Why did I stop having sex with Russians
Text: Helena hackett
Lesha was one of the first with whom I met, having moved to work in Moscow. He had a wide smile — too wide for his face — and palms too big for his hands. He fascinated me from the first day that we spent in the painful attempts to communicate on our mutually monstrous ruglish. After four years in an American university (wild sex jungle, where demonstrative indifference to each other serves as an analogue of marriage dances), Leshina's original Russian habits looked at least attractive. He bought my favorite buns for breakfast for me, made sure that yogurt stocks did not run out in my refrigerator, and when I had a cold, I brought three different medicines to choose from. Never showed me the bill. Of course, I perfectly understood that such knightly manners, as a rule, are a signal of an inevitable penchant for muzhik-ness. But it seemed that Lesha, at birth, did not give out the machismo gene: he did not neigh at the word "feminism" and respectfully listened to all my often tongue-tied considerations on all sorts of topics. He tried to take care of me, without infringing on my right to be a clever and funny independent person. Sometimes he even let me pay for myself.
The only serious problem was sex. Our first time was, to put it mildly, not particularly exciting. He piled me up on the window sill (posture, not too comfortable in every sense, with any partner) - and, it seems, absolutely did not understand where to put hands. Instead of stroking my neck or hair, he clutched at my shoulders, flattening my face to his, like in some kissing scene from a 50s movie. When we went directly to sex, he was unexpectedly sterile, with minimal and cold prelude. But everything outside the bedroom continued to be perfect, so I gave Lesha the nickname “My Refrigerator,” writing off his sexual preferences to lack of experience and the widespread reticence of Russians about sex talk. An amazing paradox: Russia abroad has a reputation as a depraved paradise, and you don’t need to look for special places to spot a pair of long legs trampling Moscow pavement and the force of gravity with dizzy pink heels. But under this glossy camouflage we often find strange, repulsive purism in all that relates to sex in its real idleness - all this noisy and sweaty fuss. My first Russian girlfriend, a delightfully beautiful girl from the provinces who lives with her (adult, wealthy) boyfriend, told me that they often have sex in hotels for an hour, "because I don’t like it at home." She may be a special case, but what could be more natural than sex in your own home? In America, we have the opposite problem - everyone literally NON-STOP talking about sex. So often that you suspect that you are the only person in the States who have not been turned off by a whirl of delightful, fantastic sex.
Two months later, we swore almost every day, although the cause of these quarrels was never sex.
In this, however, there is a big plus - my best friends know all my chilling stories and phobias in sex: it's nice to know that I can enjoy it sincerely when it is good and chat it with friends (enriching my experience with tips) when he is monstrous. I decided that if one applied the same American tactics to Lesha and shook him with his openness about sex, then all of us will sooner or later get better.
Meanwhile, Lesha and I were perfectly relaxed spending the summer in Moscow - my favorite, where people fill the verandas of restaurants, and in the evening go for a walk (one of my favorite Russian words, which has no equivalent in English). Two months later, we swore almost every day, and although the cause of these quarrels was never sex, I clearly understood the enormous role he played in our growing discontent with each other. Once in August, after our biggest quarrel, Alex led me to drink at TGI Friday's (I still have no idea why it was there — maybe it seemed to him that the American scenery somehow calmed my ragged nerves or something that kind of thing). After the third or fourth cocktail, he admitted that his previous sexual partner was not at all a certain "Lena", about which he told me, but a man. I asked him a reasonable question - is he gay? He replied that he did not know. It is clear that the uncertainty in this matter is sufficient reason to end the relationship. But we continued to be together for some time, pretending that nothing had happened. I was lonely in Moscow, most of my social circle was Leshina friends, and by that time I already considered him one of my closest friends. So we continued to pull the bagpipes: for several months we lived like a pair of pensioners, watched TV shows together, sincerely talked and slept nicely together - but only slept. Until something more rarely came.
Then I met a German. The German was exemplary diligent in everything that he could take from drinking (he managed to revel in parties by midnight, but by some miracle always get home for his eight-hour sleep before work - although often with a burger and a bottle of beer in pocket) to me (for this, he, however, rarely had enough strength). Nothing came of this, and after the fact, I thank the higher forces for that - he was snoring terribly and had all the chances to get a beer belly in the near future. After the finale of the epic with the Germans, I occasionally slept with people who didn’t have anything special to me. There was a Frenchman, after our second night in his nice apartment asked: "Forgive me, but I have a girlfriend - will this not confuse you?" There was an American, there was a German # 2 (as it turned out later, a friend of German # 1, who by that time had already left Russia). And so on.
Throughout this love affair, Lesha bred and eventually stopped talking to me. The reasons by which he explained his indignation were blatantly chauvinistic - I will never forget, as he told me: "YOU ARE BEING YOURSELF AS A WAY." With memories of this, I'm still writhing in laughter. I reminded him that a good half of his heterosexual male friends behaved much worse, to which he replied: "BUT WOMEN ARE NOT SECURED." Oookey.
As one of my Moscow gay friends said, "I want to have sex with men, but I need a wife"
However, some of his reasons for being angry were quite justified. When I began to meet with other people, I, of course, no longer have enough time for Lesha. In part, I just had to communicate with him - I would not have been able to tell him about all my adventures without mentioning the names involved in them. So I advised him to enjoy life and go frolic in the free fields of his gayskosti. He went on a couple of dates on Grindr, but somehow nothing at first did not go well. He didn’t even like to identify himself as gay, although my question is “well, and who are you then?”, He never found the answer. I do not want to belittle Leshina fight for the right to be gay in Russia. He never felt involved with the LGBT community and generally considered him activists and sympathizers moralists. At the same time, it seems to me that he was frustrated by the need to live in a sanctimonious society, where sexual deviations (heterosexual or homosexual, it does not matter) were always a zone of uncomfortable silence, and family joys (marriage, home, public life) were always relied only on heterosexual couples. As one of my Moscow gay friends said, "I want to have sex with men, but I need a wife." Scandals left behind a long time, a year has passed. Alex found a boyfriend, and although their relationship lasted only a few months, I think it benefited him. We now live together, like an unclouded version of Will and Grace. Sometimes we yell at each other because of dirty dishes or socks scattered around the apartment, but we also buy each other food, walk around the area at night and smoke. Sometimes we talk about sex. I do not think that Lesha has completely figured out his sexuality (his last experience was a Japanese woman five years older than him - I kept my mouth shut about this, after all, didn't I make him gay ?!). But he definitely became more open and ready to discuss even the most intimate nuances. And it's nice to know that now Lesha himself sometimes behaves like a whore.