When Nadezhda Tolokonnikova spoke of the aesthetics of Russian power last summer she evoked the unique relationship between the arts and politics in Russia and the Soviet Union. That relationship was on full display this week when Russian TV channels broadcast the arrest of Orkhan Zeynalov, a migrant worker and accused murderer. Members of a special police unit, clad in their black uniforms, their faces hidden behind black ski masks, handcuffed Zeynalov, threw him to the ground, and kicked him with their black boots. This was public theatre, staged for the xenophobic mob in Moscow.

Tolokonnikova condemned the return of a “secret-police aesthetic,” linking it to its Soviet and Tsarist past; the Zeynalov arrest confirms this. Yet there is also something new in the aesthetic of Russian power today: it is profoundly masculine.

To be clear, the reality of power in Russia has always been masculine, and there are no more women in high office today than there were fifty or a hundred years ago. But aesthetically the Soviet Union consciously incorporated women into the pastiche of art and politics called “socialist realism.” Soviet propaganda posters portrayed the new Soviet Woman, freed from house work (“Down with Kitchen Slavery!” a famous poster slogan proclaimed) so that they could operate machines in factories or drive tractors on collective farms. Soviet movies portrayed women as factory managers and members of city governments.

Today the dominant images are unfailingly masculine, with photographs of Putin himself, bare-chested, heroic, and alone, leading the way. Putin is famously fond of his own physique, and he loves to appear shirtless in publicity photos: shirtless, on horseback; shirtless, fishing; shirtless, hunting; shirtless, swimming with dolphins. As an insightful (if slightly tongue-in-cheek) Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty article asks this week, is there something homoerotic in all of this?

The RFE article also raises a more serious question. It focuses on Elton John’s December concert dates in Russia and the homophobic reactions they are provoking. Elton John first toured Russia in 1979 and he is a big star there. His two December concerts are already sold out. In the city of Kazan, where he is scheduled to perform, an over-the-top Imam told the press that "attending the concert will lead to adultery, drugs, and alcohol. Orphans, single mothers, and sick children – all of them are the result of lechery."

The new, masculine aesthetic of Russian power seems to go hand-in-hand with the rise of homophobia.  The LGBT community is under attack in Russia, violently on the streets and legislatively in the Duma. For now the police stand aside and watch, but how long will it be before we see the black-clad men in ski masks putting the boots to gay men?