Masha Gessen: Gay Propaganda

I guess I’m an exception, I was born lucky, but I’ve never had any problems with the people around me because of my sexual orientation. And I’ve never had even a shadow of a doubt that my orientation is OK. The fact that some people don’t like homosexuals, call them fags, has never concerned me. I use this word too when I’m making fun of myself, but I’ve never felt like an outcast or abnormal. And no one has ever treated me like that. This is probably how it works: other people treat you the way you treat yourself. There are beaten-down people who consider themselves wrong and unhealthy, and that’s what comes to them. I am always sure that everything is OK.

A year after I came out to my mother, my DJ boyfriend and I broke up, but soon afterward, Lesha appeared. He was my first serious, mature love. I introduced him to my mother right away. She really liked him, and saw that we were happy together. On top of that, he’d bring her flowers and dote on her. We were together for three years. We broke up because he left the country, but we’re still very close. Like some people say after a break-up, two people are still tied together by “some thread,” except Lesha and I are bound by a cable. Everything that happens, happens here on Earth; but I’m convinced that the way I feel about him and the way he feels about me is somewhere in the stratosphere. Nothing can touch it. It’s immovable. The way we love each other, it doesn’t matter where we are, who we are with, and how.

A version of this interview was originally published in Afisha magazine Issue 339 (February 25, 2013). It was updated by the author and reproduced here by permission of Afisha

Olga and Irina met and fell in love when they were 19. Three years later they broke up because, according to them, they didn’t have the courage to stay together. Twenty-two years later, Olga works for an organization that provides emergency assistance to pregnant women in critical situations, and Irina is a painter and graphic artist. They now live together, with their children, and regret having lost so much time living apart .

IRINA

I was born in a small town in Siberia. I never went to art school, but I’d always wanted to be an artist, even though my parents told me, “You’ll never be an artist.” When I was 19, I decided that if I couldn’t be an artist, I would study to become something else close to my heart. I chose literature. I went to Leningrad to apply to the philology faculty of the university. It turned out that I needed to take a history exam, so I tore off a flier for preparatory history classes.

One day—it was June 1991—I was walking down Ligovsky Prospekt, going to the address from the flier, when suddenly, it happened.

Ahead of me, I saw a pink dress. It seemed insane: the pink against the grey backdrop of the Soviet Union. I only saw her silhouette, delicate and distinct. Everything was grey except the sun and this pink dress. I walked along and thought, “Where is she going?” I needed to do something, but I didn’t know what, so I just followed her.

It turned out we were going to the same place, to the same class. We found ourselves in the foyer of an old St. Petersburg building with a grand staircase. I remember how, as she was going up the stairs, she turned around and looked at me. At that moment, I knew that I would never lose her.

Later, when I was coming home on the commuter train, I suddenly realized with horror that I hadn’t gotten her phone number. Then, she didn’t show up to several of the lessons.

OLGA

One day, I was walking down Ligovsky and I saw Irina coming toward me. I noticed her from afar and broke out in a smile, wondering if she’d notice me. When I saw that she wouldn’t, I had to get in her way. She didn’t see me until she was right in front of me.

IRINA

I was very happy to run into her. The first thing I said was, “Give me your phone number.”

OLGA

Then we saw each other again at the class. When we came out, I thought that I needed to woo her somehow, so I said, “Let’s go get some ice cream.” I don’t eat ice cream, but I thought that when you’re wooing someone, you should always offer them ice cream. So we got some and went on a walk.

IRINA

She had such expressive eyes. They were enough to knock you off your feet. I was so in love with her. Olga seemed to be the kind of woman you had to marry, whom you could never hurt. I was very afraid that I would hurt her. I was scared to get close to her.

OLGA

Ira was the first woman I’d ever fallen in love with. At first, I didn’t think it was love. I just felt like I had to be with this person all the time. The world changed when I was with Ira.

We hid our relationship from everyone except our closest friends. My parents suspected we were together, but tried to pretend that they didn’t see anything. On the other hand, they put a lot of pressure on us to stop seeing each other. My parents would tell me that Ira was a bad person and that she would never teach me anything good.

IRINA

Everything was complicated. My parents had their suspicions. My mother hated Olga and told me so outright. However, it’s probably not worth it to blame our parents for everything. We were the ones who couldn’t deal with it.

OLGA

We couldn’t live our lives. We were raised to believe that we owed things to everyone, most of all to our parents. We couldn’t be ourselves. We needed to fit in with the rest of the world.

During her second year of university, Ira gave birth to Daniel. She was 21. We were together, but couldn’t seem to figure out our relationship. Ira went away on holiday, and when she came back, she was pregnant. This was probably her trying to be “normal,” like everyone else.

IRINA

If I hadn’t been with Olga, most likely, I would have never had Daniel.

OLGA

I was adopted from an orphanage. I have a very special relationship to children. I’d always wanted them. I had to fight with Ira’s parents, who wanted her to get an abortion. Ira gave birth and we lived together for another year.

IRINA

It was incredibly hard. She really wanted a child, but I didn’t think that we could have one together. I was afraid that she would be unhappy and end up hating me. I left because I was afraid of the responsibility and had decided that she needed to understand herself and get her bearings.

Six months after I left St. Petersburg for Moscow, I found myself on the windowsill. At the last minute, I turned around and saw Daniel, who could barely stand on his own at that time. He was looking directly at me. At that moment, I changed my mind, and dragged myself back into my room.

OLGA

I was upset for a long time after Ira moved away to Moscow. But I really wanted children, and I didn’t know any other way to have them other than getting married and giving birth. Today I see that there were a lot of other options and I could have done it some other way. About a year after Ira left, I got married to a guy from my class and had a daughter with him. Our marriage was pretty weird. We both led separate lives.

IRINA

I really missed the time we had spent together. When I was 32, I understood that I couldn’t stop dreaming about her, it was pathological. Her eyes, and the most beautiful hands in the world. My dreams told me that I was at a dead end, that I had done everything wrong, that I was ruining my own life.