Thursday, August 01, 2013

Sex-Negative, Pro-Guillotine Demo at SF Russian Consulate

There was a small demonstration yesterday, Wednesday, July 31, at the Russian consulate in San Francisco to protest escalating violence against LGBT people in Russia and the enactment of draconian anti-gay laws.

One of the organizer was Scott Anasis Rossi, pictured, and he brought a dildo to deliver to Vladimir Putin as a form of punishment. To me, dildos are fabulous sex toys that bring much pleasure to men and women and I view the effort to send dildos to Putin as a form of punishment as sex-negative.

Rossi is standing near the entrance to the consulate's entrance in the Pacific Heights neighborhood. On his Twitter feed, Rossi shares the news that he made the front page of a Swedish newspaper with this photo.


At the Send a Dildo to Putin Facebook page is where Jonathan Krishna Puppy-Love shared this photo, that also appeared in the Swedish newspaper. The page promotes "Help Impale the Vlad", hardly a sex positive message.


Rossi also shared this photo of himself holding a sign with "rights" misspelled and endorsing the death penalty via the guillotine. I'm opposed to the death penalty and find it troubling that it's being raised like this.

An email was sent to Rossi expressing my concerns and asking for a response. Here's part of what he wrote:

The misspelling of "Rights" is my "get a brain morans" moment. i'm on the radical side of things. i'm pro-diversity of tactics and pro-bashing back, and i'm well aware we face the death penalty in many areas for even being suspected of being gay. i actually only support the vodka boycott in that it brings attention to the issue, but ideally, i think we should encourage our LGBT brothers and sisters to arm themselves and dispense with debates on tactics [...]

As you can imagine, quite glad I didn't attend Rossi's action yesterday.

7 comments:

Jake G. said...

I think anyone who reflects on the idea of sending Putin a dildo will see the ironic humor that Mr. Rossi intended by his campaign. Relax, Michael. No one is saying that a little self gratification is wrong.

John Iversen said...

wl putin just gave snowmen a year, so he's not all bad...

no one is all bad, well maybe u n me, bad boys! i need a spanking! hi NSA!

Andrew Miller said...

Seriously, we should leave dildos out of these protests. Could Rossi not find a bottle of vodka to dump? Also, we should leave threats of armed insurrection out of these protests. Anyway, Rossi looks like the most lethal thing he's ever held in his hands is that dildo.

And I mean that in the most sex-positive way. Thanks, Michael.
—aM

GayPutin said...

I feel sorry for you that you cant see the humor in this and how this is bringing increased awareness to Pulin's anti-gay actions.

Stop being a stuffy old cunt and do something positive instead of bitching and being negative.

Unknown said...

What was the central message Scott Rossi got out from his action? Something about dildos and guillotines.

While the rest of the global solidarity movement for LGBT
Russians is focused on questions of Stoli and Olympics-in-Sochi boycotts or staging Stoli dumps, the SF action was about sex toys and chopping off people's heads.

How that helps gay Russians is of concern to me and I'm happy to bring the photos to a wider audience.

Anonymous said...

Because boycotting a brand of vodka not actually produced in Russia (at least not unless you're buying it in Russia) as a means of protesting against the actions of the Russian government makes so much sense, Michael? The point is that it's funny and surreal, it mocks the sex negativity of Putin (also dildos are just funny, come on, look at 'em, all penis shaped and rubbery).

There's little we can do from outside of Russia to put serious pressure on the Russian government. That task lies with LGBTQ activists (and allies) in Russia, the most we can do right now is express some solidarity, bring attention to the fight and have a little fun along the way.

Unknown said...

Sure, have fun along the way but let's not promote or favor the death penalty in any way. That sign about gay rights or the guillotine is a total distraction from the plight of gay Russians.