From Russia, With Homophobia

jamin | January 29, 2013 | 0 Comments

The Russian military is instituting a body check for new recruits. This is an effort to pick out gay recruits because apparently you can tell if someone is gay based on where they get their tattoos. This is news to me. I don’t know where they plan to look for these tattoos, but if it’s on the penis, I’ll just let you know that if a man is proud of it enough to get it tattooed, he could be straight or gay. If it’s a tramp stamp, that might mean gay, but I’ve seen several straight men with tattoos in that lower-back area. (One was a really cool lion tearing through the skin – on a straight guy).

These Russian Soldiers either had women’s names tattooed on their chests, or the Mandarin Chinese characters for “Air” & “Idiot” on their arms…to be exotic and heterosexual.
(Source: AP)

This effort isn’t surprising to me, based on Russia’s history of doing whatever is necessary to stop gays from expressing themselves. You can see in both articles how the police are complicit in carrying out the homophobic wishes of the Kremlin. This is utterly ridiculous to me. How can you tell sexuality by a tattoo? If it were that easy, that solution would have been acted on a long time ago. I think saying, “Thank you for your willing service to our country regardless of with whom you have sex” is a better use of time and your armed forces, Russia. Of course, Russia is saying it’s not homophobic at all. “It’s about character.” What does a tattoo location have to do with character? Even if it’s placed solely on the genitals, what does that matter if the army is a cohesive unit and the mindset is to follow orders regardless of personal feelings? As for character, mostly everyone I know in the military in the U.S. is a heavy drinker. Most Russians I know are heavy drinkers even as civilians. Are we not looking at that? We’re only looking at tattoo placement, a decision that could have come from heavy drinking.

I really need Russia to get it together. It’s bad enough, Russia, that you’ve propped up Syria while still being involved with Iran, and you’re essentially running the shows in all your former Soviet Socialist “Republics”. I thought Russia had progressed. I see that it really hasn’t. Homophobia runs deep and no homophobe ever stops to ask themselves why they’re so fearful of gays.

I think it’s because they think they’ll like the sex if they ever had it, and couldn’t live with themselves afterward. Projection, much?

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