Weiners and Consent

So the feminist blogsophere (still using it ironically) is still talking about Anthony Weiner, so I might as well, too.

The issue is that many feminists are taking issue with the idea, poised usually by liberals, that Weiner's conduct (having sexually-charged internet exchanges with various women) should not be relevant to his political career because it's a private sexual matter that doesn't violate any laws.  The feminist response is that it appears that he sent a sexually explicit picture to a follower of his without having established a consensual, sexual online friendship with her.  In other words: sexual harassment.

And I agree.  It's not cool to send dick pics to random women, period.  Weiner claimed it was "a joke."  The recipient doesn't understand the joke and claims to have never had any salacious interaction with Weiner.  But the other relationships, so far, appear to be explicitly consensual.

If it can be shown that Weiner was sending sexual images to women non-consentually, he is guilty of sexual harassment and should be forced to step down.   Although I find it funny that a man we pretty know is guilty of sexual harassment is regarded as an elder statesman and the same congressmen who were supporting Clinton during his shit are now calling upon Weiner to resign.  But that's just politics, gross, yucky poltics.

What bothers me about this feminist critique is how often it's tied into other moralistic, sex-negative critiques that I find troubling.  For example, in this excellent Shakesville post about the consent issue, a lot of the commenters diverge wildly from the topic of consent to shake their fists at Weiner for being a philandering asshole, for lying to his constituents, and in general for engaging in the consensual online sexual behavior as opposed to calling him out specifically for the behavior that wasn't consensual. This rankles me.

My husband  and I are not out about a great many things in relation to his work life, for good reason.  We're not out about having an open relationship, or our queerness.  Were he or I a public figure, I suspect we'd be even more closeted.  So if we were and some scandal came out about him having sex with dudes on the side, everyone would be up in arms about what a terrible husband he is.  I'm not saying that Weiner and his wife have an open relationship, but what I am saying is we don't know what their private boundaries are for this kind of behavior.  We know he told her about these online relationships before they were married.  That's it.

I find the hang-wringing about "poor Huma" to be shallow and kind of insulting to her.  By all accounts she's a pretty bad-ass lady.  What she does with this unfortunately public information is up to her, but it's not "feminist" to freak out about infidelity and act as if one woman's supposed private pain is somehow a political point.  Infidelity is not a feminist issue, no matter how you want to spin it.

Furthermore, there's a lot of "he's just a gross pervert," sentiment in the feminist blogosphere which I also find weird.  The consent issue is huge, and at the heart of the matter, but based on what I'm reading I can't help but feel that even if everything Weiner did was explicitly consensual, some progressives would have a problem with it, because "it's perverted" and "congressmen shouldn't act this way."  Weiner is a married dude who had some really boring, bland netsex.  This is exceedingly common behavior.  Dare I say it, it's pretty much normal behavior for a huge chunk of dudes with Internet access, if my experience on the Internet is any indication.  Does being a congressman mean a person has to give up all their sexual freedoms?  That seems ridiculous to me.  I don't think there's any job that should preclude a person a right to have consensual online flirtations and netsex.

I also find it strange that both in the media and on blogs, this is being spun as an infidelity, full stop.  I feel like it was pretty recently that the mainstream media was asking "Does this sort of behavior count as cheating?"  Apparently it's been decided now.  Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that netsex can't be cheating.  I'm just befuddled by the assumption that must be.  Some people think that viewing porn in a relationship is cheating.  I think it's a grey area that can be, depending on what the couple in question has agreed on.

At the end of the day, all that really matters about this situation was whether or not Weiner was sexually harrassing women who had no desire for sexual contact with him. I really wish that the moralizing about the other stickier, trickier issues around monogamy and private sexuality wasn't being lumped in with all that.