Top Kremlin propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov kicked off his weekly talk show on Sunday by claiming that the sexual harassment scandals that have engulfed the U.S. entertainment industry are part of a campaign to desexualize the country.
Dozens of individuals have in recent weeks accused prominent members of Hollywood’s elite of gross misconduct in the wake of sexual harassment allegations against celebrity producer Harvey Weinstein.
In Russia, the Weinstein scandal has elicited a mixed response, with some public figures justifying his behavior.
"I'm categorically against sexual harassment," Kiselyov said during a segment titled "Is the claimant always right?" on his flagship Vesti Nedeli news show on Channel One. "But this campaign, with brutal seriousness, threatens to destroy the humor in people's relationships... affecting impulsivity, spontaneity and passion."
"There's no sex in America...the sexual revolution is a thing of the past," Kiselyov continued, in an apparent reference to a 1986 interview with a woman from Moscow who said “we have no sex in the Soviet Union and we’re very much against it.”
Kiselyov threw his support behind Weinstein, claiming that the embattled Hollywood producer was the first victim “to be crushed” by a concerted effort to target men and dismissing the latest allegations of rape by actress and model Paz de La Huerta, noting that she twice invited Weinstein to her home.
"How dare he [rape her,] especially when she invited him a second time?" said Kiselyov.
He then went on to express bewilderment that entertainment company Netflix had fired House of Cards star Kevin Spacey after several actors and male co-workers accused him of sexual harassment.
Kiselyov failed to mention, however, that some of Spacey's accusers were underage at the time of the alleged sexual assault.
“There's no sex [in the U.S.,]” he said. “Just as there is no masculinity and no femininity. There isn't even anything homosexual. There isn't anything at all," he insisted. "There's no human nature, no romantic adventures...Now everything can be seen as dirty harassment."
Relations between men and women can be "endlessly multifaceted,” Kiselyov said, lamenting the fact that the accuser in such cases is always given the benefit of the doubt. In Soviet times, Kiselyov said, drawing an apparent parallel, “mere slander could put people in jail."
