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.

Weiners and Santorum: A Yucky Day

I admit, I was one of those "delusional liberals" because I found the initial aspects of WeinerGate - which you all know is the accusations that U.S. Representative Anthony Wiener has been having sexually explicit photo and text exchanges with fans of his via various social media sites - to be super suspicious.  Here's why:

-Breitbart.  If you want to have any integrity, regardless of what side of the political fence you fall on, the default position when Breitbart breaks anything is to be skeptical.  He plays fast and loose with the truth, period.

-Weiner's reaction.  At the time his weird response to all this made it seem almost - as crazy as it may sound - that he was somehow punking Breitbart.  Because Weiner is a smart man, and a media-savvy one.  I figured that  the "bungled" response to the allegations must be part of something...smarter? 

But now it's looking a lot more like Weiner has had multiple sexual exchanges with women online, and I'm waiting to watch his press conference, which apparently has been hijacked by Breitbart himself for some reason I can't figure out whatsoever.  Can people do that?  "Oh, I just happened to be here, I'm on the podium now."  Even if he isn't lying this time, he's still a dick.

All this drama aside, I don't understand why this is a "scandal."  It's a scandal when a homophobic "family values" candidate on the right is caught betraying the values he attempts to enforce on others.   It's the hypocrisy, not the act itself.  I don't care if politicians cheat on their wives when they're not trying to impose their own hypocritical morality, period.  It has no bearing on their ability to advocate for their constituents if they are not holding themselves to a different standard than they would the people they claim to represent.

Having just listened to Weiner's press conference, I was surprised at how honest it was.  There was some of the expected lines about how he's deeply hurt his family and whatnot, but he didn't claim sex addiction or substance abuse, and said repeatedly he takes responsibilty for doing something dumb.  That alone is a pretty radical act for a congressman.

However, am I am absolutely befuddled as to why male politicans keep doing shit like this.  I am generally a subscriber to the theory that the vast majority of what we consider gender differences are the result of socialization.  I'm also a woman who really likes sex and has taken some minor risks to get the kind of sex that I want.  So I get horniness.  But I don't understand why, time after time, male politicians are able to so repeatedly risk their careers (and marriages, I guess) in pursuit of such banal sexual encounters.

Is it that it takes a certain kind of fucked-up personality to be a politician in the first place?  A sense of entitlement and an an aversion to risk-reward analysis?  A desire for validation?  All of the above?  Sometimes, a tiny, not-particularly-feminist voice in my head wonders if male sexuality and the male sex drive really is that different from women.  Is the pull for gratification is just so strong that in the moment, it's worth risking everything?

Then again, it's just as likely that the fact that male politicians keep getting caught in illicit encounters has less to do with their gender and more to do with the fact that we just have a lot more male politicians than female.  And we hold female politicians to a higher standard of scrutiny. 

As a fan of Weiner, I'm bummed that he handled this whole thing so poorly, up to this point, although finally telling the truth and refusing to resign, characterizing this as something between him and his wife and his family, is absolutely the right tack to take.  But as a fan I'm really disappointed that he was this stupid.  As a fangirl, I kinda enjoy the scandalous shots.  Even Breitbart had to admit that this skinny guy has a great body and apparently, quite a package.  The most unsexy thing about this is that he was still using an AOL account in the 2000s. 

To make today more disheartening to liberals, Rick Santorum, that frothy mix of you know the drill, announced his candidacy.  I'm gonna go have another glass of wine.


I'd like to note that I didn't use a Weiner pun, not even once.