Weiner Roast 2

Jay Leno:

This is why Twitter exists. Members of Congress can now send you pictures of their penises electronically. Remember the old days of Senator Larry Craig when you had to get in your car, drive to the airport, find the airport bathroom, try to figure out which stall he’s in, knock on the door…Now they send it right to your house.

I recently listened to this episode of the Diane Rehm show, in which a panel of Beltway insiders discussed Congressman Weiner’s twits. (You can listen or read the transcript at the link.)

There wasn’t much new in the discussion. The Congressman has brought so much dumb to the table that one of the panelists reported using his behavior as a tool to teach the family teenagers that the internet is, indeed, a public place.

What most struck me, though, was the smug sanctimonious self-righteousness of the panel as it was shocked! shocked! SHOCKED! at someone’s doing something stupid while under the influence of male hotness delusion syndrome and at his attempts to deny it.

In America, parents can’t talk with their kids about sex; hell, they can’t even admit to it.

It is not surprising that someone would have difficulty talking to a howling pack of press jackals.

Clearly, none of the panel had ever succumbed to the temptation to do something stupid while under the influence of hormones or attempted to deny it when caught out.

Americans’ attitudes towards all things sexual are seriously bent, a sewer of fantasies in an uptight suit, glorifying hyper-sexual imagery, vicariously celebrating celebutards and their sex tapes, snickering at snookis, while quivering in fear and fiction and denial when confronting actual sexuality in any form. (See the note below.)

Congressman Weiner was stupid. If he were a run-of-the-mill employee in private industry or civil service, he likely would have been disciplined, possibly fired, by now. Indeed, by the time this posts, he may well be gone.

This does not make the public circus any less stupid.

Daniel Denvir addressed thia at the Guardian. An excerpt:

The reaction to Weiner’s misbehaviour is predictably lame. Older America carries on: one people by day, another nation entirely by the computer’s soft glow – while young people immortalise their crotches far beyond the walls of high school restrooms. The media could better spending (sic) its time unravelling this tangled sex-knot of mass repression and compulsory exhibitionism.

Asides:

(This is the blue plate special; it comes with two asides)

In a tangentially related article, Suzanne Moore points out what’s behind the hyper-sexual imagery I mentioned above.

It’s not libido; it’s marketing, marketing to and via libido. Sex sells, even as it is illegal to sell sex:

The awkward encounter between the right and feminism is premised on this daft word, sexualisation. So let’s call it as it is. We are talking really about commercialisation.

Also, this “I’m going to rehab now” is no more than today’s version of “I must have been possessed”–blame-shifting.

Except possibly in the case of psychopaths, “sex addiction” has become a synonym for “getting away with bad behavior just because I can.” The beneficiaries of a diagnosis of “sex addiction” are “sex addiction therapists.”

The Note Below:

I have nothing against sexual imagery.

Indeed, I quite appreciate sexual imagery.

Just don’t pretend it’s something else, like a swimsuit review, when it is clearly what it is.

I do have something against willful ignorance salted with crocodile tears.