Is Sex A Taboo Topic In America?

June 9, 2011

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Your smartphone breaks.  You take it to the shop.  Do you care if the guy who fixes it has an addiction to lesbian porn as long as he fixes your phone?  You have the flu and go to the doctor.  Do you care if your doctor is having an affair on their spouse as long as they get you the appropriate treatment within the proper safety protocols?  I’m sure some of you will say you care, but I’d bet most of the people you say they would get upset about that actually would.  Think about it, if someone came up to you and said, “The guy who fixed your iPhone has gigabytes of woman-on-woman action on his home computer.”  The vast majority of people are going to say, “ummm … so?”

In that same way, I really don’t care that Anthony Weiner had inappropriate contact with women online.  I do care that he lied about it, though.  Had he come clean from the start, said that he used the internet for strange sexual purposes, he probably would have been ok.  I’m sure there would have been some outcry from Republicans.  We all know how they’re the moral bastions of politics – heck, they like marriage so much that the most prominent righties often do it two or three times. I think he’s a good politician, he seems to genuinely have the interests of his constituents in mind (being from NYC, he represents a large number of lower and lower-middle class folks), but at this point I just can’t get past that lying part.

When did America become the uptight prude of Western nations, anyway?  Was it the founding by the puritans?  Europeans laugh at us every time we make a huge deal over some political sex scandal, they practically EXPECT their leaders to have an affair or two while in office.  Heck, the leaders of France and Russia are married to supermodel class women, as far as looks go, and as far as I can tell are more popular for it.  Holding our leaders to some sort of moral standard that hasn’t evolved since slavery, smoking, bloodletting, and World Wars was in vogue just seems dumb.  We all have our unique perversions, even if we don’t admit it to ourselves or talk about it with others.  I honestly don’t care that Bill Clinton likes creative cigar use, he gave us some amazing years of prosperity and knocked a huge chunk off the country’s debt.

So … back to the lying thing.  Why is it ok for politicians to outright lie, but they have to be the modern equivalent of Beaver Cleaver’s parents when it comes to “adult” issues?  Ronald Reagan was involved with and lied about a secret deal that sent weapons to Iran (yes, THAT Iran) in return for money that was used to fund drug-selling rebels in South America.  We have politicians giving no-bid contracts to questionable companies and we care more about Anthony Weiner doing what at least 50% of all men have done.

Maybe a lot of people out there want to care about sex and personal lives, but that seems to be a lot more like the way they live in Afghanistan and Iran than here.  Well, we sold weapons to Iran to fund people that sell drugs to our youth, so maybe we do want a harder line on morals.

 

6 Comments (+add yours?)

  1. kosmo
    Jun 09, 2011 @ 10:50:03

    I agree that the more concerning aspect to me is the coverup. You stood in front of your constituents and lied – and you got busted.

    I’m curious what made the woman who received the image believe that it was actually from Weiner and not a hacker? If I received an x-rated image from the account of someone I was following on Twitter, I’d assume someone hacked their account, delete the image, and forget about it.

    Reply

  2. The Angry Squirrel
    Jun 09, 2011 @ 14:32:50

    I am on the boat with you about the lying and cover up aspect as well. Had Rep Weiner came out originally and confessed I honestly would have said okay so what? Let’s move onto something of actual importance. I don’t think he should resign though still. As it will be up tho his district to decide that in the end. Plus there is already a Senator that lied and cheated and paid for sex with a prostitute that the pubes have not ever cried out for to resign. Hell even Speaker Orange Glo was involved in trying to cover up a Congressman that wanted to do bad things to those poor young pages. I think Wiener is roasted on his chances of being mayor of NYC now but unless he does resign he will still be there unless he has a strong primary challenger or they redistrict him out since they have to do that somewhere still anyways. However if the ethics committe is more of a Kangaroo court and tgey expel him then they better start expelling a whole bunch more of themselves becuse there are plenty more that have lied about and done worse. Also I think someone should question Brietbart on his sexual preference because he sure does seem enamored by Weiner’s weiner wanting to show it off from his phone and talking about it constantly still.

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  3. Squeaky
    Jun 09, 2011 @ 15:07:53

    Allow me to shock you Zarberg. I personally don’t care if he cheated on his wife or not. Obviously, if you treat the one you love that way I may not trust you, but cheating doesn’t mean he can’t do his job. I’m 100% with you on the lying. I do not tolerate being lied to.

    I asked two guys that I work with for their opinions. Both are conservative but have a few Libertarian tendancies. When asked what they thought of Weiner cheating they both thought he was stupid for cheating but both said it didn’t impact his job as a congressman. Both thought it was unforgivable that he lied though.

    So let’s talk about cheating. Whether it be sexting, having a mistress in South America, placing cigars in the old love ducts or whatever…does it mean someone shouldn’t be president, congressman, etc?

    Everyone I spoke to today is under 50 but all of them (including yours truly) had a pretty similar opinion. The cheater, the sexter, etc is a bad husband/wife but that doesn’t necessarily directly impact their work. That being said, if they’re lying to their spouse (the one they’re supposed to love) that certainly could bring their honesty and trustworthiness into question.

    If the individual is stupid enough to lie to the public about anything, then that eliminates any credibility they had. It also makes them ineffective to their constituents.

    Granted, the older crowd will completely frown on anyone lacking sexual morality. I’m not saying I condone it and I would never recommend it (I’m old fashioned and want to honor the sanctity of my marriage). But I have friends that have gone down that path and I understand the dilemma that they are facing once they have been caught.

    What I don’t understand is why people lie about this when they have obviously been caught. Your hand is right there in the cookie jar so don’t be an idiot and make things worse. Well guess what….they do! They do it on the stand even when they are lawyers and should definitely know better. I can not defend that idiocy and will never condone it. As an elected official you have your word to give your constituents and not much more. As a police officer working in the legal system I knew that if I didn’t have credibility I was no good to the people of the city of Lincoln. As an elected official to the city of New York, State of New York or Country of United States—-I see the situation the same. You’re completely ineffective if no one can trust your word.

    I think most people in our generation will agree with us Zarberg. I really don’t see this as a liberal vs conservative issue. That is likely why we’re hearing more moaning and groaning from the left side of the aisle when we discuss the shaking Weiner. (pun intended)

    I wish Britney Spears would start sexting with me!

    Squeaky…

    Reply

  4. Zarberg
    Jun 09, 2011 @ 18:05:30

    Wow … I got Squeaky to agree with me!

    Something that came up last night that I had completely forgotten about: The in-your-face, massive, bloated hypocrisy from the majority of Republicans on this issue: David Vitter ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Vitter ) did, arguably, worse things than Weiner, all while having been a co-signer of the DoMA. He not only lied to cover it up, he broke the law (prostitution is only legal in 1 state), and he did it after campaigning on being a moral authority.

    Yet very few (if any) Republicans demanded he resign, and none are bringing this up in light of Rep. Weiner.

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  5. The Angry Squirrel
    Jun 09, 2011 @ 18:44:18

    My money is on Weiner being an Independent pretty soon for the rest of this term and then the in my opinion wrong decision to make his district one that is chosen to be dropped. Then seeing him running as an independent in the new district that his goes into.

    Reply

  6. Rachel Grosso
    Sep 25, 2011 @ 12:07:42

    I enjoyed this article so much that I quoted you in a history essay. I appreciate your individual thinking and realization of your own morals. Excellent piece of writing, so please continue to critique in an educated fashion.

    Reply

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