Perversion by Association: Gays and Liberals in Putin’s Russia

The 2013 Russian law prohibiting homosexual propaganda to minors in Russia was initially justified domestically and internationally using population management rationalities. However, more recently it has come to symbolise something greater, that Russia has become the last bastion of traditional family values against the liberal and morally degenerate democratic West. Taking Michel Foucault’s concept of the exchanger, or transcriber, developed in the 1972 and 1975 lecture courses, this paper examines the homosexual as the social enemy that straddles the psychiatric and legal spheres that serves a greater purpose than itself. The hypothesis is that as an exchanger, the perverted homosexual targets everyone else by association, in which the repression of sexual minorities serves a greater purpose that binds the liberal opposition to the 'perverts'. This serves to consolidate the ruling elites grip on power in the wake of the protests following Putin’s re-election as president in 2012. Thus this Paper will examine the creation of the homosexual as a symbol of the perverted West and how these discourses are used to effectively castrate the pro-Western liberal opposition by association.