Vladimir Putin has just given Russian men the biggest, bestest gift imaginable . . . while at the same time hitting women with the biggest, worstest assignment he could think of: encouraging — no, urging them “to ‘engage in procreation on breaks’ during their working day.” [Maya Mehrara, Newsweek, September 20, 2024.]

Yes, I know . . . I had to read it three times before I could be sure I wasn’t seeing things. But it’s true: Russia’s most benevolent leader wants his people — how to put this delicately? — copulating like rabbits at lunchtime, all for the benefit of Mother Russia.

He calls it a reversal of the country’s declining population; I call it Papa Putin’s Purposeful Procreation Plot. And it could well replace vodka as the country’s most popular lunch-hour indulgence. Popular, that is, except with the women who will then have to spend the ensuing nine months carrying the Progeny of the Procreation Plot, and the rest of their lives raising them.

Here are the Pimping President’s precise words, delivered on Wednesday at the fourth annual Eurasian Women’s Forum, and designed to justify his brainstorm and mollify the working mothers who will have to bear (literally) the brunt of the assignment:

“Russia is traditionally respectful of women. In this regard, our state policy relies on the National Strategy of Action in the Interests of Women.

”Several initiatives have been put forward toward this end, and proper conditions are being created for women to succeed professionally while remaining guardians of the hearth and lynchpins of large families with many children.” [Id.]

Is anybody buying this so far? Maybe not, because he went on to say that women are able to cope with combining professional careers and motherhood as they are “beautiful, caring and charming” and “possess a secret that men are unable to fathom.” [Id.]

In closing, he added that he wishes women “success for the benefit of peace, creation and progress.” [Id.]

As it turns out, this has not been dropped on the people of Russia overnight. Back in July, my bubbeleh — Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov — put in his two kopeks’ worth by saying that the birth rate “is now at a terribly low level — 1.4 [births per woman]. This is comparable to European countries, Japan and so on. But this is disastrous for the future of the nation.”

And Health Minister Yevgeny Shestopalov has said that Russians should “engage in procreation on breaks” during a recent appearance on Russian national television. [Id.] So the secret is out: shtupping is in.

I haven’t seen anything in writing to indicate who is going to pay all of the copulating couples to raise the additional children with whom they are to be blessed, or for the larger houses or apartments to accommodate them.

And while Putin has assured the mothers-to-be that they are “beautiful, caring and charming,” and “possess a secret” that will allegedly empower them to take on all of the extra duties of multiple motherhoods, I don’t see any mention of a national childcare program to help out in this regard, either. Perhaps that’s one of the “conditions . . . being created.”

But Russia needs to regrow its population, and this is his solution. I wonder . . . has Putin considered options, such as ending the massacre of young men fighting his bloody war in Ukraine by calling a halt to the so-called “special military operation”? Or stanching the exodus of citizens leaving the country to escape persecution for speaking against Putin’s policies by easing those policies?

China has also been experiencing a worrisome drop in the birth rate over the past several years, and has begun offering incentives to reverse the tide. But I don’t believe that they have gone so far as to offer conjugal lunchtime visits.

I’m trying to imagine how this would have worked in my office. And I can’t. I just can’t.

No . . . there has to be a better way.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
9/20/24