Did Michael Jackson sleep with boys? This question risen by millions American parents last year became a painful problem. They tried to decide: whether to permit to their children still to listen to rock-idol further or remove this perverted one far from eyes & far from heart? The question is actually interesting, as you see neither subjects no styles of Jackson's songs and clips have changed since then at all. Michael also hasn't changed, but the representation about him has. The matter is that people are inclined invariably to identify the man as the person himself and person on public, not mentioning that the author always merges with his heroes. In a domestic variant it is reduced to gossips on a theme of "gayness" of "Ivanushki International", "Na-Na" or Filipp Kirkorov. As a matter of fact, there is a question: "What for?".. Well, if they are gay, so what? As you can see it concerns only a narrow circle of their personal acquaintances, and they are accessible to the mass spectator only as a picture on TV. But, certainly, everything is not so simple. The art of the actor is to become interesting and even desired for his spectator. Therefore for a gay guy "Ivanushki" will be latent gays, and for a girl teenager - a direct purpose, the object of desires.

To tell the truth there are some singers and other known famous people who don't hide their sexual orientation, but when we mention them, we do not mean the former USSR. We haven't reached it yet. Even so odious personalities as Boris Moiseyev and Sergey Penkin have never publicly admitted their homosexuality. Do you remember "The Police of Customs" shouted here and there: "We're lesbians!"? That's not the truth, as the former participants of this project said. Popularity is needed at any cost, even with a scandal. So in their time both David Bowie and Mick Jagger acted, though now they admit that it was an acting in a greater degree. Well, it is really important whether they slept with men or did not? Even if it was so, it doesn't point to their true sexuality, as national wisdom says "once is not a faggot". The main thing is that they behaved in such a manner that they have broken all stereotypes of a conservative society. In addition these singers helped much to change the mass public consciousness which has brought to greater tolerance and a modern situation. Certainly, an ordinary man is in other status. People are rather ready to agree with the right of a "star" to be other than with the right of their neighbor. In spite of that the standards are pawned from above. Magna Carta established freedom for barons not to obey royal despotism, but all modern democracy has subsequently grown from it. It's typical that in the West the sexual orientation among aesthetically satisfying Bohemians means nothing at all. Such bands and singers as "Pet Shop Boys", k.d. lang, "Erasure" neither hide no advertise their tastes. They are popular among all the people. And careful parent's cannot even guess that their kids listen to something wrong. The situation with Michael Jackson is different: sexual abuse of children is a crime in any country. And the contrast between promoted image "not from this world" with a supposed trite dirty linen is striking. That's all because Jackson as a personality and Jackson as a rock-idol are perceived as one person. But this is not the truth at all. As Anna Akhmatova, the famous Russian poet, wrote 'if you had ever known from such what rubber the verses grow without any shame...' Will Shakespeare's sonnets or Chaykovsky's music lose or add anything if the homosexuality of their authors would have been proved?

Meanwhile I don't want to say that the sexual orientation (as well as any other essential circumstance) has no influence on life and activity of a person. Maybe "the aspiration of pure beauty" that we find in Chaykovsky's music or that drive which only a deaf person can't hear in Michael Jackson's songs are caused by tragical circumstances of their private life. But it's personal. We'll never find out what is hidden in person's actions, we can judge only a final result. And this is the most important thing.

There is Freudist theory explaining Ivan the Terrible (Russian Tsar) madness by suppressed homosexuality is reasonably interesting. We've too little information about that time. However, it's known about a special love of the terrible Tsar to his a select oprichnik Fedor Basmanov. Fedor was often compared by his contemporaries with "a beautiful maiden" for his beauty and with a "fierce Serpent" for his cruelty. The Tsar was unhappy in his numerous marriages, and it often influenced on the whole situation in the country. His consciousness was being tore between insuperable inclination and terrible horror of madness attracted by mortal sins. When Tsar found the woman he loved, Russia could breath freely at last. But the Queen has died, and then Ivan the Terrible suspected his boyars of a plot ("They killed the empress and contemplated to kill me"). When Fedor Basmanov had appeared in the palace, Ivan's soul ran straight into inferno. It's difficult to determine what's the reason and what the consequence here: the Orthodox believer would assert that God punished Ivan for his sin, a reasonable person would assume that the brutal religious morals have created this sin themselves and have drawn this punishment. The roman emperor of pre-Christian era couldn't see any problem here at all.