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A petition calls for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to replace the Catherine the Great statue with one of Billy Herrington.
Ukraine may soon have rock hard porn star erected in the city of Odessa.
Per Ukrainian law, any petition signed by more than 25,000 people must be considered by President Volodymyr Zelensky within 10 days. The latest petition to cross his desk calls for the replacement of a statue of Russian empress Catherine the Great in Odessa with one of gay porn star Billy Herrington.
The petition lays out a series of reasons why the change should be made, some of which are just in good fun like suggesting it would be great for “memes” and that “all students of Odessa universities will be able to drink beer with Billy Herrington after receiving their diploma.” Not to mention it could be a major tourism boon. “The figure of Billy Herrington has a great cultural influence on the Internet and the appearance of such a monument will become a very popular tourist attraction,” reads the petition.
But more seriously, the petition notes that the replacement would be a “renunciation of the infamous Russian heritage and a loud statement that Odessa is not some provincial town of the Russian Empire. That Odessa is not a part of Russian culture but has its own culture and sense of humor.” It also states that, unlike Russia’s policy of homophobia, the choice to build a literal monument to queerness would be “a clear signal that Ukraine supports the LGBT community.”
Herrington’s porn career took off in the late ’90s and early ’00s after winning Playgirl magazine’s Real Men of the Month contest when he was 24. He was featured in such films as HotMen CoolBoyz and Conquered and received the award for “Best Group Sex Scene” at the 2002 Adult Erotic Gay Video Awards. He left the porn industry in the mid-2000s to focus more fully on his body-building career. Harrington passed away following a car accident in 2018. He was 48.
No word yet on whether President Zelensky will make the requested change.
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Rachel Shatto, Editor in Chief of PRIDE.com, is an SF Bay Area-based writer, podcaster, and former editor of Curve magazine, where she honed her passion for writing about social justice and sex (and their frequent intersection). Her work has appeared on Dread Central, Elite Daily, Tecca, and Joystiq. She's a GALECA member and she podcasts regularly about horror on the Zombie Grrlz Horror Podcast Network. She can’t live without cats, vintage style, video games, drag queens, or the Oxford comma.
Rachel Shatto, Editor in Chief of PRIDE.com, is an SF Bay Area-based writer, podcaster, and former editor of Curve magazine, where she honed her passion for writing about social justice and sex (and their frequent intersection). Her work has appeared on Dread Central, Elite Daily, Tecca, and Joystiq. She's a GALECA member and she podcasts regularly about horror on the Zombie Grrlz Horror Podcast Network. She can’t live without cats, vintage style, video games, drag queens, or the Oxford comma.
