Since 2022, Russian Culture Ministry has Approved 145 Erotic and Pornographic Films for Public Showing Online

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 5 – Despite the Kremlin’s much ballyhooed effort to show itself a defender of what it calls Russian traditional values, its culture ministry over the last three years has approved for the public online showing of 145 erotic and pornographic films, 21 in 2022, 97 in 2023, and 48 so far this year.
    But there are limits: the ministry’s censors have required cuts of scenes involving homosexual behavior from a series of movies imported from the West lest those involved run afoul of Russian laws banning LGBT “propaganda” (severreal.org/a/minkult-rossii-vydal-145-litsenziy-eroticheskim-filmam-s-2022-goda/33227937.html).
    What makes this report of interest is not so much the way it highlights prurient issues in Russia but rather how it shows that Moscow’s efforts to present its “traditionalist” position apparently sometimes collapse, especially in the face of popular demand and the money some can make by producing things one might assume the Kremlin would ban.