So, the time to enter the ballot for tickets to the Rugby World Cup next year in England closed a few days ago, and one of the matches I'm hoping to be able to go to will be England vs either Russia, or the country Homer Simpson thought was called "U R gay". (They are still battling it out for the last space in the tournament.) If I did get to go and it was against Russia, my first thought was that I'd be tempted to go along dressed almost as if for Pride. But I've concluded that I don't think I will, on the grounds that it's probably really unhelpful to gay people in Russia if the Russian authorities are able to portray the West as "the place where the gays come from". What do people think about this? Around the Sochi Olympics there were lots of mocked up pictures of Putin in make-up, and that homoerotic advert which I think came from Canada. I just worry that these will perpetuate the situation there and make the people in power all the more set in their ways. If there is anything we can do to help, I can only think of reminding Russia that their most famous musician (Tchaikovsky) and certainly their most internationally famous (not so sure about within Russia) film director (Sergei Eisenstein) were both gay. (I normally hear Eisenstein described as bisexual, but he never consummated either of his marriages and went on at length in his diaries about his infatuations for straight men he worked with, so I'm not sure what basis there is for calling him bi.) So what do people think about this? Is mocking Russia, or even trying to put pressure on them (such as we can) unhelpful?
