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5 A Cold War for the twenty-first century Homosexualism Vs. Heterosexualism

Laurie Essig and Alexander Kondakov

> Introduction War rhetoric was reinvigorated In the lead up to the Sochi Olympics in 2014, Cold and LGBT activists. Like an in the US and Russia among politicians, journalists and democratic America against an earlier Cold War discourse that posited a free War was also spelled out in the language authoritarian Soviet Russia, the new Cold however, was that the new Cold War of freedom versus control. The difference, but sexual economies. Rather than capit- was not shaped around economic systems communism and authoritari- alism and its handmaiden democracy fighting against over sexual citizenship (see anism, the new Cold War erupted as a battle sexual citizenship for 2000). On one side stood those who support Richardson, the of marriage and the ability to serve in gays and lesbians, at least in the form who argued that full citizenship can armed forces. On the other side stood those engage in heterosexuality. We call these only be extended to those who actively ‘Heterosexualism’. Jn what follows, two ideological camps ‘Homosexualism’ and discourse in the US and Russia to we lay out these ideologies and use political structure this new Cold War. The show how Homosexualism and Heterosexualism the US as ‘liberated’ and Russia as argument we are laying out does not mark circulations of Homosexualism ‘oppressed’ but tries to trace the highly complex the US, modemity and tradition. and Heterosexualism between Russia and implies a set of Western perversions In Russian, the term ‘homosexualism’ a threat to supposedly traditional sexual that can be imposed on anyone and thus Dugin, a nationalist thinker and a and gender values. For instance, Alexander (Barbashin and Thoburn, 2014), described as Vladimir Putin’s ‘brain’ man emphasis on the as a Western form of corruption that puts marks homosexualism or belongings such as national, religious individual and undermines collective In this chapter, we use Homosexualism gender identities (Open Revolt, 2014). in a more formalised ideology and with a capital ‘H’ to signal that this is discourse. By Homosexualism different than the one used in Russian political by the state that associate certain we mean a set of ideological claims backed overall freedom, democracy and well- legal rights, like same-sex marriage, with complicated experiences of LGBT persons being, even while ignoring the more as both citizens and non-citizens.

and Alexander Kondakov named 80 Laurie Essig what Jasbir Puar common with ‘sexu- : has a lot in the way in which Homosexualism signifies across For Puar, homonationalism of US. citizens homonationalism. in the articulation a crucial formation and transnationally’ ality [can] become and race, both nationally it not like gender, class; friendly’ status marks other registers the West’s ‘gay In other words, to ‘save’ supposedly (Puar, 2013, P- 336), intervene elsewhere @ also obligated to Homosexualism, as modern’ but and just Within both homonationalism OF at least others (ibid.). potentially procreative primitive to married and sexual acts are is limited enga ged in ‘good’ sexuality an d non-native figures lesbian and couples. Queer white and well-off child-rearing while primarily national of of the role of citizen, act as signifiers out as well, is pushed often reproductive in that it who are from homonationalism gay couples, also differs Heterosexual- Homosexualism opposition to superiority. Yet and alway s in of ter- of a binary relationship the queer assemblages always part opposition to to is in works in opposition ism. Puat’s homonationalism our Homosexualism 2007), Whereas rorist bodies (Puar, (Essig, 2014). or “backward? Heterosexualism Heterosexualism ‘traditional’ relative homonationalism, close term: heteronorma- Like Homosexualism’s an already established all language with (1993), includes shares some conceptual by Michael Warner tivity, as outlined upon which it rests, If heteronorma' the gender binary tivity. heterosexuality and norms where the norms that enforce of state-sponsored represents the addition exists at the then Heterosexualism to citizenship. Heteronormativity genders. becomes central of sexualities and heterosexuality a multitude forgetting to include to both privi- of forgetting: the state that remembers level backed by other sexualities is an ideology to eliminate all Heterosexualism to actively work terrorism against an d also and even acts of lege straightness proclamations state policies, religious through the superiority of bodies. insists on queer Heterosexualism pride through an ideology of nationalism, and creates national As sexuality nation. as the only ‘natural’ reproduces the heterosexuality in Russia) that then as white/Slavic to the most advanced (marked procreation feel they belong helps citizens and gay men, Hetero- Just as Homosexualism (even) to lesbians rights and freedoms most advanced state that guarantees belong t o the state citizens that they social order. communica tes to from the ‘natural’ sexualism is excluded as excep- but heterosexuality same-sex desire as everything regard and Heterosexualism or SUPpress- Homosexualism exception: tolerate Both to respond to this of their own diverge in how the superiority tional, yet both insist on pride. and Homosexualism sense of national Heterosexualism of reinforcing their that as a Way We want to stress forms of sexual citizenship Heterosexualism, and lities that they are By employing Homosexualism do with the sexua have less to These are imag! ideologica 1 constructions domestic politics. these international and and unofficial) to represent than (official supposed by various authorities employed or ‘bad’. Homosexual- nary sexual economies a society ‘good’ about what makes other in the same I deas and sustain each to communicate interact, support War. B lism do sustained the Cold ism and Heterosexua Communism of Capitalism and way that notions

81 A Cold War for the twenty-first century of Homosexualism and Heterosexualism, focusing on certain global currents progress. Though many see provide a vision of process, nof we intend to a future notions of ‘it gets better’ narrating sexual politics as progressive, with rights of LGBT citizens (see states will eventually recognise the in which all Homo- trouble this notion in two ways. First, ) Bernstein and Taylor, 20] 3), we 10. both Russia and the US and therefore > sexualism and Heterosexualism exist Second, we insist that a belong easily to one or the other. cannot be said to trans for lesbian, gay and sometimes limited amount of citizenship rights stage of progress. We need possibly be interpreted as a final persons cannot been so abortion for women in the US has only consider how the right to an legal climate for nearly 70% undermined that there is now a hostile thoroughly The contradictory age (Guttmacher Institute, 2016). of women of reproductive the no doubt become even clearer under nature of LGBT rights in the US will Because sexual citizenship, like conservative-controlled government. new (Weeks, 1985), we not a unilinear progress narrative reproductive rights, is of a New and clear-cut division than what the metaphor offer here a less sharp and are not arguing that the West is good Sexual Cold War seems to offer. We but rather that there are ideologies bad when it comes to LGBT rights Russia is around the world. In and present dangers to queer citizens that present real way of third path, a troublesome and queer what follows, we try to offer a and nation. thinking about sex Homo- citizens to live in conditions of Clearly it is usually better for LGBY open opposition. However, we tolerance is a far less cruel fate than sexualism: play out in inter- in how Homosexualism and Heterosexualism are interested supremacy, making they are used to promote national national relations where and different. Together Homosexualism far more similar than they ate them analytic notions help us to speak of a normative order. These Heterosexualism study: their imaginary features of the ideologies that we higblight important participation of to ‘actually existing’ practices; active character as opposed opposed in producing these ideologies as certain political institutions or agents mechanisms of homo- or heteronorma- to the more quotidian and performative ‘choosing sides’ when speaking the zero-sum game that necessitates tivity; and an ‘either-or’ debate that is and nations. This latter aspect produces of sexualities War. to us as scholars of the new Cold of particular interest of colo- Cold War, Foucault’s accounts an effort to think through this new In a straight path. Instead, He argued that history was never nialism may be useful. in 1976, Foucault forth in unexpected ways. In a lecture power circles back and prac- England to think through how colonising turns to the Norman invasion of on the coloniser: tices have a sort of ‘boomerang effect’ with its techniques and be forgotten that while colonisation, it should never European models to juridical weapons, obviously transported its political effect on the mecha- it also had a considerable boomerang other continents, institutions and tech- in the West and on the apparatuses, nisms of power back to the of colonial models was brought niques of power. A whole series

Kondakov Essig and Alexander 82 Laurie something resembling the West could practise the result was that West, and on itself. internal colonialism p. 103) colonisation or an (Foucault, 2003,

used to examine has most often been ‘boomerang effect” in the Although Foucault's or hyper-policing like mass incarceration to internal colonisation, use it here as a way policies of we would like to Graham, 2011), themselves boom- US (see, for example, Heterosexualism are Homosexualism and Homo- examine how both 1978, pp. 92, 103-105). nations (Foucault, colonising effects of imperialist the jlong-standing, erang, are the outcome of their and Heterosexualism colonisation of sexualism and the internal sexual of the US and Russia in the realm of sexual practices of well In the US, the notion by the US army as citizens. of polygamy in Utah justified the suppression in order to save sexually citizenship like the Philippines of distant lands subjects were strictly as the colonisation In Soviet Russia, sexual groups like the Igorots. until the early 1990s, ‘primitive’ power. From that point Stalin consolidated (see Canaday, controlled after ‘disease’ oF ‘criminal’ marked as ‘foreign’, Sexual Cold sexuality was Indeed, the current queer 1999). Kon, 2010; Essig, and religious 2011; Vaughan, 1996; whereby both political of colonising, impulses, good and War is the result themselves as exceptionally Russia can imagine that seduces leaders in the US and colonising impulse of the world. It is this rhetoric, ready to lead the rest Christian conservative into adopting American and a Russian politicians their Russian counterparts leaders into praising in the American conservative to state recognition into limiting its demands global gay rights movement form of marriage. and Heterosexualism We describe Homosexualism various In the following sections, this chapter, we consider the US and Russia. In to are represented in news media and the law as they international politics, contexts, specifically and national belonging discursive about sexual citizenship how certain utterances an ‘Us VS. them’ rhetoric. examine Cold War by reiterating and enact the New Sexual focuses on what acts can New Sexual Cold War the rhetoric of the feminist writers have Much of As many queer and a particular place. state’s desire actions are legal in it communicates the to the law since we must pay attention and Fudge, 2002; noted, (Leckey, 2015; Cossman administrate sexuality particular forms of to control and about the legality of 1997). We focus on negotiations a country is either Butler, normative position wherein this produces a engages in a form of sex because this discussion often ‘traditional’. In the US, cis-gendered ‘advanced’ or of — white, whereby a certain form dissent, even Homosexualism, queer lives by labelling erase the diversity of of and male — is used to in opposition to the progress homophobic and therefore promote dissent from queers, are coupled to nationalism and Heterosexualism Russia’s the nation. In Russia, has become Narrowly defined heterosexuality dis- an ethnically pure nation. and is deployed to revitalise stand (see Nartova, 2008) a queer principle ideological We have assembled purity and moral supremacy. form of courses of ethnic that (i) express @ particular Cooper, 2014) of texts archive (Przybylo and

83 A Cold War for the twenty-first century dichotomy. In the concluding part of the authority and (ii) promote a Cold War connected with each other to break down paper we show how the speakers are the US and Russia that is unintentionally the vision of clear-cut division between ideologies. | reproduced when describing these two arguing that the world is divided It should be clear by now that we are not (represented mostly by a New Sexual Cold War, with ‘Western’ countries into rather that Russia Heterosexualism but the US) promoting Homosexualism and that perform this polarised space. } there are discursive regimes in both places clearly dispersed in space, we caution Since these ideological formations are so War as geographically located and } readers not to think of the New Sexual Cold further into an ‘us vs. them’, Not only therefore not a way to divide the world not reduced to geography but also they are Homosexualism and Heterosexualism parties or groups, and so the ideo- can appear in arguments between individuals, relations. Yet we believe it is worth think- } logies are not limited to international of Homosexualism vs. metaphor of a New Sexual Cold War, ing through this the exists at the discursive level. Dividing Heterosexualism, because it so clearly be resisted to the extent that we under- world into two camps, again, can only the history of sex shows, citizenship stand the nature of sexual citizenship. As of national superiority and sexual turn on a dime, bringing entire regimes can longing into a sudden state of disarray.

Homosexualism

as an ideology of supremacy, As noted above, Homosexualism is regarded ‘modernity’ are best served by pro- which rests on the idea that ‘progress’ and marriage. Homosexualism is viding sexual citizenship in the form of same-sex is associated with — as Stephen imagined as in opposition to ‘tradition’, which ... [illiteracy ... [d]isease” Fry summed up — ‘[tJorture ... [i]nquisition promoted at the highest political (Juzwiak, 2015). This ideological stance was said in his second inaugural level in the US. Former President address that:

brothers and sisters are treated Our journey i s not complete until our gay w e are truly created equal, then if like everyone else under the law. For must be equal as well. surely the love we commit to one another (Tumulty, 2013)

many different in many diffe rent contexts and by Homosexualism is enacted ights’ was phrase ‘gay rights are human r actors but the first person to utter the in 2011. Clinton did not just retool her then Secretary of State aphorism but backed her words with 1995 ‘women’s rights are human rights’ and laid out what was now to be millions of dollars from the State Department was central throughout the Obama US foreign policy (Patel, 2015). This policy argued in 2016, “gay rights are the civil presidency. As Vice President Joe Biden rights issue of our time” (Lambert, 2016).

84 Laurie Essig and Alexander Kondakov that the US and other allied This state-sponsored Homosexualism meant took an aggressive stance in favour nations felt the need to respond when Russia passage of a federal ‘homosexual of Heterosexualism, particularly through the law’ was adopted back in 2006 propaganda’ law. Although the first ‘propaganda legislation in 2013 that attracted on regional level, it was the passage of federal (Pronkina, 2016). Western news greater attention both in Russia and abroad men by groups like Occupy reports revealed the systematic targeting of gay law’. Writing in the New York Paedophilia legitimised by the ‘propaganda demanded a boycott of the Times, the popular playwright Harvey Fierstein Putin regime to that of Nazi Germany Olympics in Russian Sochi, comparing the (Fierstein, 2013; Savage, 2013). War drums. According to Western politicians lined up to beat the new Cold of Germany Angela Merkel was an article in the UK’s Sunday Times, the leader not a homophobic one. Putin had able to negotiate with an Imperialist Russia but Ukraine but the moment when annexed Crimea and sent his forces into Eastern that there could be no reconciliation Angela Merkel finally became convinced treated to his hardline views on gay with Vladimir Putin was when she was rights (Pancevski, 2014). at a G20 meeting in Sep- British Prime Minister David Cameron pushed Putin LGBT citizens. Foreign Secretary tember of 2013 to recognise full equality for on its anti-gay laws since William Hague said that Britain must challenge Russia democracy: the treatment of homosexuality is wedded to

we are saving lives, standing Britain is most comfortable with itself when do that in conversation with up for human rights overseas. So we should terrible about Britain if Russia and other countries. It would say something world’s oldest democracies. we were reluctant to do that. We are one of the We are clear about our values. We must not retreat. (Charleton, 2013)

West’s moral superiority, Amer- Not to be outdone in the contest to show the Appearing on waxed poetic about the rights of LGBT citizens, ican politicians seems about Russia that ‘This the ‘Tonight Show’ with Jay Leno, who said round up the gays’, Obama like Germany, let’s round up the Jews, let’s that try to treat gays or lesbi- responded that he has ‘no patience for countries them or are harmful to ans or transgender persons in ways that intimidate Barbara Boxer wrote a letter to them’ (Dovere, 2013). Democratic Senator Putin to write that:

Relations Subcommittee dedic- As the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign to work to repeal recent ated to the protection of human rights, | urge you the rights of lesbian, gay, laws and policies that severely infringe upon These efforts — bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals in Russia. propaganda’ including legislation you recently signed banning ‘homosexual of equality, but also — are not only an affront to fundamental principles

A Cold War for the twenty-first century 85

and contradict the rights enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil Political Rights, to which Russia is a party. (Boxer, 2013)

spoke Even Republican Senator John McCain, who opposes same-sex marriage, in an editorial out against the anti-gay Jaws as part of the larger tyranny of Putin propa- in Pravda (McCain, 2013). For many, Russia’s law against ‘homosexual The ganda’ was yet another sign of the West’s exceptionalism and superiority. all nationalist West’s ‘gay friendly’ status marks it not just as ‘modern’, but like others, hence sentiment, having an obligation to intervene elsewhere to ‘save’ become claiming global political domination, in which issues of homosexuality became a just a side-effect of imperialism in the same way that ‘saving women’ 2013, p. 336). reason to invade Afghanistan under George W. Bush (Puar, 2007, served as a For Russian politicians, the West’s Homosexualism may have Russia and the catalyst for promoting Heterosexualism. As Igor Kon points out, the second half US/West both de-criminalised and de-pathologised queerness in took two very of the twentieth century but, in the twenty-first century, they whereas different paths. In the West, legal rights became the site of contestation, with little or no in Russia LGBT populations became increasingly public but were seen as a recognition legally. Increasingly, demands for state recognition beginning of the Western imposition. As Kon points out, ‘(t)he fact that at the opposite political and new millennium Russia and the West began to develop in but it does have a ideological directions in no way depends on sexual minorities, unease with the powerful effect on their position’ (Kon, 2010, p. 20). Russia’s national sover- legal protection of LGBT rights became a site for establishing anti-gay laws eignty, of ‘bringing Russia off its knees’. Long before legislating argued for the on the federal level, Russian representatives in the United Nations states’ attempts to passage of ‘traditional values’ globally to confront Western Cai Wilkinson impose their version of sexual citizenship on other countries. rights to show (2014) traces Russia’s de-universalising arguments around human including LGBT how Russia challenged the discourse of universal human rights, on the notion that tights, as a form of cultural imperialism. This challenge rested is ‘natural’. homosexuality was created by the West whereas heterosexuality we is at the core of ideology of Heterosexualism, to which This argument now turn.

Heterosexualism 1930s Scott paper ‘Is Your Washroom Breeding Bolsheviks’ was a popular quality paper towels products campaign that urged employers to stock high harsh, cheap paper like theirs since ‘wiping your hands six days a week on unhappy workers towels or awkward, unsanitary roller towels’ could lead to of homosexual who might just tarn communist (Sharp, 2010). A similar notion has been pro- practices as something that can travel from one person to another ‘healthy’ people moted in Russia. Russian lawmakers talk about perfectly

86 Laurie Essig and Alexander Kondakov of As anti-gay campaigner and Head becoming infected with homosexuality. Assembly of Saint Petersburg, Vitaly the Legal Committee of the Legislative Milonov said: there’s nothing same-sex relationship as an experiment, If a person tries a study time. As the criminologists who upsetting about that. But only ONE say, after the second or third contact maniacs and homosexual criminality in the gender psyche of the person with the [same-sex] partner, something and he consciously becomes gay. changes (Balagurova, 2012)

in some sort of anachronistic time It may seem as if Heterosexualism exists sources of truth, For instance, the before science or human rights became is often just a bizarre collection of myths ‘science’ behind Russia’s anti-gay laws such document that played an with completely baseless statistics. One mixed in Russia was a document in the passage of anti-gay legislation important role Cameron was Discredited American psychologist Paul with origins in the US. The ‘statistics’ (Seddon and Feder, 2013). the source of many of the document’s from the Movement for the Pro- Russian version, ‘Statistics on Homosexualism’ claimed that: tection of Family, Childhood and Morality and as a result die in many 37% of homosexuals practice sadomasochism, organized to teach homosexuals how cases. In San Francisco, lectures were partners ... 21% of lesbians die by to behave in order not to kill their is bigger than the mortality rate of murder, suicide or car crash, this number normal women by 534 times.’ is heinous crime that homosexuals commit According to this document, the most recruiting children: way, and this is why they tend Homosexuals cannot reproduce in a natural heard how homo- During gay-parades it is frequently to recruit children. recruit! Recruit! Recruit!” A sexuals chant: ‘Ten percent is not enough, for recruiting young girls. Their group called ‘Lesbian Avengers’ is proud are less open about this, but they zine reads: ‘Recruit!’ Some homosexuals positions where they would have are trying to get in communities or to in the USA, teachers, Boy Scout access to children (for example, priests leaders and so on).’ homosexuals recruit children over and Russian politicians used this claim that of a federal law ‘for the purpose of pro- over again in the lead up to the passage non-traditional sexual rela- tecting children from information propagandizing enactment of the law against ‘homosexual tions to minors’.? Moreover, after the variety of arguments to support the ban propaganda’, Russian scholars offered a premier university, Moscow State, in their scholarly publications. In Russia’s

A Cold War for the twenty-first century 87

sociologist Elena Novoselova analysed the ‘homosexual movement’ and con- firmed that same-sex marriages are a ‘dead-end for humanity’ (Novoselova, 2013, p. 85). Her analysis is driven by the fear of children finding themselves in a society of the future where homosexuality is promoted while heterosexu- ality is violently oppressed (ibid., p. 102). Considered oppositional and ‘liberal’, Higher School of Economics’ Senior Professor Leonid lonin believes that as a result of ‘homosexual propaganda’ the world will be conquered by homosexuals (together with migrant workers and the political opposition) and eventually decay to totalitarianism (Ionin, 2012, pp. 232-233).4 Sociologists Oleg Bozhkov and Tatiana Protasenko from the Russian Academy of Science (perhaps the country’s most important research institution) argued that there is a mismatch between the number of ‘natural homosexuals’ and the number of LGBT persons around the world. They conclude that this is due to queer being fashionable. As they put it, ‘it is simply improper today to be normal’ (Bozhkov and Protasenko, 2012, p. 158). Certainly the ‘science’ of Heterosexualism is fairly widespread among Russian scholars (Novitskaya and Johnson, 2015) but there is also widespread homophobia among ordinary Russians. According to the Levada Centre polling, 84% of Russians are opposed to same-sex marriages and 77% of Russians felt positive about the law banning ‘homosexual propaganda’ (Levada Centre, 20] 5). This popular and scientific homophobia is aided and abetted by the Russian Orthodox Church, whose leaders have consistently cast queer relationships and identities as spiritual pollution produced in the imaginary landscapes of ‘mod- ernity’ and ‘the West’ (Stepanova, 2015). Given the way homophobia is embed- ded in so many aspects of Russian culture and society, it is no surprise that the anti-homosexual propaganda law passed through the Duma without a single vote against it in June 2013 (Russian LGBT Network, 2013). These scholars represent important Russian academic institutions and that is why they represent the intel- lectual context in which the ‘propaganda law’ was passed. Certainly, the Russian academy is far from monolithic in its thinking about homosexuality.’ Yet, scholars who are not advocating Heterosexualism would hardly find an audience with the politicians in power. This is the effect of Heterosexualism as an ideo- logy that also provides fertile ground in which to grow popular and populist arguments that sustain the New Sexual Cold War rhetoric. Russian Heterosexualism connects sexuality to the map of the world like Homosexualism does. Heterosexuality as a ‘natural’ and ‘traditional’ form of sex is regarded as superior and advanced, while homosexuality is seen as a sign of social decay. ‘Natural’ heterosexuality is concentrated in Russia and other coun- tries that promote Heterosexualism and the West is marked as a highly polluted space of gayness, symbolised with words like the ‘Gayropa’ for Western Europe. Putin’s supporter, the head of Republic of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, expresses this idea most straightforwardly:

Unfortunately, a significant portion of Russians want to be like the Europe- ans, enjoy their way of life, though the majority of the Europeans actually

88 Laurie Essig and Alexander Kondakov praise all that is inhuman. They think have no culture, no morals. They scary to even talk about it. Me person- same-sex marriage is a norm. It’s so to be a citizen of Russia.” ally, I do not want to be a European. I want is not simply to protect itself from The rationale behind Russian Heterosexualism of the West in an imagined popula- cultural imperialism but also to ensure defeat and family experts is that once The logic of many Russian politicians tion race. are prohibited, the promoted and all other kinds of sexuality Heterosexualism is are engage in procreation. Homosexuals. people of Russia will automatically Yelena Mizulina, the author of the anti-gay believed to be an obstacle on this path. Committee on Family, Women and propaganda law, former head of the Duma’s House, the Federation Council, rational- Children and now a member of the Upper in increasing the birthrate in Russia: ises discrimination as a necessary step crisis, then we need stricter policies if we want to resolve the demographic for some years, in order to in relation to moral values and information In this regard Russian traditions provide for full childbirth and childrearing. matriages? We shall see if the are very important. And what are same-sex of same-sex marriage and whether French will be happier after legalization one woman as they have now (they they will have such a high birthrate for marriages... What influence have a very high birthrate). Because same-sex supposed to be complete, they does this phenomenon have? A family is they get children from? They want to bring up children. But where would there are orphans. Are they [same-sex cannot produce them themselves. So, families] interested in orphans? Yes. (Pervy Kanal, 2013)

to see homosexuality ‘between adults’ Mizulina is clear that she does not want same-sex relationships to have the outlawed again but she also does not want is provided for heterosexual families. same sort of governmental support that construct for the promotion of This argument has Jong served a major rhetorical p. 164). Putin has said that the 2014, Heterosexualism in Russia (Kondakov, per se but rather merely pro- ‘propaganda law’ does not prohibit homosexuality ‘a society that cannot protect its tects children from harmful information because This negation of any discrimination children has no future’ (Gay Russia, 2014). the connection of homosexuality to despite evidence to the contrary as well as a stance he always repeats when the ‘inability’ to reproduce is Putin’s mantra, asked about the ban on homosexual propaganda:

forms of sexual interaction We do not have a ban ... of non-traditional of homosexuality and between people. We have a ban against propaganda different things: one isa paedophilia among minors.... These are absolutely a ban against propaganda of ban of certain relations, and another one is anything, we do not grab these relations.... We do not prohibit anyone ... of criminal consequences for people on the streets, we do not have any sort

A Cold War for the twenty-first century 89 such relationships, contrary to other countries in the world [meaning some states of the US].... So you can feel yourself peaceful and comfortable here — but just leave the kids alone, please! (RT na Russkom, 2014)

The political connections between demography, traditional Russian values and heterosexuality have been translated into legal decisions in Russia. Even before the ‘propaganda law’ it was used in the Constitutional Court to exclude the possibility of same-sex marriage in Russia. In 2006, when a claim of two men arguing against discrimination by marriage registrar was filed, the court ruled that marriage could be registered only if two opposite sex persons were involved in the procedure (Kondakov, 2013, p. 416). Later, in response to legal challenges of the ‘propa- ganda law’ by gay and lesbian activists, the Supreme Court ruled that:

Federal legislators considered information harmful to the health and devel- opment of children that kind of information that denies , including propaganda of homosexuality as it relates to the aforementioned legal rationale. (Supreme Court of Russia, 2012a)

In accordance with national traditions and international norms, federal legis- Jators do not include homosexual relations, bisexuality and transgenderism in family values. (Supreme Court of Russia, 2012b)

According to historian and legal scholar Marianna Muravyeva (2014, p. 631), the Russian courts refer to ‘an ethnographic fantasy rooted in the Bolshevik/ Soviet criticism of pre-revolutionary traditional (rural) society’, when speaking about family values. Muravyeva concludes that the legal and policy definition of family today does not rely on any actual empirical knowledge of the everyday practices and relationships in families in Russia. Instead, the ‘traditional family’ is a fairly recent political construct created to promote certain ideas in the law, while suppressing others. What is perhaps most interesting about the use of ‘traditional’ family values in Russia is that it was imported from the conservative Christian discourse that took centre stage in American politics in the 1990s for the exact same reason that ‘traditional values’ are being utilised in Russia today: fear of societal col- lapse. There was a fair amount of agreement among many conservative com- mentators that the US was, in the words of conservative judge , ‘slouching toward Gomorrah’. Christian conservative politicians and religious leaders such as and Pat Robertson posited ‘traditional values’ as a critique of everything from divorce to homosexuality to abortion. These values were revitalised under the current conservative as a way to ‘save’ American culture from its imagined imminent collapse and, under the Trump presidency, motivate much of the law making and political speech at both

90 Laurie Essig and Alexander Kondakov national and local level (Ashbee, 2001; Dochuk, 2012). This is where both colo- nising and anti-colonialist discourses rather perversely get into bed together. Russia fights against Western sexual imperialism by adopting the language of America’s populist and highly conservative Christian movement, while Amer- ican conservatives attempt to model US sexual citizenship on Russia. In order to fully unpack how colonising and anti-colonialist rhetoric can interact in unex- pected ways and with unintended effects, it is worth turning to the global exchange of ideologies between the US and Russia.

Boomerang

Although the Sexual Cold War is imagined as spatially located in between ‘The West’ and ‘Russia’, its discourse actually moves around geographical locations and cultures without residing permanently in any particular place. As Jonathan Symons and Dennis Altman point out, national stances are usually contradictory and always already globalised: As both homosexual affirmation and homophobia are globalized, strange coalitions are forming between conservatives and religious fundamentalists of all kinds, and between right-wing opponents of Islam and gay rights advocates. (Symons and Altman, 2015, p. 82)

Similarly, Michele Rivkin-Fish and Cassandra Hartblay point out that although Russia and the US have different models of justice, the US legal landscape is a contradictory space where anti-gay laws exist alongside public censure of Russia’s anti-gay laws (Rivkin-Fish and Hartblay, 2014, p. 107). For now, this contradictory landscape is primarily located in the American neo-conservative movement, where Cold War sentiments mingle with a certain admiration for the Russian authorities’ strong stance against gay rights. Prior to the 2016 election, the US neo-conservative movement seemed marginal. Yet now there are many conservative politicians in the US with power who would like to see Heterosexualism motivate domestic and foreign policy. Republican National Committee member Dave Agema admired Russia’s anti-propaganda law as ‘common sense’ (Ring, 2014). Many Republican candidates for president in the 2016 election insisted that same-sex partner rights and marriage rights are against , unconstitutional, and intolerant of ‘reli- gious freedom’. Scott Walker has opposed health care for same-sex partners and supported a constitutional amendment that would have defined marriage as between one man and one woman. Walker also supported the Boy Scout ban on gay troop leaders saying it ‘protected children’ (Woodruff, 2015). insisted that: If you Jook at other nations that have gone down the road towards gay mar- riage.... It gets enforced against Christian pastors who decline to perform gay mattiages, who speak out and preach biblical truths on marriage. (Berenson, 2015)

A Cold War for the twenty-first century 91

Jeb Bush released a video right before the Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage insisting that:

We need to make sure that we protect the right not just of having religious views, but the right of acting on those views.... This conscience should also be respected when people of faith want to take a stand for traditional mar- riage.... It’s got to be important over the long haul, irrespective of what the courts say. (Costello, 2015)

Furthermore, the ability of Donald J. Trump to appoint at least one Supreme Court justice during his term and to defund State Department initiatives that made both gay rights and women’s rights central to foreign policy may very well make Heterosexualism the basis of future US policies. Heterosexualism exists in the US not just in politics but in the law as well. Anti-gay bills in the US include Indiana’s ‘Religious Freedom Restoration Act’, Arizona’s ‘Religious Freedom Restoration Act’ and Mississippi and Kansas’ ‘Religious Freedom Act’ that allow businesses to refuse LGBT customers, Flori- da’s ‘Single-Sex Public Facilities Act’ that would have charged anyone using a public bathroom for a gender other than the one assigned at birth, Oklahoma’s ‘Freedom to Obtain Conversion Therapy Act’, which would have legitimised homosexual conversion therapy, despite unanimous professional consensus that it does not work (see Ayres and Eskridge, 2014; Ippolito, 2014). The legal drama that played out around Kentucky clerk Kim Davis shows that the fear of queer oppression is strong among US Christian conservatives. When Davis was jailed for repeatedly refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, her lawyer Mat Staver likened Ms. Davis to Jew in Nazi Germany. As this and other legal cases make clear, gay rights are far from settled in the US (Tashman, 2015). The recent passage of state laws that discriminate against LGBT citizens indicates just where US policy might be heading. According to the Human Rights Campaign, ‘[t]he wave of anti-LGBT bills filed across the country con- tinues to swell. As of today, lawmakers have introduced more than 85 anti- LGBT bills in 28 state legislatures’ (Human Rights Campaign, 2015). Many Western religious leaders also support Heterosexualism. The head of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, Austin Ruse, agreed that “you admire some of the things they’re doing in Russia against propaganda’ since ‘there is no human rights to teach children about sexual practices, neither is there a human right to parade sexual preferences and practices down public streets’ (Ruse, 2013). The Catholic Church’s support of Russia’s campaign against Homosexualism is part of a larger war against ‘Gender Ideology’. Gender Ideo- logy includes gender studies, feminism and queer studies as part of a concerted attack on ‘traditional gender roles’. The Catholic Church’s fight against Gender Ideology began over a decade ago, as Judith Butler makes clear in Undoing Gender (Butler, 2004, p. 181), Yet even the supposedly progressive Pope Francis believes that gender studies can be dangerous (Squeaker, 2015). Ina typical

92 Laurie Essig and Alexander Kondakov homosexuality and gender studies on the Catholic Life Site, Hilary White relates to Soviet communism: of Marxism, Homosexu- A close cousin to radical feminism and grandchild pseudo-field of ‘gender alism was developed out of the politico-academic pushed on a mostly unwilling studies’ and has, for 30 or 40 years, been ‘equalities’ legislation by a coali- public, through ‘anti-discrimination’ and the extreme left, and in increas- tion of lobbyists, NGOs and politicians on international circles. ingly powerful (White, 2013)

mentioned Russian politician Similar words were espoused by the previously question about his attempts to Milonov, who in response to a TV journalist’s at St. Petersburg, replied revoke the accreditation of the European University students’ minds. According to that teaching gender studies was polluting Milonov:

field, a deadend research — nat- When they study gender issues — i.e. a fake of false values of post-European urally, these students embrace the universe these kinds of pseudo- civilization. This is why we are concerned about Gender issues cannot disciplines as they influence students’ worldview.... department of extra-sensory be studied in a university, it’s like opening a it’s been created — I am perception, for example... It's crap, it’s fake, with short haircuts from the reluctant to say this — by smoking lesbians system, feminists, lefties, and other trash. European (RBK, 2016)’

to right-wing religious figures in The fact that Milonov’s words are so similar them’, Homosexualism vs. Hetero- the West makes clear that there is no “us vs. be confined within national borders sexualism, because ideology can no longer of Russia’s ‘homosexual propa- and thus circulates globally. The tangled roots Center for Family, Religion ganda’ ban are to be found in Illinois. The Howard there. Carlson visited and Society, headed by Allan C. Carlson, is located Antonov, the Chair of Moscow in 1995 and became friends with Anatoly at Moscow State Univer- Department for Sociology of Family and Demography minorities’ belong to deviant sity, who in 2007 testified in court that ‘sexual seek legal protection within groups such as drug addicts and henceforth may not 417). Carlson is also co-founder anti-discrimination laws (Kondakov, 2013, p. which promotes ‘traditional with Antonov of the World Congress of Families, local promoters, includ- family values’ globally and organises events to recruit are not trying to argue that ing Duma Deputy Mizulina (Mizulina, 2013). We exported to originated in the American heartland and then was homophobia is a following Christopher Stroop, pointing out that there Russia. Rather we are, Russia and the US. long and complicated exchange of homophobia between According to Stroop,

A Cold War for the twenty-first century 93 It’s no coincidence that the idea to found WCF was hatched in Russia in 1995, as the result of discussions between Allan Carlson, then president of the Rockford, Illinois-based Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, and Anatoly Antonov and Viktor Medkov, two professors of soci- ology at Lomonosov Moscow State University. Nor is it coincidental that Carlson was heavily inspired in the first place by the Russian-born conser- vative sociologist Pitirim Sorokin, longtime head of the Sociology Depart- ment at Harvard.... It is a mistake to think of U.S. and Russian social conservatives as having a one-way relationship. (Stroop, 2016)

Another major American promoter of ‘traditional values’ in Russia is , who visited Russian regions just before the first anti-gay propaganda law was enacted in Ryazan. He wrote letter to the Russians outlining the danger of the gay movement after his visit. In his letter, Lively described the purpose of his visit to Russia as

a warning about the homosexual political movement which has done much damage to my country and which has now taken root in Russia. This is a very fast-growing social cancer that will destroy the family foundations of your society if you do not take immediate, effective action to stop it. (Lively, 2007)

In a talk on another conservative activist’s — Bryan Fischer’s — radio broadcast, Scott Lively cheered Putin’s ban of homosexual propaganda by saying: ‘I indi- rectly assisted in that, and it’s one of the proudest achievements of my career’ (Mantyla, 2013). Not content to just infect Russia with his brand of Evangelical Christianity, Lively turned to Uganda as well where a ‘kill the gays’ bill was directly credited to his work (Center for Constitutional Rights, 2015). Yet another American whose work shapes Russian policy is Paul Cameron. The ‘Statistics on Homosexualism’ cited above that were used in the passage of Russia’s anti-propaganda law in Saint Petersburg heavily relied on the work of Cameron. Cameron is a psychologist whose work was so controversial that the American Psychological Association revoked his membership in 1984. The American Sociological Association adopted a resolution in 1985 to publicly respond to Cameron’s work because it has ‘consistently misinterpreted and mis- represented sociological research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism’ and because Cameron himself used these misrepresentations to ‘campaign for the abrogation of the civil rights of lesbians and gay men’ (Cameron, n.d.). Like Lively, Cameron has travelled the globe to spread his message that gay sex (and feminism) will result in social collapse (Southern Poverty Law Center, n.d.). In Moscow, the deputies referred to the University of Texas at Austin sociol- ogist Mark Regnerus’ research published in Social Science Research in 2012. Regnerus claimed to find that adult children of gays and lesbians were more likely to have negative outcomes such as depression, unemployment and

94 Laurie Essig and Alexander Kondakov been widely criticised substance abuse (Regnerus, 2012). Regnerus’ research has for its many methodo- and recently debunked in an article in the same journal stop Regnerus from logical flaws (see Cheng and Powell, 2015).* That did not Duma discussed the speaking to a Russian newspaper in February 2013, as the Evgenni Makushin, a results of his study. In Russia, many lawmakers, including Development, used psychologist for the Russian Ministry of Health and Social of gay and lesbian parents Regnerus’ work to talk about ‘threat? to the children Christian academics (Blue, 2013a, 2013b). In this way, American conservative create ‘traditional’ and activists come together with their Russian counterparts to family values (Mizulina, 2013). in Evangelical Christi- In the US, this academic homophobia has deep roots the conjugal anity’s sense of mora] and mortal doom from sexual acts outside to nineteenth-century reli- bed. In Russia, this homophobia is easily traced back with spiritualism. gious traditions that attempted to save Russia from modern life lead the world on gay Homosexualism’s rhetorical claim that the West must model rubs up rights, despite the obvious limitations of the current legalistic Russia must lead the against the claim of many conservative Christians that Congress of Families world to Heterosexualism. As Larry Jacobs of the World World’ (Blue, 2013b). said: ‘the Russians might be the saviours of the Christian back and forth, We can almost hear the air moving as ideologies boomerang then and now. between East and West, Homosexualism and Heterosexualism,

Conclusion fight between At first glance, it could appear that the New Sexual Cold War is a division is far a modern ‘us’ and a backwards ‘them’. Certainly, this simplistic more complicated. Research that attempts to divide countries on a traditionalist— of all modernist scale? shows that Russia is situated among the most ‘modernist’ surveys conservative countries in Europe (Fabrykant and Magun, 2014).!° These ignore the equate positive attitudes toward gay marriage with progress and thus that high rates of hate crimes and a variety of discriminatory legal arrangements contexts, states coexist in these ‘progressive’ states (Walters, 2014). In various the form of become valued for their formal recognition of sexual citizenship in One same-sex marriage, which reproduces the false dichotomy of ‘us vs. them’. of part of the world consists of most European states, the US and a majority the world South American countries. The other, more ‘backward’ part of includes Russia, many Middle Eastern states and 37 out of 54 African countries. The global debate over sexual citizenship has resulted in what some political pull observers call ‘norm polarization’, a state of affairs where competing norms (Symons and states to take positions that are not easily or even ever reconcilable Altman, 2015). Ultimately, what we see is not a geographically located ‘norm polarization’ but a globally circulating one. The newly revitalised Cold War rhetoric obscures In our the constant boomerang effect that happens in the exchange of ideologies. of examples, in both the US and Russia, sexuality has been a central concern

A Cold War for the twenty-first century 95 state politics since at least the beginning of the twentieth century. In the US, there was a proliferation of laws related to homosexuality, prostitution and age of consent (see Canaday, 2011). In Russia, there was a brief moment of not regu- lating sexuality by the new Soviet state but then ‘the straight state’ returned in the mid-1930s (Essig, 1999; Healey, 2001). Today, it might seem as if the good sex of marrying gays is the culmination of gay civil rights but it is in fact just separating the ‘good’ and monogamous gays from the ‘bad’ queers, as the recent state crackdown on gay sex sites shows (Gira Grant, 2015) and it also obscures a variety of urgent issues in the sphere of sexuality such as hate crimes, gay teen poverty and violence.'’ As Gayle Rubin pointed out in her seminal essay, ‘Thinking Sex’,

Modern Western societies appraise sex acts according to a hierarchical system of sex. Marital, reproductive heterosexuals are alone at the top erotic pyramid.... All of these hierarchies of sexual value function ... in much the same ways as do ideological systems of racism, ethnocentrism, and religious chauvinism. They rationalize the well-being of the sexually privileged and the adversity of the sexual rabble. (Rubin, 1984, pp. 151-152)

In other words, sex is a battlefield and it is on this battlefield that the New Sexual Cold War will be fought. In Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire, Wendy Brown (2008) points out that tolerance both sustains a hierarchy, whereby some must be tolerated, and creates a new category of abjection: the intolerant. Suzanna D. Walters (2014) in The Tolerance Trap: How God, Genes and Good Intentions are Sabotaging Gay Equality provides a rigorous critique of the dis- course of Homosexualism for LGBT citizens in the US. According to Walters, instead of providing ‘robust integration’ for LGBT Americans, the discourse of tolerance has trapped them in a world of ‘born this way’ that allows for rights only to the extent they are based on biology. Both authors show how simplistic and rigid discourses obscure queer experience and contribute to an overly sim- plistic notion of ‘progress’. Binary ideologies of the New Sexual Cold War produce the same effect. However, interrogating the current discourse of Homo- sexualism vs. Heterosexualism can provide us with a queer escape from the rhe- torical trap of the New Sexual Cold War.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank our peer-reviewers and editors for valuable comments to this piece, as well as the audiences of Middlebury College, Northeastern Univer- sity and Smolny College at St. Petersburg, Russia, for fruitful discussions of some earlier versions of this chapter.

96 Laurie Essig and Alexander Kondakov Notes distributed as a leaflet at the ‘public hearings’ | ‘Statistics on Homosexualism’ was from one of the authors on request. before the adoption of the bill and is available ‘Nekotorye statisticheskie dannye o gomo- Various electronic versions may be found: statistical Data on Homosexuality and Its seksualizme i ego posledstviyakh” (“Some September 2015). Available from: www. Effects’). [Online]. [Date accessed: 5 ‘Facts and Statistics About Homosexuals’, blagoda.com/social/4247.html: and Available from: www.consumingfire [Date accessed: 5 September 2015]. [Online]. htm. fellowship.org/Homosexual%20Fact%20Sheet. Ibid. 135-FZ of 29 June 2013 on Modification Federal Law of the Russian Federation no. of Children from Information Harmful of Article 5 of the Federal Law “On Protection Normative Acts of the Russian Fed- Their Wellbeing and Development’ and Other for from Information that Promotes for the Purposes of Protection of Children eration zakon Rossiyskoy Federacil ot of Traditional Family Values’ (Federal’nyi Negation y stat’yu 5 Federal’nogo 2013 g. N 135-FZ-g). “© vnesenii izmeneniy 29 iyunya yred ih zdorov’yu i raz- ‘O zashhite detey ot informacii, prichinyayushhey zakona Federacii v celyah zashhity detey vitiyu’ i otdel’nye zakonodatel nye akty Rossiyskoy tradicionnyh semeynyh cennostey’). ot informacii, propagandiruyushhey otricanie the concept ‘totalitarianism’ in Musso- As the author himself reassures, lonin uses lini’s terms (ibid., p. 234). science embracement of queer topics, see For a deeper analysis of the Russian social Nartova, 2007 and Kondakoy, 2016. Claimed the Europeans Are obvinil evropeytsev v otsutstvii kul’ tury (Kadyroy Kadyroy [Date accessed: 5 September Educated). 2013. Trud. 13 September 13. [Online]. Not 1299932_kadyrov_obvinil_ 2015]. Available from: www.trud.ru/article/13-09-2013/ Ryabova, T. and Ryabov, 2013. evropeitsev_y_otsutstvii_kultury.hunl. See also have been referring to the authors of this Perhaps it should be noted that Milonov may in gender theory and queer theory at the chapter since we both have taught courses University. European one of the authors included, There has been a concerted effort by many sociologists, including a highly suspect review to point out the many flaws in Regnerus’s article, the Supreme Court decision of process that seems to have been timed to influence has been collected here: www. face- Windsor v. . Much of that criticism book.com/pages/Sociology-for-the-Public-Good/555499004470737. that locate states according to the is a whole industry of ‘values surveys’ There which is considered to be an ade- answers given by their citizens to questionnaires, ‘freedom’ and ‘justice’. One of the quate source of information about ‘democracy’, 2005, major examples would be Inglehart and Welzel, expressed more ‘tolerance’ to issues of 10 The calculations show that the Russians on the margin between ‘conservative’ and homosexuality in 2014 than before, being in fact be an unintended consequence *progressivist’ European countries. This might propaganda’. Another study indi- of the promotion of the ban against “homosexual support from those around them cates that lesbians and gay men have felt more was initiated. See Soboleva and since the state campaign against ‘propaganda’ Bakhmet’ev, 2014. Orlando massacre at Pulse Gay Club These words are written just on the day when Wikipedia. [Online]. [Date took place. (See ‘2016 Orlando nightclub shooting’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_ accessed: 13 June 2016]. Available from: shows once again that sexual rights Orlando_nightclub_shooting.) This terrible event the use of weapons rather than the are better protected by legislation that confronts In order to live in a new society, we one that legalises personal forms of cohabitation. have to start thinking of sexuality in new ways.

97 A Cold War for the twenty-first century

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