Dirty Words Russian Girls Can’t Say on the Internet · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Fellatio has long been part of the rich tapestry of politics worldwide. For anyone alive and cognizant during the 1990s, Bill Clinton’s licentious escapades with Monica Lewinsky will forever color (or taint, depending on your perspective) the image of the American White House. Earlier this week, on May 13, 2013, opposition figure Maria Baronova penned an open letter [ru] to writer and political dissident Eduard Limonov, wherein she dropped a sexual bombshell of her own. Her text unabashedly refers to “masturbating in the shower” and credits Limonov—whose works [ru] are famous for their intricate descriptions of lewd sex acts—with teaching her (through his books) how to “suck dick” “without false modesty” and “fuck like an animal.” Baronova’s letter included a great deal more than these offhand sexual remarks, though it is those remarks that undoubtedly explain the online backlash that followed.
Maria Baronova at a Moscow protest, 17 April 2013, photo by Nickolay Vinokurov, copyright © Demotix.
Sexism, locked and loaded
This week has been unusually cruel to women on Russian Twitter. In addition to the wave of sexist jokes that washed up after the RuNet learned about film star Angelina Jolie’s preventative double mastectomy, many Russian netizens took Baronova’s sexual revelations as an invitation to attack her specifically and female public figures more broadly.
Some of the insults came from the usual suspects, like tabloid editor Ashot Gabrelyanov, who proposed [ru] on Twitter that Jolie auction off for charity her removed breasts on eBay. Also joining the fun, however, was one of Pussy Riot’s lawyers—the infamously unpleasant Mark Feygin—who mused in a (now deleted) tweet:
Кстати сказать, насчет сисек Джоли, может это она операцию по изменению пола прикрывает. Трансгендеры отрезают. А чо?
By the way, regarding Jolie’s tits, maybe she’s using this to cover up a sex change operation. Transgenders slice off. Hey now.
Indeed, Feygin was on a roll. Commenting on Baronova’s open letter just a day before, he wrote in a tweet (that he has not deleted):
По поводу одного широко обсуждаемого сейчас текста, маленькая ремарка: …и это, пожалуй, всё, чему она научилась…
Regarding a certain now widely discussed text, [I have] one tiny remark: … this [fellatio], if you will, is the only thing she learned…
Lev Sharansky (a satirist personality run anonymously) quipped with open-ended sexism:
Вчера Баронова, сегодня Джоли. С ужасом жду завтра.
Yesterday Baronova, today Jolie. I await tomorrow with horror.
Others decided to broaden their aim and take shots at different prominent Russian women. Anna Veduta, opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s press secretary, found herself in Twitter user berdnikov’s crosshairs:
Анна Ведута более воспитанная девушка, чем Мария Баронова, поэтому она не расскажет нам чему она научилась у Алексея Навального
Anna Veduta is a better-raised young woman than Maria Barnova, therefore she doesn’t tell us what she’s learned from Alexey Navalny.
One of the many demotivators that appeared, following Baronova's open letter.
Demotivators soon popped up online, such as an image [ru] featuring Limonov above the text: “He taught Maria Baronova to suck dick. And what have you done today?” Another popular mash-up (see image to the right), which Baronova herself retweeted, included a photo of her riding a scooter below another picture of a blonde woman sitting in an expensive convertible. The caption is the Karl Marx quote: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” (The joke is that Baronova’s “ability” only earned her a scooter, rather than a sports car.)
Bringing in Baronova’s one-time boss, Duma Deputy Ilya Ponomarev (who himself retweeted [ru], rather strangely, Baronova’s line about masturbating in the shower), Twitter user fuckdaoutlaw asked:
Почему Пономарев Илья не научил свою помощницу Баронову сосать х%й?
Why didn’t Ilya Ponomarev teach his assisant Baronova to suck d**k?
Twitter user rusrusdada expanded the attack on Baronova into a jibe at the entire protest movement, writing:
На самом деле, Баронова из всей Болотной тусовки вызывает уважение. Она единственная честно призналась, что сосет. Другие тоже, но скрывают
In truth, Baronova, apart from the whole Bolotnaya [oppositionist] clique, deserves respect. She alone has honestly confessed that she sucks. The others suck, too, but they conceal it.
The LJ cesspool
On LiveJournal, where an absence of character limits accompanies the bravery of online anonymity, commentary was more substantive, but no less harsh.
A May 14 post [ru] by music critic Artem Rondarev functioned as a sort of beacon for Baronova’s critics, many of whom argued vociferously that politics is no place for raunchy women. In the comments to his post, Rondarev explained [ru] his position on Baronova’s lack of sexual modesty in her public prose, interpreting her lewdness as an endorsement of anarchy:
[…] в случае с Машей я всего лишь попытался объяснить ту простую мысль, что нельзя жить в обществе и быть свободным от него. Оно может не нравиться и все такоэ, но дилемма простая – или в обществе с конвенциями, или в Сомали. Потому что, видите ли, завтра у вас над головой сосед ночью врубит рэп на полную катушку, а когда вы ему придете предъявлять, скажет, что это его способ самовыражения, а вы ханжа, которая спит по ночам, в то время как все свободные люди слушают рэп. Ну и?
[…] in the case of Masha, I just tried to explain the simple idea that it’s impossible to live in society and [simultaneously] be free from it. One might not like everything about it, but the dilemma is simple: it’s either society with its conventions, or you’re in Somalia. Because, you see, tomorrow you’ll have an upstairs neighbor blasting rap music all night long at top volume, and when you go up to confront him, he’ll say that this is his means of self-expression, and you’re just a prude who sleeps at night, while all the free people listen to rap. Well?
In another comment [ru] on Rondarev’s post, LiveJournal user pervert_tanuki called Baronova “a furious attention whore,” to which Rondarev responded [ru] less than charitably:
Опять-таки – я не ищу тут мотивацию Маши, она очевидно лежит неглубоко […] Понятно, что девушке хочется трахаться; меня интересует, грубо говоря, почему подобным девушкам все время хочется именно трахаться, а не книжки читать.
Again—I’m not searching for Masha’s motivation. She’s obviously shallow […] It’s understandable that a young woman wants to screw; I’m interested, to put it crudely, in why similar girls always want precisely to screw, and not to read books.
Several bloggers have concluded that Baronova’s vulgarity damages any chances she has at a career [ru] in politics. In separate posts on LiveJournal, user haeldar [ru] and Google+ user mc project [ru] proposed a scenario thirty years in the future, where Baronova is now a Duma deputy serving a post-Putin Russian democracy. According to the plot, the now stately Baronova proposes some piece of moralist legislation (for example, banning sex robots), only to remind the public that “Maria Baronova in her youth was not above getting fucked in every hole.”
Even Kirill Goncharov, leader of the youth wing of Russia’s oldest liberal political party, joked on Twitter:
Я так понимаю, сегодня Маша Баронова публично закончила заниматься политикой?
So, as I understand it, Masha Baronova today publicly ceased to be involved in politics?
Twitter user VRebyata also resonated the idea that Baronova’s bawdiness causes problems for women in government, writing:
Баронова всколыхнула твиттер. Теперь самым популярным вопросом к женщинам – политикам будет вопрос об их отношении к книгам Эдуарда Лимонова
Baronova stirred up Twitter. Now the most popular question to female politicians will be the question about their relationship to Eduard Limonov’s books
In one comment thread [ru] on LiveJournal, a group of netizens even thought it fair to compare Baronova’s talk of oral sex to Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova’s participation in a public orgy. They even connected Baronova and Tolokonnikova to Cicciolina, the famed pornstar and member of the Italian parliament in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Baronova’s guile?
Not everyone deplored Baronova for her letter to Limonov, however. Many bloggers seemed willing to accept that her use of vulgarity was a cunning, if shrewd, ploy to gain an audience. Indeed, Norway-based Facebook user Andrew Voronkov observed [ru]:
Если бы она про это не написала, то многие бы и не прочитали бы статью.
If she hadn’t written about it [fellatio], then many people would not have read the article.
Poland-based LJ user Andrei Karatkevich enumerated [ru] four justifications for Baronova’s scandalous word choice:
1. Содержимое текста отнюдь не сводится к сосанию хуя, хотя все цитируют именно эту фразу.
2. С другой стороны, девушка, очевидно, понимала, что цитировать будут именно это.
3. …как из романа “это я, Эдичка” чуть менее чем все помнят сцену сосания хуя негру… и ничего больше.
4. А научил-то он её вещи нужной и полезной…
1. The contents of the text cannot be reduced just to sucking dick, though everyone is quoting exactly that phrase.
2. On the other hand, the girl obviously understood that everyone would quote exactly that.
3. [Limonov’s] novel “It’s Me, Eddie” is remembered more than anything for the scene where he sucks the dick of a black man … and nothing more.
4. And he [Limonov] taught her things necessary and useful…
Even some of Baronova’s critics felt compelled to acknowledge her letter’s publicity success. In a long response [ru] published the day after Baronova’s text, Pavel Zherebin (a member of Limonov’s NatsBol movement) offered the following measured praise:
Статья эта станет знаменитой, ведь Мария применила нехитрый прием – эпатаж с отсылками к сугубо сексуальным вопросам. До сих пор политическая публицистика была свободна от подобных методов форсированного продвижения своих идей. Поэтому Марии можно только поаплодировать – она храбрый новатор, которая решилась не просто на то, чтобы наполнить свою статью до краев женской гендерностью, но и на то, чтобы эту гендерность выразить прямым текстом в самых искренних и волнующих выражениях.
This article will become famous because Maria used an ingenuous approach—a shocking tone that touches on extremely sexual issues. Until now, political journalism was free from promoting its ideas by such methods. Therefore, we can only applaud Maria—she’s a brave innovator who decided not just to fill her article to the edges with female genderness, but also to express that genderness in plain speak, in the most sincere and exciting expressions.
Maria Baronova, Moscow, 25 August 2012, photo by Anton Nossik, CC 2.0.
In a comment [ru] on Rondarev’s blog, Baronova herself confirmed that she consciously employed gender as a means to generate a larger dialogue (about both Limonov and women in contemporary Russian politics):
Цель письма – получить от общества реакцию и расшевелить его, это общество. По большей части реакционное и консервативное. Цель вполне достигнута. Тонны говна и хихиканий: “ПИПИИИСЬКА” – получены. Дальше люди обсуждают. Дисскусия возникла. Каждый, в итоге придет, к чему-то своему. И мне от того, что люди поймут что-то важное (и каждый глубоко свое), будет приятно. End of story
The purpose of the letter was to get a reaction from the public and rattle it up. This society is mostly reactionary and conservative. My goal has been reached entirely. I got tons of shit and chuckles: “WEEEENIE.” From there, [though], people discuss. A discussion arose. Eventually, everyone comes to something all their own, and for me it’s nice that people will realize something important (and something deeply their own). End of story.
Not everyone is a hater
Many bloggers, of course, refused to attack Baronova, and some rallied to her defense. Journalist Arina Kholina, for instance, credited her in a Facebook post [ru] with capturing the collective experience of a generation of Russian women:
Не знаю, зачем все ругают Машу Баронову. Она была честна. Книга Лимонова про Эдичку, правда, была одним из сексуальных переживаний подросткового возраста. Особенно после СССР. Маше хватило смелости написать об этом. Пусть немного коряво. Может, конечно, особенно взрослые или умные читали совсем о другом, но мне было лет 16 и я думала про секс. И да – в каком-то смысле она была учебником. Наверное, если бы Маша написала, что книга научила ее шить кружевные рубашки, все бы умилились. А она, вот бесстыдница, про минет.
I don’t know why everyone is ripping into Masha Baronova. She was being honest. Limonov’s book about Eddie, it’s true, was one of the sexual experiences of adolescence. Especially after the USSR. Masha had the courage the write about it. Okay, it turned out a little clumsy. Maybe, of course, particularly mature or intelligent people read about something entirely different, but when I was 16-years-old, I was thinking about sex. And, yes, in a sense, it was a sort of textbook. Probably, if Masha had written that the book taught her how to sew a lace shirt [another part of It’s Me, Eddie], everyone would just melt for her. But she, without shame, wrote about blowjobs.
Opposition activist Ilya Yashin tried to relocate the focus of RuNet mockery to government officials, tweeting:
Надеюсь, депутат Бурматов никогда не будет писать открытых писем Вячеславу Володину. Не хочу знать, чему он его научил.
I hope [Duma] Deputy Burmatov never writes an open letter to [First Deputy Chief of Putin’s Staff] Viacheslav Volodin. I don’t want to know what he [Volodin] taught him.
Vera Kichanova, one of the opposition’s youngest figures, tweeted innocently:
А меня Лимонов только матом ругаться научил.
Limonov only taught me to curse [in obscenities].
Russia after blowjobs
One day after publishing her open letter, Baronova granted an interview [ru] to Daria Yausheva of jourdom.ru, where she addressed the backlash to her explicit sexual language:
Как сегодня написал Евгений Фельдман: «Лимонов научил сосать х** Баронову, а Путин – всю страну». Опять же, мужчина может писать о сексе достаточно свободно, а для женщин в России это по-прежнему – полузапретная тема. Тем более, если ты вовлечена в политику, то должна все время соблюдать некие рамки в которых, на самом деле, уже давно никто не живет.
It’s like Evgeny Feldman wrote [ru] today: “Limonov taught Baronova to suck d**k, but Putin taught the whole country.” Once again, a man can write about sex quite freely, but for women in Russia it’s still a semi-prohibited topic. Especially if you’re involved in politics, [you, as a woman,] must at all times observe certain confines, within which, in fact, nobody has lived for a long time.
Baronova identifies a cultural contradiction that is hardly unique to Russia. Certainly, the perseverance of sexist “confines” plagues societies the world over, no matter how developed or humane the civilization. The Internet response to Baronova’s talk of sex, whether one reads her text as a raised fist to patriarchy or a frivolous attempt at self-promotion, reveals that prejudices against freewheeling women enjoy widespread popularity among Russian netizens. That said, Baronova’s own audacity over the last 18 months—and the prospect of decades more to follow—promises to keep Russia’s male chauvinists busy indeed.