I always thought this was just a figure of speech (not the bit about Red Square, the nailing bit).
Is it still appropiate to say “now this guy has balls”?
In post-Soviet Russia, scrotum gets nailed by you!
Alternatively: “Man, that takes some serious nuts!”
I figured this would be him after this stunt:
Well, he certainly showed them, didn’t he?
To make his protest even more “Metal”, he should have nailed them to the Kremlin wall and played some Udo Dirkschneider at full volume:
I do not wish to participate in this art form.
When I first heard this story, I had thought that hopefully he had removed the scrotum first, and that perhaps there was some ambiguity as to whether or not it was actually the artist’s scrotum, but no.
At least the article still leaves some mystery for the precise mechanics. I mean, what kind of nail would you need to go straight through cobblestones? What kind of hammer? Surely one couldn’t literally nail something with one’s bare hands? I should stop thinking about this.
It’s probably not “straight through the cobblestones” so much as “straight through the goopy-tar-stuff-between-the-cobblestones.”
If you want to aim a hammer down there, you can do it. You just have to suppress the flinch-reflex. Otherwise it’s an automatic “two for flinching.”
Also: IN SOVIET RUSSIA BALLS POUND YOU!
I’d imagine he hammered it into the “grout”, or cement between most modern cobblestone street… and having spent too much time on alt. newsgroups, people can hammer a nail quite easily through their own dangly bits…
Jack-Asstivism
hear that ladies? the police say you don’t have the balls to do this.
In non-violent activism, you expose yourself to be hurt by the forces you oppose, thus demonstrating your moral superiority. I get that. But I never got self mutilation as a form of political protest, be it starving yourself to death, setting yourself on fire, or this terrible stunt. You don’t get to expose your opponents violent nature, you only demonstrate a disregard for your own life. I don’t get it.
I can appreciate anyone who can combine masochism, voyeurism, and political statements into a convenient package.
Well, judging by Putin’s endless macho posturing - shirtless bear wrasslin’ and such - I suppose this would really cut to the heart of one the Russian political brain.
But sheesh, he might want to use that later in life. Cut off a leg or something.
I flinched just glancing at the headline. Your comment, however, caused my labia to seek refuge up in my uterus. Congratulations?
exactly my thoughts- masochism. if he was going to do it, he may as well frame it all to make himself look like a hero at the same time.
Hunger striking at least makes some sense. When the oppressor has taken away so much of your freedom that you can only control your mouth, then your mouth does the protesting. Of course, the nice doctors can keep you alive, but force-feeding just makes the protest more potent.
See also: Gandhi.
I totally understand the knee-jerk reaction here, and the attempts at humor, but seriously, as long as he’s missing the testicles within (and all of the associated nerve bundles) popping a nail through the scrotum really isn’t any different than getting an ear pierced, and I would assume that to be a LOT less sensitive than getting a nipple pierced.
