Dear fellow Prudish Americans (including those on Daily Kos),
Mind Your Own F-ing Business!
I don't usually expect to sign onto Daily Kos to find a diary ranting at the entire male gender about how we choose to run our sex lives, including derogatory comments about how 'ugly' and unattractive our genitalia are. Personally, I think such comments border on whatever they call the male version of misogyny. Seriously. You may not like it, but some of us actually think penises are quite nice. Attractive even. (Full Disclosure: Being a gay male, penis has been part of my sex life pretty much my whole life, and that no doubt has shaped my own view on where 'dick' generally falls on the 'pretty vs ugly' scale). Sure, some penis is more attractive than others, but then I can say the same thing about noses or hair or other people's faces. However, no one ever seems to complain about including Ugly Uncle Ned in the family photos at Christmas.
Really, though, there is a bigger issue here, and it's about privacy and the minimum level that we should afford to our fellow americans and even public figures (like congressmen) in the age of the internet. But more on that in a minute. First, I wanna quickly break down some shit for the prudish and puritanical of you out there.
1. Prudes: STFU
Maybe you're so crusty and old that you haven't had any 'feelings' down there in decades. Or maybe you're married and haven't had to worry about dating in the age of the Internets. Or, being a prudish puritan, you choose to only date at christiansingles.com, where all dates end in holy christian matrimony. But, guess what? There is a bigger world out there and some of us these days actually have sex. Outside of wedlock. In non-missionary positions. Using untraditional orifices. Sometimes with the same gender. I know... Shocker.
And, now for the big secret: There are both real world places and places on the internet that are not there for setting up your traditional romantic interlude. You know... dating/marriage/etc. I once had the pleasure of throwing beads to passersby on Bourbon Street in New Orleans during Mardis Gras in order to get a "flash" from some hot dude(s). At nude beaches, they even do it without needing the beads. Indeed, there are 'slam/bam/thank you mam' meeting places in this digitized universe of ours, and dammit--some of us LIKE it that way! There are websites out there where exchanging cock pics is literally like a 'hello' and a handshake. There are sites where if you DON'T have a cock pic, nobody talks to you. Why? Because it's like being a prudish clothed person who mistakenly went to a nudist camp: In that social context, you're the oddball, the one who isn't being as open/revealing as everyone else. And everyone else asks, "What are they doing here?" Translated to the 'real world,' this is really no different than going down to a bathhouse or a nude beach or some other house of ill repute or what have you and checking out the 'merchandise,' so to speak.
You yourself may have jumped off the Sexual Revolution train in 1971, but it has managed to continue to roll along quite well without you, thankyouverymuch. And yes, we males DO enjoy showing our dicks to people with whom we are interested in having sex. I understand my straight brethren also enjoy seeing a girl's boobage on occasion in return, too. We humans in general are visual animals. We don't get aroused by the scent of bitches in heat, like dogs. We are not attracted by mating screams and calls across the jungle. No, visual cues is how this process generally works in our species' brains. I can't speak to how important it is to the female gender, but I can testify that in my experience it is a pretty big deal for those of the male persuasion. Is it any surprise, then, that in the age of cellphone cameras and instant uploads and emails that such things ARE going to be sent around on the Interwebs? Seriously people. Don't be naive, and get real. There is a reason porn is popular on the internet. Don't like that dose of modern sexual reality pie? Then, you might wanna consider reincarnating in a different species next time 'round. Otherwise, deal, and face up to the fact that in a human internet used by actual human beings to connect with each other, this sort of thing is just logically--and naturally--going to happen at some level. Our best response is to accept that reality and deal with its implications, rather than lecturing an entire gender about how they don't run their sex lives according to your puritanical standards.
And I don't care if you don't like it. Or think it's 'sinful.' Or think cocks or sex generally are 'ugly.' As a gay man, my entire sex life has been condemned in similar terms for as long as I can remember by modern prudes and puritans, so those arguments just don't fly. Why? It boils down to this: Because It. Is. Not. Any. Of. Your. Fucking. Business. What. I. Do. With. MY. Own. Fucking. Penis. Or, pictures thereof. Ergo, such judgmental opinions are irrelevant to my existence. And writing rants condemning all males for daring to express ourselves sexually in the digital age is about as annoying having to listen to a some nosy prude lecturing on about choosing to spend part of my vacation at a nude beach. Or, let's push the envelope and say I spent my entire weekend in a fuck orgy at some house of ill-repute. Same principle applies: You weren't there. You didn't see it. So, it's none of your business. Fuck off and grow up.
2. On Clintons and Weiners
To bring this little rant back to the news of the day, I've noticed a certain similarity between the current Weiner pseudo-scandal and the Clinton/Lewinsky affair of yester-year. In both cases, politicians were being asked a question that no one should have had a right to ask. For Mr. Clinton, it was:
Did you have sex with Ms. Lewinsky?
For Mr. Weiner, rather, the question is this:
Is that a picture of your cock?
Rather than torturing what the meaning of the word 'is' is (and dancine with perjury in the process), Mr. Clinton would have served himself better standing up for his own right to privacy and objecting to the question and demanding what right they had to ask him such a thing. Because, short of Ms. Lewinsky making charges of sexual harassment or something similar (which, for the record, she did NOT), then the answer to that question was NOT the public's business and the ONLY person who had a right to ask it and get a truthful answer to it was one Hillary Rodham Clinton. And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is why the American public didn't care whether Clinton lied and perjured himself answering that question: Because the questioner had no right to ask it, and Bill Clinton was well within his rights to object to answering it, period. So, who really cared if he lied in answer to a question some prude had no business asking? Nobody, that's who. Except the prudes who wanted to nonetheless impeach him for it, of course.
Mr. Weiner finds himself in a similar situation. Short of some lady crying foul here and charging the congressman with something, then there is NO REASON (other than perverse, prurient ones) for the public to need to know the answer to the question of whether the cock pictured is actually attached to Rep. Weiner's body. What matters in this story is "Who sent the pic?" For illustration, let's just explore the various alternatives:
Scenario A. The cock is NOT Mr. Weiner's: So someone lifted a photo from somewhere of some random dude's cock and used it to embarrass a congressman? Okay, send the FBI for computer hacking investigation, but I don't care whose cloth-covered dick it ACTUALLY was. The picture is not the crime here. The hacking is.
Scenario B. The cock IS Mr. Weiner's: Okay, again, so what? What does this prove? As Jon Stewart's clip on last night's Daily Show said/sang: Welcome to club of adult American males with a camera and an internet account. If it is a picture of the congressman, it still doesn't prove that he sent it, which, again, is the relevant question. This is true EVEN IF a hacker stole the image originally from Mr. Weiner's harddrive somehow.
EITHER WAY, WHOSE COCK IS IN THE PICTURE IS IRRELEVANT TO THE PUBLIC'S INTEREST IN THE STORY. So, Mr. Weiner, if you really want this to go away and do it in a manner than stands up for progressive, post-sexual revolution values, then stand up for your own and America's privacy rights and OBJECT TO THE QUESTION AND THEIR RIGHT TO EVEN ASK IT, much less demand an answer from you. Call them prurient and perverse for daring to ask you that question. Because they are: They don't respect your rights, and they are only asking it so the prudes in the press and the public can possibly jeer you out of office--or at least reelection. Until there are allegations of illegality that implicate the public's right to know, then you have NO duty, moral or otherwise, to answer such a question. As the answer is irrelevant, it is your right to refuse to dignify it with ANY answer at all. Answering it only feeds a perverse interest by the public and the press. And the only thing it answers for that public and press, under these circumstances, is "Is this what Congressman Weiner's cock looks like??" Again, unless you are or planning to date him, the answer to that IS NOT YOUR BUSINESS, even if you are the press and the public. That doesn't change just because he's elected congressman and is a public official. What a public official does in his private life should not suddenly become public knowledge just because he won an election, illegal allegations excepted.
Rather than blaming the entire male sex for the way our species has evolved over the course of the last several hundred millenia, why don't try being a bit more productive by defending our values for a change. Try being outraged at any media outlet/personality who asks Rep. Weiner the question to which they--as of now--have no right to ask or have answered. Remind them that it is, as of now, NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS.