Thread: The views of Russians, according to the "Pew Institute". True or false?

Yeah "у нас секса нет" - also homosexuals were put in prisons - it was a crime in USSR.

To be homosexual - it was a crime in USSR.
And that shows how backward this country was...

Originally Posted by nulle

To be homosexual - it was a crime in USSR.
And that shows how backward this country was...

Do you mean that homosexuality is the future??

Originally Posted by Hanna

Do you mean that homosexuality is the future??

In Latvia

Originally Posted by nulle

To be homosexual - it was a crime in USSR.
And that shows how backward this country was...

Here is the timeline - decriminalisation of same-sex sexual activity in Europe (geographically) for the last 80 years:

1933 - Denmark
1942 - Switzerland
1944 - Sweden
1951 - Greece
1961 - Hungary
1962 - Czechoslovakia
1967 - England, Wales
1968 - East Germany, Bulgaria
1969 - West Germany
1971 - Austria, Finland
1972 - Norway
1973 - Malta
1977 - Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro
1979 - Spain
1980 - Scotland
1982 - Nothern Ireland, Portugal
1983 - Guernsey
1989 - Liechtenstein
1990 - Jersey
1991 - Isle of Man, Ukraine
1992 - Estonia, Latvia
1993 - Ireland, Lithuania, Russia, Gibraltar
1994 - Serbia, Belarus
1995 - Albania, Moldova
1996 - Romania, Macedonia
1998 - Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina
2000 - Azerbaijan, Georgia
2001 - San Marino
2002 - Armenia

As you can see, decriminalisation of same-sex sexual activity in the whole Europe was gradual process which took a couple of centuries to be completed. Also note that in many cases age of consent for gays was higher even after that, and was equalised years later. There is no need to single out Russia (or USSR) as backward in this respect, because most European countries were equally "backward" till some year in the 20th century. Of course, there were pioneers like Belgium, France, Netherlands, Andorra, Monaco, Luxembourg and Turkey (no punishment for homosexual activity since 18th or 19th century) and Poland (homosexuality was never illegal under Polish law). Russia was neither a pioneer, nor an outsider in this process.

By the way, here is one curious thing: seems that anti-homosexual laws always targeted men only (мужеложество), whereas lesbianism was not punished by the law. Why the bias?

Originally Posted by xdns

By the way, here is one curious thing: seems that anti-homosexual laws always targeted men only (мужеложество), whereas lesbianism was not punished by the law. Why the bias?

Why the bias?

Потому что пропускать предмет размером с банану в задний проход -- это неудобно, и может быть больно, и даже вредно -- вот почему! (Because being anally penetrated by an object the size of a banana can be uncomfortable, painful, and even harmful -- that's why!)

I mean, the bias against male homosexuality was consistent with the general aversion to anal sex, which historically was sometimes used as a painful humiliation for heterosexual male soldiers who were captured and enslaved by the enemy.

And I don't know what the legal tradition was in Russia, but I know that historically, in English-speaking countries, анальный секс между мужчинами was in a special category of legal horribleness, вместе с скотоложеством (along with bestiality).

But in the English legal tradition, "минет" или "взаимо-дрочка" между мужчинами тоже составляли преступлениями, однако преступления в меньшей степени. ("Blowjobs" or "mutual wanking" between men were also crimes, but crimes of lesser degree.)

Thus, if male homosexuality was a lesser crime when there was no proof that buggery (anal penetration) had occurred, it's not surprising that lesbianism was less punished, because buggery is something that two women can do only with an artificial phallus. But in contrast, male homosexuality always fell under suspicion of possibly "leading to anal sex" or "being a temptation to buggery" even when anal sex did not happen.

So we find that for long stretches of Western history, male/male anal sex was punished very harshly, sometimes by death; while other sex acts between males (oral sex, and sometimes masturbation) were also criminalized, but the punishments were usually lighter; and the law almost totally ignored lesbianism. (Anal sex between a man and a woman was sometimes tolerated more than male/male anal -- reflecting the low status of women generally.)

In the famous case of Oscar Wilde, for example, the "Crown" prosecutors gave him two years in prison (for the crime of oral sex with other males) because they were not able to prove that he had done anal sex (which carried a prison sentence of 20 years, not 2 years!). If Wilde had lived a century earlier, he might have gotten 20+ years for минет с мужиками, but the Death Penalty for anal sex! However, British law had been liberalized a bit in the 1860s, and his case was in the 1890s.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

предмет размером с банану

банан is a male noun in Russian
IDK if that makes it more suitable for this sentence

Originally Posted by xdns

By the way, here is one curious thing: seems that anti-homosexual laws always targeted men only (мужеложество), whereas lesbianism was not punished by the law. Why the bias?

Because in Victorian times when most of these laws were at their height women were not considered to have any sexuality at all. They certainly weren't suposed to enjoy sex. They were to lie back and think of England.

Plus to a hetrosexual man two women together is not automatically a turn off. Whereas, the thought of another man, doing that, touching them there, well, that's just icky. They know that's wrong. And men write the laws.

Originally Posted by sarah37

Because in Victorian times when most of these laws were at their height women were not considered to have any sexuality at all. They certainly weren't suposed to enjoy sex. They were to lie back and think of England.

There's some truth to that, Sarah, but the legal reality was more complicated. Anti-sodomy laws existed for many centuries before Queen Victoria came along, and to some degree they were rooted in the wording of the Bible: "If a man lies down with a man as with a woman..., Leviticus 20:13" (Note that euphemistic expression "lying down with a man" is the origin of the Russian word for sodomy: мужеложество.)

Also, the Victorian British were, in some ways, progressives on matters of sex and the law -- at least in the sense that they preferred to treat homosexuality and prostitution and other "sexual offenses" as social/medical problems that could be treated with compassionate, rational Science, instead of being condemned as sins against God.

Going back to the case of Oscar Wilde -- as I said above, he was officially jailed for oral sex with men, since the government was unable to prove anal sex.

And yet there was more to it than that: early in his trial, when the public only knew about Wilde's homosexual affairs with other upper-class gentlemen "of his own station", there was a surprising amount of public sympathy for him. Because the educated, progressive Victorian middle class (and the newspapers they read) said, basically, "Of course this is all rather disgusting, but surely it should be a private matter between individuals, and there's no reason for the Crown to treat it as a crime in our modern scientific era, etc."

But later in the trial, the prosecutors were able to prove that Wilde had been having lots and lots of oral sex with male prostitutes all around London -- and this fact outraged those very same Victorian progressives, who thought that a successful upper-class gentleman like Oscar Wilde had a duty to help educate young men of the lower classes, and not to take advantage of their poverty by paying them for blowjobs!

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

But later in the trial, the prosecutors were able to prove that Wilde had been having lots and lots of oral sex with male prostitutes all around London -- and this fact outraged those very same Victorian progressives, who thought that a successful upper-class gentleman like Oscar Wilde had a duty to help educate young men of the lower classes, and not to take advantage of their poverty by paying them for blowjobs!

This sounds a bit commie. I do realize though it's complicated due to his paying for male blowjobs, but as for "straight heads" - I wouldn't understand how someone getting a paid sexual service violates anything...

Do you mean that homosexuality is the future??

I mean - not treating these people like criminals is present and hopefully future.

And of course - everyone probably have seen this.
http://retardzone.com/uploads/2008/0...-bunker-22.jpg
True communist love

Originally Posted by nulle

And of course - everyone probably have seen this.
http://retardzone.com/uploads/2008/0...-bunker-22.jpg

Да, похристосовались. Easter salutation.
Should we make a big deal out of it?

Originally Posted by Lampada

Да, похристосовались. Easter salutation.
Should we make a big deal out of it?

Единственный лидер, попытка поцеловать которого у Брежнева провалилась, была Маргарет Тетчер.

Originally Posted by nulle

And of course - everyone probably have seen this.
http://retardzone.com/uploads/2008/0...-bunker-22.jpg
True communist love

Looks like Soviet Union was promoting, not suppressing homosexualism after all
I think that Brezhnev's behaviour was inspired by Russian tradition of Easter greetings - христосование, which includes triple kiss on the alternating cheeks. Leonid Ilych just made that old tradition more explicit

Написал jnllll (и мои извинения модератору, but I wanted to make a comment as a non-native learner of Russian):

Хотя я и неуважительно отношусь к лицам нетрадиционной сексуальной ориентации, но оскорбительных терминов по отношению к ним не употреблял.
Значение слова "п@дарас": пидорас — Викисловарь
Обратите внимание на 2-е значение этого слова. На этом и была построена игра слов моего комментария.

Аг-гаааа!

Знаете, jnllll, когда я (в качестве иностранца) читал ваше сообщение выше о "п@дарасах и гомосексуалистах", смысл вашей игры слов не дошёл до меня. Я принял ваше слова за "настоящию гомофобию", и естественно, на меня производит отрицательное впечатление о человеке, если он с предрассудком относится к иным.

А потом я читал дальше на ссылке "п%дорас" у Викисловаря, и стало ясно, что в этом контексте я понял (и перевёл) слово не так. Короче, я теперь понимаю в итоге, что вы не хотели приложить слово "п%дорас" к гомосексуальным мужчин, а к некоторым политическим лицам. (Да?)

I hope that made sense in Russian! What I wanted to say is that as a foreigner, when I read jnllll's comment about "п@дарасах и гомосексуалистах", I was a little bit shocked at first because I didn't "get" your wordplay, and I took "п@дарас" to mean "противный, грязный, паршивый гомосексуалный мужчина" -- in other words, a "faggot" (which is usually the correct translation into US English!).

And I thought he was making a homophobic joke, based on this general model:

Мужик приходит к сексопатологу, говорит:

-Знаете доктор, я -- гей...
Доктор ему:
-Вы наверно очень богаты?
М:
-Да нет...
Д:
-Тогда вы наверное дизайнер, музыкант, художник?..
М:
-Тоже нет.
Доктор:
-Ну так ты не ГЕЙ, мужик, ты ПИДОР!

We have a somewhat similar joke in English, which can be told about blacks, homosexuals, Jews, Chinese, women, etc., with the substitution of the appropriate terms:

Q: What do you call an African-American gentleman who has left the room?
A: A "nigger".

(NB: This joke is not always "racist"; sometimes it used in an ironic, sarcastic, "meta-humor" way by someone who is anti-racist -- it depends on who tells the joke, and in what tone of voice. One can even use the same joke in a political way: for example, a "Republican gentleman" who has left the room is a "Nazi", while a "Democratic gentleman" becomes a "Commie".)

But now I see that in jnllll's comment, "п%дорас" referred to certain politicians, and not to homosexuals -- and thus the correct translation here would probably be "c*cksucker" -- we generally wouldn't use "faggot" in this sense.

However, the point I want to make for jnllll is that it gave me (temporarily) a bad impression of him when he used such a rude word, because I'm not Russian and I understood him in a too-literal way. So that's another reason to avoid using language like "п%дорас" -- even if you don't care at all about being polite to "лица нетрадиционной сексуальной ориентации", it's disrespectful to foreigners learning Russian if you use such terms carelessly on a Russian-learning site such as MR.

And the reason it's disrespectful to foreigners is that you're asking us to understand that you meant to use "п%дорас" in its second meaning -- and you also expect us to understand that you, jnllll, are NOT the type of пошлый хам who habitually uses the word in its first meaning! (Even Lampada, a native Russian speaker, misunderstood your meaning. How much more will non-natives misunderstand you?)

In the same way, I wouldn't tell the joke above (about an "African-American gentleman") on an ESL-learning site, at least not without explaining the joke's context, and warning ESL speakers not to repeat the joke!

I hope this all makes sense to jnllll!

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

We have a somewhat similar joke in English,

Yes, you can read about this here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_F_Word_(South_Park)



"The F Word" was the highest rated episode of the thirteenth season of South Park.^[6][9] The episode was seen by 1.99 million households in the subgroup of adults between the ages of 18 and 49.^[9] The episode earned a higher rating than that of The Jay Leno Show, a primetime late night talk show on NBC.^[10] Nevertheless, it was seen by fewer cable viewers than the FX drama series Sons of Anarchy, which drew 2.32 million households; the E! reality show Keeping Up with the Kardashians, which drew 2.19 million households; and a television special about reality show star Kate Gosselin, which drew 2.3 million households.^[

Originally Posted by mishau_

Yes, you can read about this here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_F_Word_(South_Park)
^[

Good observation, mishau! Yes, the "F word" episode of South Park was making the same joke -- that "faggot" sometimes refers to male homosexuals, and sometimes does not.

After thinking about it, I also remembered a Russian анекдот about Ilya Muromets, who comes to a crossroad and sees a sign: "Налево пойдешь -- коня потеряешь, а направо -- п*дором станешь". In the joke, Ilya goes to the left, and doesn't lose his horse, but he soon meets Змей Горыныч and Баба Яга and chops off their heads. He's ready to kill Соловей-разбойник, too, but the bandit says "So, Ilya, you've become a п*дор after all!" (I.e., a п*дор in the Southparkian sense of a "loud, annoying asshole who rides a Harley motorcycle", but not in the sense of "homosexual".)

I wonder where my post from here has been moved to. The post contained an idea of the USSR leaders being homosexual, and wasn't offensive to anyone on here, neither did it contain obscenities. Now we come across certain kinds of censorship on here, right?

Originally Posted by Eric C.

I wonder where my post from here has been moved to. The post contained an idea of the USSR leaders being homosexual, and wasn't offensive to anyone on here, neither did it contain obscenities. Now we come across certain kinds of censorship on here, right?

Of course. And some Americans here have relationships with the mods to shove the PC material down the thoats of readers to let them know what is offensive and what is not?

Of course. And some Americans here have relationships with the mods to shove the PC material down the thoats of readers to let them know what is offensive and what is not?

@Pavelov and Eric C & co...

First of all, there is only one moderator as far as I know, and that person is extremely tolerant - nobody has been banned for all the time I have been a member, despite the fact that there have been several people with mental health problems, as well as several bullies/trolls. As far as I am aware, the moderator doesn't live in Russia and is technically not Russian (I think), so therefore there is no prejudice in favour of Russia or the USSR for that matter.

Secondly, just face it: Your worldview is in minority here! As it is on the planet as a whole. Nobody here is a Fox News viewer.

On this forum, economic sanctions, invasion, superior weapons and sly manipulation of public opinion will not work! You will have to argue your points of view with examples and certain amount of politeness!

And don't forget that most of the regular contributors are mature people with an interest in current events, politics and history!

Many are bilingual or trilingual and have lived in more than one country with experience of several different cultures and political systems.
In the case of people from the ex-USSR countries, they have experience of several quite different political and economic systems and have survived challenging times of much upheaval and dramatic events.
The experiences and observations of such people are valuable to learn from!

I have personally changed my views and prenotions on lots of matters to do with Russia, the USSR etc after reading what people here have said.
You would benefit a lot from opening up your minds a bit.

Finally, the emphasis here is on learning Russian and learning about Russian culture etc. Let's have a certain degree of respect towards the "hosting nation", so to speak. Not that we can't critisize or challenge Russia or Russian people, but let's do it respectfully without being rude. This forum is quite unique on the internet. Let's keep it a nice and friendly place.