What does Vladimir Putin think about gay men and menstrual cycles

Russian President Vladimir Putin says that he wouldn’t “provoke” a gay man if left alone with him, a statement giving an insight into the mind of the strongman who has been criticised by global leaders over his alleged inaction to protect rights of homosexuals.

“If you’re taking a shower in a submarine with a man and you know he’s gay, do they (you) have a problem with that?” American filmmaker Oliver Stone was reported as questioning Putin for a documentary series, The Putin Interviews.

Putin’s response: “Well, I prefer not to go to shower with him. Why provoke him? But you know, I’m a judo master and a Sambo (a Russian martial art) master as well.”

Putin’s answer has been called as “homophobic” by American media company The Daily Beast, which first reported the interview, whose excerpts have been released. The series will only start airing from next week in four hour-long episodes.

“I believe it’s my duty to uphold traditional values and family values. But why? Because same-sex marriages will not produce any children. God has decided, and we have to care about birth rates in our country. We have to reinforce families,” Putin said.

However, the Russian President added as a note of caution that his response to the question didn’t “mean that there should be any persecutions against anyone.”

The homosexuality legislation in Russia have often been called as discriminatory. A law passed in 2013 by the Putin administration classified public and digital display of LGBT propaganda as “indecent.” Critics argue that the law led to further persecution of homosexuals in the Russian society, with Putin’s own party members leading heterosexual advocacy campaigns.

Gay “concentration camps”

Authorities in Russia’s Chechnya province have been in the firing line of EU leaders and human rights groups for setting up “concertation camps” where locals suspected of being gay are rounded up and subjected to physical abuse.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), a global human rights advocacy group, said in May that “police in Chechnya rounded up, beat, and humiliated dozens of gay or bisexual men in an apparent effort to purge them from Chechen society.”

Putin has also been facing embarrassment on the global stage because of the so-called gay purge campaign. On a bilateral visit to Germany last month, Putin was asked by German’s Chancellor Angela Merkel to use his “influence” to protect gay people in Chechnya. Emmanuel Macron also brought up the collective punishment of gay men in Russia during Putin’s last month visit to France, saying that both the leaders had agreed on a “very regular monitoring” of the situation.”

Putin on menstrual cycles

Another excerpt of The Putin Interviews shows the President stating that he didn’t have bad days at work at all. The reason he doesn’t: “I am not a woman, so I don’t have bad days. I am not trying to insult anyone. That’s just the nature of things. There are certain natural cycles.”