The Only People Harassing the Gays of Sochi are the Foreign Journalists, claims Julia Yoffe in The New Republic – sarcastically, I’d like to beleve. The Guardian observes: “Despite anti-gay laws, it’s business as usual in Sochi’s Mayak bar.”
So what? There is an obvious niche for the Mayak bar in Corporation Russia: a storefront.
But that’s not all. Alienating the whole gay community is not something a corporativist dictatorship can afford. Pandering to domestic homophobia is easy but crude and short-termist: popular hatred can get out of control.
For long-term stability, coop(ta)tion is the name of the game. It’s only a matter of time before we hear of “Gays for Putin” and “patriotic manly love vs. degenerate pederasty”.