A Protest With Balls

In defiance of his nation’s repressive policies, a Russian performance artist nailed his scrotum to the cobblestones outside of Lenin’s Mausoleum in Moscow’s Red Square this week.

Pyotr Pavlensky – who has previously sewn his mouth shut and wrapped himself in barbed wire in protest of Russian repression – timed his self-mutilation to coincide with his country’s national Police Day celebration.

“A naked artist, looking at his balls nailed to the Kremlin pavement, is a metaphor for the apathy, political indifference, and fatalism of contemporary Russian society,” Pavlensky wrote. “As the government turns the country into one big prison, stealing from the people and using the money to grow and enrich the police apparatus and other repressive structures, society is allowing this, and forgetting its numerical advantage, is bringing the triumph of the police state closer by its inaction.”

That’a great point … in Mother Russia or Barack Obama’s America.

Of course nailing your nut sack to the cold cobblestone of Red Square strikes us as pretty painful way to make the point.

Oh well …

Pavlensky was taken to a Moscow hospital and treated for injuries. Charges of “petty hooliganism” were dismissed and he was released (presumably still very sore) on Monday.