Sex, Sex, Sex

Americans are preoccupied with sex.  And not in a good way.  We don’t celebrate our sexuality, more often we question it, pretend to try to hide it, exploit it, deny it, use it as a weapon, or, blame it on somebody else.  We are never horny, “somebody else” holds the power to unleash our passions, not us.  It’s never our fault we’re turned on by whatever turns us on; if it wasn’t for that guy, girl, melody, scent, whatever, hell, we’d never get sexually excited at all.  So, how come every commercial, every movie, every song, every news story, somehow, no matter what it claims to be about, comes back to sex?  And, just how often are we skillfully manipulated against our interests because of our collective immaturity?

The news stories about Michael Jackson’s passing invariably mention child molestation.  Why?  The man has 3 children, even if they’re the products of artificial insemination, he had to indulge in some sort of sexual activity to achieve fatherhood, even if they attached a milking machine to his member.  He was acquitted of all molestation charges brought against him that weren’t settled, not all of which were really the result of outrage and anger on behalf of the aggrieved parents, but by the determination of the state to convince those parents to file after Michael claimed to see no problem with allowing kids to share his bed.  Where are all the shotgun-wielding dads?  The screaming, hysterical moms frantically dialing 9-1-1?  Who would want to protect the image of a pervert who was actually molesting their kid?  But no, for some reason, we’re more comfortable with the image of him as a pedophile than of a lonely, confused guy with a porn addiction, something that came out (so to speak) at trial.  Even the parents testifying against him said they took their kids back to the ranch after they became suspicious, and the guy who claimed to witness abuse didn’t freak out and so much as yell at him to stop.  Can you really imagine such a thing?  The only way it makes sense is if he really was a rather androgynous, sexually confused weirdo who saw nothing wrong with sleeping with kids as long as you don’t touch them.  Otherwise, our attitude about his behavior says much more about us than it does about him.  After all, he was a song and dance man who kids, and their parents, still love.  And, where there’s smoke, there’s not always fire.  Sometimes all you find is a prop guy with dry ice and a fan.

Farrah Fawcett succumbed to anal cancer, and the nature of the disease gets more titillating speculation under the guise of serious journalism than does advice on prevention, diagnosis and treatment.   The “jiggle factor” of her body gets more play than the body of her work, which is only mentioned to offset the guilt associated with the obsession with her “T & A.”  She was the “hot chick” on Charlie’s Angels with the blockbuster pinup poster young boys “came” of age to, and, oh, by the way, she also starred in The Burning Bed, a movie about a subject that otherwise would likely never come up.  Who wants to talk about a desperate woman’s revenge on her abuser when we can talk about the actress who portrayed her in terms of her hair, boobs and smile?

An article in the New York Times a few months ago spent a lot of ink on the Obamas’ “marriage,” but a cursory perusal revealed much more preoccupation with their imagined sex life and the fantasies of the author and her commenters.  Eeeeeyyyuuucccckkkk!  The only screwing being done by Obama that interests me is metaphorical, and involves the various factions of the country receiving the unwelcome intrusion.

A rash of stories have recently come out about politicians engaging in affairs outside their marriages, and we demand details, as if their indiscretions somehow negatively impact their work.  Privacies are invaded, subjecting the women they’re involved with, both in and out of their marriage, to undue scrutiny and judgment.  Who’s hacking email accounts, snooping in their trash, trailing them from place to place, questioning their acquaintances, and dropping dimes to the press with their findings?  Why do we even care?

In the case of GOP Governor Grope-gate, both John Ensign and Mark Sanford had affairs that curiously came to light.  Neither man was caught with a mistress, and, in the case of Sanford, his jilted wife, like his staff, was covering for him.   No emergency arose that demanded his attention, highlighting his absence, yet, for some reason, news began to filter, then, overtake the news cycle, that he was “missing.”  Ensign’s shenanigans came out because he told on himself.  Supposedly he was being blackmailed by his mistress’ husband, or something.  But, who, or what, pushed him to publicly confess?  Could our national squeamishnesh about all things sexual be being xploited to eliminate potential presidential contenders, and rivals to our current holier-than-everybody Moralist-In-Chief?

Makes you wonder.  Why else would we still care about John Edwards’ love child?  Why did we care in the first place?  The guy was out of contention last year when the story broke, exposing his wife, her children, his mistress, and her child to all sorts of intrusive speculation.  Why?  Do we really care?  And, if so, why do we really care?  Is it mere coincidence that after the initial hoopla was allowed to die down, Edwards was goaded into publicly admitting that he still held political aspirations, only to be gobsmacked in the face with the revelations about an extramarital  “sex tape?”  Guess that pretty effectively cancels the John Edwards Rehabilitation and 2012 Exploratory Tour once and for all.

Then there’s all the handwringing about “the poor wives.”  “Why do they stay,” people wail.  What’s it to you?  Why is every woman from Hillary Clinton to Silda Spitzer to Dina Matos McGreevey, the New Jersey governor’s wife whose husband admitted to a homosexual affair, denigrated for publicly supporting her husband and trying to preserve her marriage?  For one thing, given the seemingly overwhelming pervasiveness of the problem, one could make the case that if they, and millions of women like them, didn’t, there’d probably only be two or three viable marriages left in the country, maybe the entire flipping world.  And, if your objection is strictly Biblical, why aren’t you jumping up and down advocating for the Biblical answer to the question of adultery and fornication?  Where are the rock wielding masses dedicated to doing God’s work?  What’s your objection to those that do?

Which brings me to the whole issue of LGBT rights.  The only reason we don’t have them is because nosy-assed people don’t like the way we screw.  That’s the only thing gay people do differently than straight ones, so again, what’s it to you?  Why should so many people work so hard to bring all the all-too-compliant forces of the government to bear on people who express themselves different sexually?  Why do they work so hard to block people from loving each other?  Michael Rowe in HuffPo, says that the gay community’s continued support is similar to that of anyone suffering from “battered spouse syndrome.”  Of course, Rowe says “battered wife,” but, like most men, he simply can’t seem to wrap his head around battered men, or battered gays and Lesbians.  However, the point he makes is that members of the LGBT community who continue to attend Democratic Party fundraisers and write checks, even after the many betrayals of the candidate they worked so hard to elect, is similar to the behavior of anybody else in an unhealthy intimate relationship.  While that may be true, I’d like to see the donor/attendance list of the Joe Biden hosted affair to which Rowe refers, to make sure that who the Obacrats said gave what were really gay party loyalists.  After all, the best way to counter a negative is to claim it as a positive, even if you have to write the checks yourself and fill the seats with your own “volunteered” staffers.

I wouldn’t put much of anything past Axelrove’s AstroTurf and Obaganda Army, especially when it comes to serving his undercover socially conservative hypocrite, and Fundamentalist Faith Pimp.  The Obamessiah is both an exploitative opportunist, and a dedicated moralist with daddy issues, thoroughly convinced that all of what ails us as a global society, is a failure of commitment to proper religious teaching.  The sanctity of “one man, one woman” marriage, and all that entails, is a firmly held belief, and tolerance of any alternative is simply a campaign promise written on used toilet paper, nothing that was ever intended to be kept.  No wonder people want their campaign money back.

Personally, I think it’s time we grew up and stopped letting the Manipulators of Pubic Opinion maneuver us into whatever intercourse-ready position they prefer, by poking and prodding at the tender places where we keep our hang-ups.  “I like that guy.”  “But, but, but, you know…he fools around!’  “Noooooo!  Well, I like that girl.”  “What?  Don’t you know she’s got a disease you only get from fooling around?”  “Gee, no, I didn’t.  Well, hey, I really like that guy, he sings good.”  “Are you freaking kidding me?  He does kids!”  “You sure?”  “No, but…still, would you take your kid to his church?”  In most cases we should mind our own damned business and let other people mind theirs, and live their lives as they see fit.  In cases where innocents are harmed, we should raise holy hell until answers are given, charges are proven, guilty parties are punished, and victims are made whole, or at least as close to whole as we can get them.  As far as leaders and politicians are concerned, let’s go back to the old ways that the Obamites have so successfully adopted for themselves, where indiscretions are rumored, but not examined.  You know, the days when Jackie Kennedy, Mamie Eisenhower, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Coretta Scott King could survive their marriages as strong, unbowed women.

But, fat chance of that happening.  When even journalists, like Salon’s Mary Roach, charged with exploring healthy sexuality are as uncomfortably self-conscious as she is in the following video in discussing the subject, it’ll be a cold day before we get anything approaching unbiased information about anything sexual.  Or, get any information about anything that isn’t made sexy.  And, until we do grow up, unscrupulous public relations puppeteers will continue to be able to push our buttons, pull our strings, and make us dance to whatever tune they want to play.