The blame probably should (yet again) go first to the Papacy with its unhealthy repression of everything sexual, which itself originates in a most unfortunate misunderstanding of the Christian dogma of the primordial sin by Saint Augustine of Hippo who, at least, never insisted that this interpretation was the correct one (traditional Christianity does not believe that per se sex is bad, but only that it has to be appropriately channeled and sublimated).  Alas, his misguided views on this topic were further picked up in a long series of sex-centered teachings, practices and dogmas (celibacy for priests, condemnation of “the flesh”, “Immaculate Conceptions”, etc.) and as a result, these sexuality-repressing teachings triggered a formidable backlash which began in the Renaissance and is sill felt today.

The next group to make things worse were the Freemasons, the various revolutionary movements in Europe and, of course, the openly secular/atheistic ideologues such as Marx, Nietzsche, Freud and many others.  I won’t go into the pathetic history of feminism, hippie flower-power, abortion “rights” and all the rest of the nonsense we were fed, nor will I discuss the role of pornography or the so called ‘gay’ rights.  My thesis is this: in terms of sexuality the West is now terminally cluster-f**cked.  I won’t even bother proving that thesis.  Look for yourself a the divorce rates, teen pregnancy rates, homosexuality, pedophilia, rapes, marital violence, gross sexism and macho violence or, better, try to find something healthy in anything sex-related in the West.  It ain’t there.  So I will say it again: in terms of sexuality the West is now terminally cluster-f**cked.

The latest example of that complete absence of any kind of healthy understanding of sex is the  “Putin hits in Xi’s wife” non-event scandal.  Here is the video of the ‘act’, see for yourself:
You can plainly see for yourself what happened: it was cold, Putin though that Xi’s wife might be uncomfortable in the chilly weather and he offered her his shawl.  Notice also her reaction: she accepted it very gracefully, put in on just long enough to thank him (you can see her smile and bow), then took it off and was handed another coat.

This is how the western media saw that: (excerpts from here)

“’Putin’ On the Moves: Vlad Cozies Up to China’s First Lady,” screamed NBC.
“Putin Hits on China’s First Lady,” asserted US magazine Foreign Policy. “Russia’s Don Juan-in-chief just got a little too friendly with Xi Jinping’s wife.”
“The first unspoken rule of diplomacy might be “Don’t hit on the president’s wife,” but Russia’s newly single president Vladimir Putin seems to have missed the memo,” it continued. 

Very interestingly, RT also offered this photo as a reminder of the fact that it was not the first time Putin did something like that:

Was Putin also ‘hitting’ on Merkel?

RT added: This is not the first time Vladimir Putin’s manners have landed him in a mini-storm. A similar gesture last year, when Putin offered a shawl to German Chancellor Angela Merkel during the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg, provoked many of the same kind of comments.

In the typical westerner’s mind, this goes something like that: we know that Russian man spend their lives drinking and beating up their woman, that they are sexist macho pigs, all potential rapists (look at how they behaved in at the end of WWII in Germany!), so if one of them shows what could be misconstrued as courtesy or attentive care, he must be ‘hitting’ on the woman, already ready to jump, beat and rape her”.  This is the kind of notion that the western corporate media has been trying to implant in the minds of the poor folks who watch the Idiot-box.

Before I tell you how I, as a Russian, interpret what has happened, let me share with you what a Chinese friend of mine has written about this in a private email to me:

You have probably seen the (non) news about Putin handing Xi’s wife a shawl. Western media has made a big deal out of it and I thought some Russian viewers might misunderstand.

Peng (Mrs. Xi) was not trying to intentionally spur Putin’s kind gesture, but Chinese culture is very sensitive to simple things including these types of social gestures because in Chinese culture such behavior denotes respect, place in society, and awareness of manners. To take another man’s coat is simply disrespectful to your husband in Chinese culture. Peng was caught in the unfortunate position of having to accept Putin’s hospitality yet avoid offending her husband’s “face” publicly. This is very important in Chinese society, perhaps not to myself in particular, but to most of us especially the traditional minded (whom we mostly are… believe me). Of course, as a foreigner Putin is not expected to be aware of these nuances and his “rudeness” can be forgiven and accepted as kindness. Actually Chinese manners dictate that when a foreigner exhibits lack of knowledge of your customs, you are supposed to accommodate them, but Peng’s reaction is understandable given her position. This wasn’t made better by Western MSM claims of Putin “flirting” with Peng — which is completely ridiculous of course.

I believe the best PR fix would be Putin issuing a statement saying something along the lines of, “I was trying to be polite, but the Chinese as we continue to see are very subtle, which I admire them for, and in their culture it is frowned upon for a woman to accept another’s coat. She was simply being respectful towards her husband. This is nothing but growing pains in the fast developing Sino-Russian alliance. Xi and I have a superb relationship and it will continue to bring us success in the future.” Putin has enough of a media personality and credibility to pull this off. It is unlikely that the Chinese will utter anything publicly until Russia does, because they would not want to seem patronizing to Putin or Russians by explaining often-accepted-as-simple-manners. 

I will just add that I think that Peng handled the situation *superbly*.  She showed her guest, Putin, no discomfort or offense at all, she gave him a warm smile, bowed and thanked him, kept the shawl on for just a second, then slightly turned (thereby signifying the end of her gratitude expressing) and immediately took the shawl off while her (smart) aides handed her another coat so as to make the removal of the now non-needed shawl natural.  If I give Putin’s aides a B for not warning him about that, I give the Chinese an A+ about how elegantly they handled the situation.

Now let’s turn to the Russki side of the issue.

First, I will readily admit that there are some Russian man who would make a Cro-Magnon look educated, sophisticated, refined and otherwise civilized (all countries probably have those) In contrast, Putin is a highly educated man.  Not only that, but he is a former spy.  That does not mean that he is a pro at firing guns, copying documents or evading pursuing cars.  As he himself explained it in his book, a spy is first and foremost a man who knows how to make himself liked by others.  Being charming, reassuring, friendly and soothing is one of the core qualities of a spy.  Putin is also an officer and he very much shares into the Russian officer ethos, especially officers from elite institutions or units.  In other words, besides personal reasons, Putin has professional reasons to have impeccable manners.  Having watch many, many hours of his town hall style meetings with all sorts of people and having him watched interact with all sorts of different cultural and social groups I can say that Putin’s manners are absolutely superb, every bit as refined and polished as Lavrov’s.  And here is the key to what happened:

In Russian culture it is not only normal to take care, be courteous, be protective, attentive and otherwise gallant to woman, it is expected.  Russia is still what I call a “sexually differentiated society” in which women and man are not “equals” but which sees then a very different and which strongly believes that real men take care of women.  Russian society is also multi-cultural.  Just as educated Russians will not offer alcohol to a Muslim guest, they will also know that, for example, you do not physically touch a Muslim woman unless she, for example, is the first one to move her hand forward for a handshake (because this Islamic no-touching rule is not uniformly followed by all Muslim woman).  Had Putin known about the fact that handing over a shawl to a Chinese lady is inappropriate he would most definitely not done so and it is absolutely clear by her reaction that lady Peng completely understood this.  Neither of them every even considered such a ludicrous and vulgar notion that Putin might be “hitting” on her, a married lady and his host.

But the corporate media of a “Michel Jackson society” (neither child nor adult, neither Black nor White, neither male not female) had to, of course, bring it all down to some vulgar crass move by the Russian “mujik” on the Asian “chick”.  This says nothing about Russia or China, and everything about the modern corporate media and the sexually pathological ideology it tries to force down the throats of those who are exposing themselves to it.

Honestly, when I look around myself in western Europe or the USA I feel sorry for most of the people I see.  How many happy, stable and truly loving marriages do you see nowadays?  However, to measure the fantastic degree of sexual frustration of western men, it is enough to look at the huge income of the porn industry and realize that somebody is consuming that porn and that, by definition, those who are reduced to a sex-by-porn sexuality are completely dysfunctional, frustrated and sadly lonely people.  The so-called “sexual freedom” resulted in a terminal case of sexual misery and dissatisfaction.  While I often get in trouble for saying that homosexuality is a sexual psycho-pathology, I have to say that hetero sex in the West is rarely and only marginally healthier.

This is really sad as the consequences are devastating.  “Sexually differentiated” (where each gender is different and has his/her role) couples are becoming increasingly rare (I won’t even go into the “gay marriage” folly!), most families are “multiply recomposed”, children lack real fathers or mothers, normal and healthy masculine or feminine behavior is frowned upon and even basic courtesy towards a lady is apparently inevitably interpreted as an attempt to obtain sex from her (which is what “hitting” is).

I wonder how long it will take for people in the West to realize this and to revolt against it.  It is already happening.  I know a few “real” couples (two identifiable genders, male in the father role, female in the mother role, no divorce, no marital infidelity and no domestic violence but true deep love, children who are raised close to their parents and not given up to state schools, etc.) and they are always more or less “off the social grid”: they do their own thing away from the rest of society whose values they have rejected, whose ideology they don’t believe in, and whose brainwashing appliances (TV, radio, papers) they don’t let into their homes.  They are also sexually happy, with no need for porn, meds or props.  In fact, they know that sex gets *better* with time.  But they are still a tiny minority.  The vast majority of people out there still follow the prevailing societal model to misery, loneliness and sexual frustration.

Finally, I expect that this post will earn me yet another flood of angry comments and I can’t even begin to imagine how what I did say above will be “re-worded” to make me say something I did not.  I offer the above as my own admittedly subjective point of view about the context for the “Putin hitting on Peng” “non-event scandal” in the hope that somebody might find it interesting.  As like to say, please view this blog like an AA meeting: you take what you want and simply leave the rest.

In this case, I wanted draw your attention that the (mis-)interpretation of what happened in China by the corporate media is only a part of a much wider problem and that looking at the general context of male-female relations in the West might allow for a better understanding of what is going on. 

Frankly, this is not a topic I want to dwell on either.  I shared some of my views above, but I have to ask you to please forgive me if I won’t participate in any further discussion about it.  You are, as always, welcome to have a healthy and dynamic discussion in the comments section, but please don’t expect me to join it: I am way too busy (but I will lurk and read it though, just for my own education).

Kind regards to all,

The Saker