ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that the state does not always have to create a coherent argument that appears to makes sense, if it can create sticky associations that contain undesired visibility not by narrative but by mobilizing emotion. The attention around the Moscow Pride marches organized every year since 2006 – each of which has been announced, banned, arranged and met with violent counterdemonstrations and police aggression – rendered homosexuality and LGBT rights highly visible as political issues. The latter points towards the second dimension of visibility politics: the project of 'homosexual propaganda' was not only about restricting undesired visibility but simultaneously a media spectacle in itself, seeking to amplify desired forms of visibility by spreading a narrative of what Russia signifies in the twenty-first century. Repeatedly, homosexuality was emplotted as endangering the very embodiment of the nation's future: Russia's children.
