No.42
FROM THE DESK OFROSE LALONDE
Russia.
The country where the national pastime isn’t hockey or vodka—it’s domination. And not like in a fun, consensual, safe-word kind of way. No, Russia’s got this thing where everything—from geopolitics to a playground fistfight—has to end with someone metaphorically bent over. Or, in prison culture, literally.
You’ve got to hand it to them: the creativity is astounding. They’ve turned prison culture into an art form, complete with a lexicon that sounds like it was ripped straight out of a Quentin Tarantino fever dream. “Пeтyх.” “Oпyщeнный.” If you don’t know what these mean, congratulations—you’ve avoided the worst parts of humanity. These aren’t just words; they’re social death sentences. Call someone a пeтyх (a "rooster"), and that’s it. They’re the prison equivalent of that kid in high school who sat on a ketchup packet and got called “Tommy Tomato Ass” for the rest of his life.
But it’s not just a prison thing. This whole dominance-through-sexual-humiliation culture seeps into everyday Russian life. You get a guy cutting you off in traffic, and it’s not enough to flip him the bird or call him an idiot. No, you’ve got to scream about how you’re going to “выeбaть eгo,” which literally means “I’m gonna f*** him.” It’s like they skipped anger management classes and went straight to writing erotic fanfiction about their enemies.
And here’s where it gets really weird. The same people who use gay-sex-as-punishment metaphors in every argument are the ones screaming about “traditional values” and “the gay agenda.” Like, you’re the ones bringing up gay sex, Dmitri! Nobody else was thinking about it! You can’t watch a Russian political debate without one guy accusing the other of “being the bottom” in some imaginary, national gangbang. At some point, you’ve got to ask: who’s really yearning with homosexuality here?
Oh, but wait. It gets better. You know who’s weirdly immune to all this? The rich and powerful. If you’re a politician or an oligarch, you can do whatever you want. You could dress in drag, release a TikTok of yourself singing Britney Spears, and no one would call you a пeтyх. Why? Because power erases shame. You can’t be a “bottom” if you own the bed.
But for everyone else? God help you. There’s a story—probably apocryphal, but very Russian—about a guy who stole a loaf of bread, ended up in prison, and got labeled an oпyщeнный (the “lowered one”) because he refused to join a gang. Refused! That’s it! He didn’t want to be a part of their little fight club, and suddenly he’s the prison janitor for life, scrubbing floors while everyone else eats his food. And it’s not because he did something wrong; it’s because he didn’t play the game.
And that’s what it all comes down to: playing the game. Russia’s prison culture is like high school bullying on steroids, mixed with a Kafka novel and a hardcore BDSM dungeon. You don’t win by being smart or good; you win by being crueler than the next guy. You’ve got to dominate, humiliate, break people down. It’s not enough to win the argument; you’ve got to make the other guy so ashamed, he can’t look his mother in the eye at Sunday dinner.
But here’s the kicker: for all their talk about dominance and masculinity, Russian culture has this weirdly fragile undercurrent. Like, the entire country is one big, insecure dude at the gym, flexing in the mirror and screaming, “I’m not gay! You’re gay!” Meanwhile, their language is overflowing with rape metaphors and homoerotic undertones. It’s not just “выeбaть”—they’ve got a hundred different ways to describe what they’re going to do to your backside, and not one of them involves asking for consent.
And let’s not even get started on the tattoos. You know, in Russian prison, your tattoos tell your whole life story. It’s like LinkedIn, but for criminals. Got a star on your shoulders? You’re a boss. Got a pair of eyes on your chest? You’re watching everything. Got a rooster? You’re the пeтyх. And God help you if someone forces that tattoo on you. It’s like being branded with a scarlet letter, but instead of “adultery,” it means “nobody takes you seriously ever again.”
The whole thing is a giant pyramid scheme of pain. You dominate the guy below you so the guy above you doesn’t dominate you. It’s like capitalism, but with fewer yachts and more stab wounds.
And yet, despite all this, they’ll look at the West and go, “You guys are degenerate.” Degenerate? You’re the ones with a national pastime of sexually humiliating your enemies. You’re the ones who can’t go five minutes without turning a debate into a metaphorical gangbang. If that’s not degenerate, then I don’t know what is.
So here’s to Russia: the land where “traditional values” and homoerotic prison culture wwalk hand-in-hand, where every insult doubles as a Freudian slip, and where the only thing more important than winning is making sure your opponent walks away feeling like the smallest rooster in the yard. Cheers.
And the funniest thing? Russia isn’t alone in this. Oh no, it’s got backup—its little squad of cheerleaders, the BRICS countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. It’s like a bad boy band made up of dudes who peaked in high school, still trying to sell you on how cool they are while living in their mom’s basement.
These are the nations standing up to the “degenerate” West, all while quietly tripping over their own contradictions. They’re supposed to represent “traditional values,” whatever the hell that means. But really, they’re just Russia in different hats. Same toxic masculinity, same weird power fetishes, just with some local spices thrown in.
Take Brazil. The country of samba, football, and… evangelical neo-fascists? Yeah, Bolsonaro rolled in talking about Jesus and family values, and suddenly half the country is in cosplay as a 1950s suburban mom. Meanwhile, they’ve got carnaval—a national celebration where you can drink until you forget what decade it is and dance in a thong covered in glitter. But no, traditional values! Sure, guys, tell me again how gay marriage is the real problem when your politicians are laundering money through embezzled Viagra.
And then there’s India, the spiritual heartland of "family values." Oh, they love to lecture the West about morality while Bollywood churns out movies where every second plotline involves a forced marriage, a bride burning, or a guy trying to “protect” his sister’s honor by murdering someone. And the irony is, they’re yearning with Western tech. They’re recording TikToks about the glory of ancient Vedic culture from a Chinese-made smartphone while standing in a Starbucks. Tell me how that works.
And speaking of China—oh boy, China. Russia’s BFF. The straight-A student who cheats on the test and brags about it. They’ll lecture you for hours about Confucian values and filial piety while running the biggest surveillance state in human history. “We respect family.” Yeah, except when you want to have more than one kid or visit your grandma without a social credit penalty. The CCP is like that strict dad who wants you to take over the family business but forgot to tell you it’s a sweatshop.
The so-called “philosophers” of BRICS - China and India, our enlightened sages, have decided they’re the inheritors of Oriental wisdom. Yeah, these guys are out here selling incense and ancient secrets while beating each other with sticks on a Himalayan ridge. Real wise. “We have thousands of years of history,” they say. Cool. Do you have a map? Or are we just going to keep building border checkpoints until the whole mountain range looks like a bad game of Risk?