Atomic Nerds

One of my long-time guilty pleasures is Dan Savage’s sex-and-love column in The Stranger; over time he’s been steadily morphing from a usually compassionate and often clever advice columnist into something of an insufferable asshat so there has been more guilt and less pleasure in that, but catching up with his column still yields enough entertainment to be a valid option when I’m bored. Some years back he managed to, more or less successfully, make an obnoxious right-wing Senator’s name synonymous with an unpleasant side effect of a sexual act, and ever since this juvenile but somewhat funny trick fans have been writing in trying to get him to do similar things to other politicians they dislike, with rather less success. Only funny/relevant once, really.

Predictably, in his most recent column, Christine O’Donnell is coming up for the same treatment. The reader proposal, under a cutesy acronym that distills to HATEFUCK, is to declare a national “masturbate to Christine O’Donnell day”. Dan cheerfully agrees.

Now, I don’t actually give a good goddamn about Christine O’Donnell. I think it’s nice that an overall anti-incumbent, anti “same suit different day” mood is prevailing and that it’s nice that made it possible for her to win a primary. She’s to the right of me and doesn’t seem to be half as crazy as the instant and predictable caricatures of her make out, but I doubt I agree with her about a great deal and frankly don’t care as I’ve managed to largely kick political junkie-ism as a vice. However, two things make this worth comment to me.

1. Holy fucking Christ is this creepy and misogynist! It’s the same old profoundly fucked up instant sexualization and humiliation of women who are recognized as being politically off the reservation. HATEFUCK’s acronym says it all; I highly doubt Christine O’Donnell will actually be sexually assaulted, but as a symbolic gesture it’s kind of difficult for it not to come off as vaguely threatening as well as gross. The whole Santorum/anal sex thing was silly and gross, but it doesn’t approach “I hate you and I’m aroused by you, take this” in its subtext. Dan never had much in the way of feminist cred, but that he apparently doesn’t see or understand that there’s anything genuinely disturbing as opposed to silly and irreverent about this pretty much says it all.

2. Okay, look, liberals, I’ve got some news for you; conservatives have and enjoy sex, including masturbation and also including a very long list of things you seem to think only you have thought of. Exposing them to sex isn’t fatal to them or disturbing or world-expanding or paradigm-shifting, it’s just rude and annoying. Yeah, some of them have some rather restrictive and obnoxious ideas about sex, and I’m right there with you on opposing that, but even very kinky and non-straight sex isn’t fucking revolutionary to them and they’re likely having as much sex if not more as you are, just within a relationship frame they DO support. Or, for that matter, not; yes, some of them are closeted, but forcibly outing them and using that to destroy careers doesn’t so much prove their hypocrisy (that was trivially obvious but likely they still think what they’re doing is wrong, they just can’t resist) as it proves you’re pleased to use someone’s sexuality as a weapon against them. Two hypocrites for the price of one.

Where was I? Ah yes. I honestly don’t understand what anyone who thinks stunts like these are somehow political protest thinks they’ll accomplish. I’m not all that right wing, but I’m far enough along that axis that I can see from the eyes of someone who likes Santorum or O’Donnell, and I know exactly what it looks like from there: “these people are tasteless idiots that think the entire world revolves around their genitals”. Not even so far as “that’s outrageous”, because it really isn’t; it’s just stupid and predictable as hell in all the worst ways.

Posted current events, my furious genitals, Ranting |