At the same time that the Kremlin has reinstated authoritarian policy reminiscent of the Soviet Union, the Western press has chronicled Putin’s topless vacations in Siberia, protests by the feminist collectives Pussy Riot and Femen, a 2011 ban on women’s lacy underwear, federal legislation from 2013 prohibiting “homosexual” propaganda, and a 2017 court decision that outlawed a meme of Putin as a “gay clown.” This course examines the Putin regime’s ongoing attempts to police gender expression and private sexual behavior, as well as how Russian citizens’ performance of gender and sexuality has changed in the past twenty years. Since Vladimir Putin’s rise to power, the media has highlighted events in Russia that at first glance resemble oddly sexualized jokes.
