Flirting with Nationalism: Diminishing Masculinity as a War Tactic [Revised]

Lily Ader

Rumkin, Yakov. 2022. "Sputnik." Russia Beyond.

The image above depicts a collaged image of a man with a smug look. Condoms are flying around him, depicted as being dropped from the plane. This image is the header of one of many articles that covers unused tactics by the CIA during the Cold War with the USSR. The one covered by this image, and in several articles, was classified as a form of psychological warfare. Allegedly, the CIA planned to drop boxes of extra large-sized condoms in the USSR, which the CIA planned to label as medium-sized, as a demoralizing tactic. The size of the condom that would falsely be labeled as "medium" would make it appear that American men generally had very large penises compared to men within the USSR in general. Essentially, this plan seemed to rely on the fact that this might make the general public in the USSR believe that American men were genetically superior when it came to their genitalia to men of the USSR.

Furthermore, there is a cultural correlation between masculinity with the size of one's penis and how masculine someone is perceived, so much so that thwarting this can be psychologically distressing to the point that it can be used as a war tactic. Kimberly Kay Hoang calls this "global hegemonic masculinity." Whether or not this was a real plan by the CIA, this acts as a perfect application of Kimberly Kay Hoang's findings in "Flirting with Capital," in which Vietnamese sex workers affirm the masculinity of their clients, specifically in comparison with the masculinity of other clients, in order to form more fruitful relationships with clients. Particularly relevant here is the way in which Vietnamese sex workers are expected to affirm Western superiority by affirming the superior masculinity of Western tourists and businessmen that seek out Vietnamese women and exoticize them. 

Affirming Western masculinity comes at the expense of diminishing the masculinity of Vietnamese men. In other words, Vietnamese men are, "racially castrated," in these interactions, "through stereotypes of penis size and libido, Western clients...conjured up stereotypes of racialized sexual relations between themselves and Vietnamese women, thereby asserting their masculinities," (Hoang 2014, 517). The affirmation of masculinity through penis size, in this instance, has greater implications, as Hoang states, of creating a globalized hegemonic masculinity. The superiority of a nation, culture, or race is formed through the degree to which they fit this understanding of globalized hegemonic masculinity. This is why the alleged ploy by the CIA to send condoms to the USSR which would imply generally larger genitalia in the US, is so interesting, because it engages in "psychological warfare," by asserting dominance in the global understanding of hegemonic masculinity. 

Sources 

Hoang, Kimberly Kay. 2014. "Flirting with Capital: Negotiating Perceptions of Pan-Asian Ascendency and Western Decline in Global Sex Work." Social Problems 61(4): 507-529. 

Shevchenko, Nikolay. 2022. "Did the US really plan to demoralize the USSR with CONDOMS?" Russia Beyond. https://www.rbth.com/history/334852-us-cia-condoms-strategy-ussr