Filed Under: Print > Journalism > The View from the Other Side
The View from the Other Side
The page spread where Mogutin's article appears.
View from the Other Side. Yaroslav MOGUTIN.
I spent considerable time discussing the topic of this article. Unfortunately, it was in vain. The author, Aelita Efimova, while fully utilizing information "on the subject" recorded from my words, wrote yet another piece in a genre somewhere between salacious gossip, exposé, and crime reporting. There have been more than enough such materials lately.
For decades, Soviet propaganda instilled in us that "we have no sex," and that homosexuality was a foreign disease, uncharacteristic of Russians, a consequence of the corrupting influence of the decaying West. In the famous report by Commissar of Justice N. Krylenko in 1934, homosexuality was described as a political crime directed against the revolution, the Soviet system, and the proletariat. The rabid "storm petrel" Gorky, who was assigned the role of public prosecutor, attacked homosexuality in his hysterical article, published simultaneously in "Pravda" and "Izvestia" under the slogan "Destroy fascism—homosexuality will disappear!" (Rumors circulated that Gorky's son had allegedly fallen victim to homosexual seduction. So once again, homosexuals themselves were blamed!)
At the same time, American propaganda, especially during the "witch hunt" led by the fanatical Senator McCarthy, denounced homosexuality along with drugs and rock and roll as a "red plague." Trying to find any logic in this is pointless.
Everywhere, homosexuals embodied the image of enemies, scum, worthlessness. Personally, the myth of a worldwide homosexual "conspiracy," "clan," or "brotherhood" reminds me in its speculative and provocative nature of another foul-smelling hypothesis—the existence of some Judeo-Masonic "conspiracy." And I see no difference between the first and the second: both involve animal instincts, phobias, hatred, and malice.
A. Efimova proposes a radical way to fight the strengthening "blue brotherhood" that exists "under Western influence and as a result of freedoms"—creating ghettos for all perverts, concentration camps modeled after the Cuban ones.
Fidel Castro even came up with a motto for them: "Work makes us men!" But the most radical in this direction were the fascists. The pink triangle worn on the chest, which served in Nazi Germany as a marker for all homosexuals, and later became a symbol of the international movement for their rights, was a kind of "free ticket" for mandatory visits to the gas chamber (just like the six-pointed Star of David was for Jews; sometimes, incidentally, these two markers were combined).
The article contains so many homophobic passages that one could find them in almost every line if desired. I want to highlight the most egregious ones.
I don't know if we have even a pathetic semblance of the "mafia" that A. Efimova wrote about so interestingly, but homophobia remains Russia's state policy. And during his election campaign, Zhirinovsky very skillfully used slogans in defense of so-called "sexual minorities," which, ideally, should have come from the mouths of so-called "democrats," who are now concerned only with fighting to regain their forever-lost positions. I am convinced this became one of the decisive factors in Zhirinovsky's electoral victory.
At one time, Zhirinovsky offered me the position of his press secretary. Now I deeply regret that we didn't come to an agreement. In any case, during the elections, like many "gays," I voted for him—or rather, for his slogans.
I consider it appropriate to quote here an interview with Zhirinovsky conducted by American lesbian journalist Masha Gessen.
M. Gessen: In our interviews, you've stated that you object to interference in citizens' private lives.
V. Zhirinovsky: We're against any interference. Let people themselves... As long as it doesn't harm society: spreading diseases, violence, mockery, defamation, etc. But otherwise... Individually, someone might be interested in Eastern religions, someone might stand on their head all day in some yoga pose, someone might have certain sexual inclinations. Why interfere in private life? No interference in citizens' private lives.
M.G.: Do you consider the homosexual community's voice important to you as a politician?
V.Zh.: They vote. Let everyone vote for us, everyone who shares our political views, whoever they may be.
M.G.: You're the only politician who has addressed homosexuals.
V.Zh.: But the American president himself addressed this. And among our politicians, am I the first?
M.G.: Yes.
V.Zh.: Well, that's good. Note my, shall we say, progressive worldview.
M.G.: Is it true that you offered Yaroslav Mogutin a job as your press secretary?
V.Zh.: Well, I've offered many people jobs and continue to do so. Our workload is expanding, and we need people. So I offered him a position, as I did to others.
M.G.: But he's a well-known "gay" journalist, even somewhat scandalous! Wouldn't such an association bother you?
V.Zh.: But he doesn't work for us. One can find some discriminating characteristics in all people: one is dirty, another is poor, a third is stupid, a fourth follows the wrong faith, a fifth has the wrong views. What would that lead to? Therefore...
Last summer, this interview was published in the respectable American "gay" magazine "Out" and in the bulletin of the Association of Gays, Lesbians, and Bisexuals "Triangle," alongside material from another Western journalist describing Zhirinovsky's escapades with two boys.
According to A. Efimova's "logic," Zhirinovsky's election victory could also be attributed to the achievements of the "gay mafia." Seriously speaking, only Vladimir Volfovich wanted, and more importantly, managed to use Clinton's example and the Western slogan "The state has no place in citizens' bedrooms!" (In other words, he "corrupted" almost two-thirds of Russia's population.)
For A. Efimova's information, homosexual politicians in power have never served as guarantors of depravity and the collapse of all moral and ethical foundations. Rather the opposite—they were often outlets for advocates of strong power—the "firm hand" and dictatorship of Order. A recent historical example is Edgar Hoover, head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who held this position for a record term—almost 50 years, until his death, from 1924 to 1972. Homosexual Hoover was famous for his reactionary views, as we would say. "Every family has its black sheep," as they say; there are racists among Black people, anti-Semites among Jews, Russophobes among Russians, and homophobes among homosexuals.
Besides politics, A. Efimova considers it necessary to close access for the "gay mafia" to other spheres vital to the health and well-being of the "sexual majority": "I also doubt that law enforcement agencies are a suitable place for 'gays'." Again—without any connected logical justifications. What—would "gay" police officers or policemen, like "gay" soldiers, inevitably start raping all males? And if A. Efimova had a daughter instead of a son, wouldn't she fear that heterosexual law enforcement officers would corrupt her at the first corner? Finally, isn't she herself afraid of becoming a victim of "natural" men's lust? Or is sex now only of interest to pederasts?
When my American friend Robert Filippini and I organized an artistic-political action to register our marriage, we didn't want to create a circus for the plebeians. We were trying to draw the attention of the Russian leadership and the whole world to the problems of domestic homosexuals. And we succeeded better than all gay activists combined. About a hundred reporters who came to Registry Office No. 4 on April 12 were literally killing each other in the struggle for the right to exclusive footage and interviews. (Some of them later told me they hadn't seen such excitement even when Khasbulatov and Rutskoy appeared on the White House balcony.)
Naturally, our marriage wasn't registered, despite our having collected all the necessary documents. However, the American Consul, "PC" to the bone, without batting an eye, issued us a marriage permit, certified with the embossed seal of the US Embassy in Moscow. "Excuse me, you seem to be misunderstanding something!" Robert interjected. "We're talking about registering a same-sex marriage!" "That's not my business," Paul Davis-Jones calmly replied.
So—homosexuality is not as frightening as Aelita Efimova portrays it. Only one question remains: is there any way to fight the "gay mafia"? In principle, the entire experience of fighting homosexuality proves the complete futility of the fight. But I'm a poor advisor here. If someone really has nothing else bothering them in life, if they have nothing better to do, and if this truly concerns them so much—why not fight it? A bad deed requires little skill.
This article responds to “Gay Dawn (Lit: Pale-blue dawn)” by journalist Aelita Efimova, which appeared in in the monthly magazine Sovershenno sekretno (Top Secret) in 1994. “View from the Other Side,” by gay journalist, activist, and professional épateur Yaroslav “Slava” Mogutin (1974-), was published directly below Efimova’s article in the same issue. The article condemns Efimova’s paranoid fantasies of sinister gay mafias and “brotherhoods,” decrying these “justifications” for the continued segregation of gay men and their exclusion from public service.
Mogutin’s text exposes Efimova’s double-standard treatment of gay men as an exotic category, exploding her justifications for barring gay men from law enforcement and the military. Indeed, Efimova’s article had included anecdotal accounts of a gay police officer who abused his position to coerce sexual favors from adolescent boys and harass former boyfriends, and of a gay man in the army who “converted” many formerly heterosexual servicemen. Mogutin notes that Efimova’s anxieties about potential abuses of power by gay policemen seem overblown given the documented tendency of heterosexual police to coerce sexual favors from women. Mogutin bemoans the fact that “homophobia remains a matter of state policy in Russia.” He then sketches a condensed twentieth-century history of the persecution of gay men in which they are shown to be despised from all sides: by the Soviets, by the Nazis and the fascists, and by far-right conservatives in the USA. He likens the plight of gay men to that of the Jews, a topic he also discusses in the article “Homosexuality in Soviet Prisons and Camps,” which addresses the treatment of gay men in the Nazi camps.
These apparently liberal ideas clash with Mogutin’s own prejudices and intolerances, particularly his aggressive nationalism. Mogutin aligned himself with Russian nationalist figures like Vladimir Zhirinovsky (1946-2022) and Eduard Limonov (1943-2020), virulent nationalists widely perceived to be gay. Rumors of Zhirinovsky’s sexual appetite for very young men occasionally made it into print, as Mogutin notes here. Limonov, for his part, was famous for a bisexual literary alter-ego that he abjured as his National Bolshevik Party rose to prominence. The same year this piece was published in Top Secret, Mogutin reportedly remarked that Zhirinovsky was a would-be tyrant who would wreak Stalinesque terror on the country if given the chance (Mogutin had almost agreed to be Zhirniovsky’s press secretary around the time of the former’s 1991 presidential bid but ultimately turned down the job). Mogutin was also said to have defended Limonov’s nationalist platform that excluded Jews as “non-Russians.”
In 1995, Mogutin published an article called “The Chechen Knot,” which disparaged the Chechen people at a time when, after a long period of brutal oppression by Russian and Soviet imperial power, the post-Soviet Russian army was subjecting them to war crimes in the course of the First Chechen War (1994-1996). After this article was published, Mogutin was charged with inciting racial hatred and, on the advice of his lawyers, sought asylum in the US, a country he had denounced in “The Chechen Knot” as an ignorant and arrogant critic of Russia’s military action in Chechnya.