Temporin.

Storytelling consultant: Rūta Dambravaitė.

English translation: Inga Janiulytė-Temporin, Justinas Šuliokas.

English subtitles: Tomas Valkauskas.

Excerpts were used from the film “Intimitātē” (1983), the Latvian radio broadcast “Nakts programma jaunatnei” (1989), the podcast “Nepatogūs pasakojimai” (2023), and the film “The Southern Chronicles” (2025).

Cover: Archive of Pēteris Zālītis, photo by Rasa Navickaitė, collage by Rytis Skamarakas.