Russia: Putin’s Rape Remarks · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

White Sun of the Desert writes about rape and Vladimir Putin's sense of humor: “Russian humour, often thought not to exist, is very dry and often exceptionally dark.  In many cases, it cares little for the sensibilities of those who are easily offended.  This is, after all, a country which within living memory deemed half of its citizens criminals and threw them into icy labour camps.  So my take is that Putin was simply making an exceptionally crude joke which would not cause the same offence to the Russian men in his entourage as it would to western journalists.”