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I can't really say how I came to be reading a recent journal article on "discourses between physical, legal and linguistic frameworks impacting on the New Zealand public toilet." As it turns out, the culture surrounding illegal sex in New Zealand's public bathrooms—known as "bogs"—is full of terrific linguistic subterfuge. Here's a work-safe bit of "bogspeak" from midcentury:
A lockable door was known as a brandy latch, but the door itself was called a trade curtain. A nanti bog was one that was ineffective for cruising. Nochy and sparkle bogs described public toilets that were cruised at night or in the daylight respectively. A bog that had its lights broken to provide some security of darkness at night was called a nochy bog.
"Sparkle bog" sounds like it ought to be the name of a literary magazine. Bogspeak has since evolved into textese (n2 str8 act blks), and the Internet has encouraged the emergence of a written language alongside the older oral locutions.
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John Edwards is reminding me more and more of poor Henry Cisneros, who was on his way to becoming the Latino Obama before he cheated on his saintly wife, Mary Alice, while she was pregnant with their third child, a son born with no spleen and a malformed heart and stomach. Bill Clinton asked Cisneros to serve as his housing secretary anyway, a few years later, and by then, the affair was such old news that it never even came up during his confirmation hearings. Yet in the course of his background check for the cabinet post, Cisneros lied to the FBI—not about whether he was supporting his former mistress, but about the amount he paid her—and as a result, was subjected to a four-year investigation by a special prosecutor, a probe that cost taxpayers $9 million. Heck of a public servant, Henry, so big-hearted and capable; watching him work a crowd in San Antonio back in the day, you'd have sworn you were looking at the future. But at some point after he stopped paying Linda Medlar, she started taping their phone calls, and triggered the investigation. When the judge who presided over his trial finally asked Cisneros why he'd lied in the first place, he explained that while he wasn't positive himself about the amount he'd paid Medlar, he was positive he didn't want his wife to know how high that figure was. He pled guilty to a misdemeanor, and when he left public life, we all lost out. So, what's the relevance?
First, it's that scary as we wives can be, federal investigators are scarier, and if any of the $15,000 a month that's being paid to Edwards' ex-girlfriend came from campaign funds, I cannot overemphasize how seldom fudging the facts with the Feds works out. Second, what do Monica Lewinsky, Linda Medlar, and Rielle Hunter have in common? All were employees, and world-class blabbermouths. (You never really hear about the guys who get involved with the quiet types, do you?) It's silly to say we don't care if politicians fool around as long as they don't lie about it; how is that supposed to work? (Though if we replaced those one-minute morning speeches they give in Congress with a daily adultery roll call, CSPAN would definitely do some box office.) And until we figure it out, we're stuck pretending these people are perfect and then, when we find out otherwise, pretending we're surprised.
As it is, we're so perplexed about how to treat this stuff I can't even tell what this first-person Newsweek piece is trying to say. In it, reporter Jonathan Darman tells about his own adventures with Rielle Hunter, a woman so fascinating that after meeting her on a trip to Iowa with Edwards in 2006, Darman spends weeks trying to track her down and months getting to know her. After concluding she's an unreliable source, he keeps in touch anyway: "I continued to see her. ... I liked Rielle'' and "let her do my astrological chart.'' From the way he describes their boozy first lunch, I can't tell if he suspected she and Edwards were carrying on or not: Is the tone confessional because he missed the story, because he had the story and sat on it, or because he fell for the "I can tell you're an old soul'' hoodoo himself? (The last guy I knew who talked like that wound up blowing town with the life savings of several women who each thought they were going to marry him and start an ashram.) Hunter told Darman that in this incarnation, she wanted to help Edwards become a transformational figure on a par with Gandhi or MLK; better luck next time?
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The good news is, Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow did not hold a news conference to say she was sticking by her hubby of five years after he confessed to police that he'd been with a prostitute. On the contrary, after the news came out, Stabenow didn't show up at a previously schedule press availability; instead, she put out a compact, two-sentence statement calling her mate's behavior "very disturbing and serious.''
The bad news, beyond the obvious: The hooker was arrested, but the john wasn't? What kind of nonsense is that, that he gets off with only a ticket for driving with a suspended license? Post-9/11, cops are seriously staking out the hotel rooms of prostitutes-in-training? And post-this latest spate of sex scandals, readers still see this sort of story in a partisan light? Most shocking to me were the comments appended to the story in today's Detroit Free Press -- from Democrats saying hey, at least he's not a toe-tapper like that Republican hypocrite Larry Craig. And from Republicans and even some Obama supporters laughing it up that this somehow shows the moral superiority of their team: "Obama is getting more and more supers to rally behind him,'' one poster said. "But the ones Billary have sewn up are the adulterers and their spouses.'' Jeez, can't we at least admit that human failings are bipartisan? Though the Free Press story notes portentously that Hillary Clinton once attended a fundraiser for the former employer of this doofus, I don't see how voters could possibly conclude that this has anything to do with anything.
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Thank you, Ellen. I remember sitting in front of the television in 1998, during the first few days of the Lewinsky scandal, listening to television commentators all but demand Clinton's resignation, and shivering, and saying to my husband, "Wait a minute! This is a coup d'état!" I wasn't the only one. Press critics ranging from the shrill (Michael Moore) to the reasonably steady (Todd Gitlin) were obviously thinking the same thing, because they soon published articles saying it, or saying that it had been a near-coup-d'état Back then it was easy to see who was behind the circulation of the information and innuendo that wound up fueling an impeachment. The Lewinsky scandal was straightforwardly partisan. It was the extreme right that dug up the dirt and the Republicans who used it for political ends.
This time around, it all happened so fast we still don't understand what led to Spitzer's downfall, other than his own hypocrisy and the salacious detail included in the criminal complaint. (One federal prosecutor I know—who dismisses all conspiracy theories out of hand—nonetheless says that the level of detail in the complaint went far beyond what was strictly necessary or germane to bringing the case, and speculates that its authors were at the very least looking for some serious publicity, even before Client 9 was identified.) But I found myself in front of the television anyway, saying the same thing. Yes, Spitzer committed a crime, but personally, I still don't understand why it's a crime. (Read my post about Martha Nussbaum if you want to know why I think that. Better yet, read
her article and the longer law-review article on prostitiution linked to it.) And what about the shocking invasion of Spitzer's privacy? Isn't there anything wrong with that? Does being a political figure automatically strip you of the obvious civil protections? Once it became clear that he wasn't moving money around for nefarious political purposes, oughtn't some form of restraint kicked in? Did his purported crime deserve the aggressive prosecuting it received? And as Martha Nussbaum asked, don't his estimable efforts over the years get him any credit? Or do his sexual pecadillos mean we should just kick this dedicated public servant aside like so much trash?
And how about the fuss the media are making about Paterson's affairs? Check out today's
Times: The story is spiralling way out of Paterson's control. Are we going to throw him out of office, too? If this raging fire isn't what Philip Roth once called "sexual McCarthyism," I don't know what is.
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I watched Ben Stein’s commentary on CBS News Sunday Morning this past weekend, and I’m troubled.
Have I been blinded by the salacious nature of the Spitzer story and am I not focusing on the important issues here? Have I been too seduced by the sex and the prostitute?
Stein says, “Something sinister is happening here and it scares me.” He says, “Men hire prostitutes by the thousands, maybe tens of thousands every day.” What is he suggesting? If everybody is doing it, that makes it OK? Men also rape, beat, and kill children and women and other men every day. Should we just look the other way because “everybody’s doing it!”?
And yet, I find myself wondering how exactly, aside from the illegal nature of it, paying for the services of a prostitute is different from paying for the services of a hairstylist or a massage therapist (the kind without the “happy ending”)? I think there is a difference, though I’m not sure how to articulate what that difference is. To hire a prostitute is to reduce a woman to her anatomy, I think, to reduce her to her sexual function in the same way that calling a woman a c-word is to reduce her to her anatomy or calling a man a d-word. To not want to deal with the whole person is to do violence to this person. Then again, when I go for a haircut, am I not just reducing my hairstylist to his haircutting function? I’m not sure how to answer this. It feels like there is some sense of violation and domination about going to a prostitute that does not exist when going for a haircut or a massage.
Stein says, “Spitzer was elected by an immense majority in New York.” This is true. And “Now he’s out of a job, and a man the voters didn’t vote for as governor is going to be governor.” An acquaintance this weekend reiterated this sentiment: “Paterson may be the best governor in the world, but he’s not the guy I voted for.” I don’t know if I agree with this. When you vote for a governor, are you not voting for the lieutenant governor too, in the case that the governor cannot perform his duties? I think it is the “cannot perform his duties” that is the issue here. Can the governor not perform his duties because he hired prostitutes?
While Stein acknowledges that what Spitzer did is a crime, he says, it’s “not a political crime, not treason, not terrorism.” He says, “Having elected officials kicked out of office by appointed officials is a very dicey proposition.” He suggests that because men are usually not punished at all for hiring prostitutes, or not severely punished, that Spitzer’s punishment did not fit the crime.
Last week, I felt that it would be hard for the people that Spitzer has to meet with and work with to look him in the eye knowing the details of his sex life. And this to me was enough reason for him to step down. How could he be an effective governor now that we’ve seen the man behind the curtain? In the last weekend, my feelings about that have softened some. We seem to have gotten over the details of Bill Clinton’s sex life being on display. And I sense that with the passage of time, feelings about the Spitzer scandal will lessen, too.
Was Spitzer’s departure too hasty? Or is his crime enough of a crime?
My acquaintance also expressed disgust that while the Bush administration commits crime after crime, this is what we are focused on. That I completely agree with.
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And a new record, isn't it, for time elapsed between the swearing in and the swearing at? That's quick work, when right under the New York Times headline "New Governor for New York, Pledging Unity" is this second offering: "Patersons Acknowledge Extramarital Affairs.'' Only as these his-and-hers relationships were over years ago, this is relevant how? No laws were broken that I can see, except for the one about taking your wife and your girlfriend to the very same hotel. And I've stayed in worse, but the Days Inn? I see here where you can't have more than two guests in a room with only one bed, though—which might or might not have ruled out a stay by the McGreeveys. (Whatever happened, it's sure odd that New Jersey's former first lady sees the allegations that she and the ex-governor had threesomes with his young driver as an attempt to upstage her. "He cannot stand it,'' Dina McGreevey said of her ex, "when I am receiving attention in the media rather than him.'' Could anybody be that starved for attention? OK, yes. But wouldn't these revelations be problematic in his new line of work as an aspiring Episcopal priest?) Now that John and Abigail Adams, there was a lovely couple.
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In regard to Eliot Spitzer, I keep thinking about Bill Clinton and Halle Berry's ex-husband, and I'm wondering which actions are forgivable/excusable and which are not. If someone is a sex addict, as Halle Berry's ex-husband supposedly is, we treat it as a medical problem and we say it is not their fault.
I am more inclined to forgive Bill Clinton for the Monica Lewinsky thing than I am to forgive Eliot Spitzer, and I'm trying to figure out why. With Bill Clinton, here was this cute flirty young woman who was thrown in his path, who threw herself in his path, who came onto him and went after him and god knows that women are his weakness, and so, well, he gave in to his weakness. Of course, this was many years ago, so maybe I am forgetting some of the facts. But to me, Bill's problem is that he likes women too much. (I should clarify that when I say "forgive," I mean as a constituent, not as a wife. As a wife, I would be out of there faster than you could say ... well, just about anything.)
Whereas what Spitzer did feels more like an act of misogyny. Again, I am trying to figure out why. I think I can understand it more for a man to say, "I met this woman, I thought she was cute, I developed a crush on her." But Spitzer went straight to the brothel. This was demeaning to himself, to his wife, to his daughters, and to the working girls, and to women everywhere, not to mention to the people he is supposed to govern and represent. Maybe I'm not being fair. I'm trying to figure it out.
What Spitzer did feels, to me, like a hostile act of anger. What Clinton did feels like an act of weakness. But again, maybe the years have softened my feelings about the Lewinsky affair.
Also, I don't feel like every man who goes to a prostitute is a misogynist. There are men who actually cannot get laid in any other way and so really do go simply for the female "companionship." I am less inclined to judge them for this.
Nonetheless, Spitzer has problems, which is what led him to behave this way. Maybe his problem isn't as serious as sex addiction but a "lesser "dysfunction or pathology. How much do we hold him accountable for it, and how much do we forgive because he needs help?
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Seconding Ellen: Yes, it's striking, isn't it, how many women have been mortified and collaterally damaged by this scandal. The wife. The daughters. Vacuous Ashley (maybe). Clearly, whatever else it is, prostitution is not a victimless crime. Or not in this case. Victims, here, as far as the eye can see. You do feel for the daughters, horribly, who doubtless don't want to venture outside now on even the simplest errand. As for raising them: "Daddy made a mistake, which he regrets and which we all can learn from" probably won't cut it here, will it? Nor "I'm sorry," either. He' d need something stronger and more persuasive--the claim of sex addiction, maybe? Over which he had no control? For which he will be treated? And doubtless they do love him, his daughters, which makes it all the more awful. Ruth Marcus made that point on the Diane Rehm Show this morning about Silda Spitzer: One reason she may have been out there, by his side, is that in addition to all the other feelings she may be feeling, she may well love him.
I am not so sure about the victimhood of Ashley. I had dinner recently with a friend who also came from a broken home, who had an abusive stepfather, who lived for a while in a foster home. She did not become a prostitute. She became a scientist and put it behind her.
Still, really at this point I feel sorry for all of them.
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I want to talk about Spitzer's daughters. What happens to them now? I'm hoping Silda will file for divorce as early as humanly possible. But the daughters, who I think are 14, 16, and 18—the oldest a mere four years younger than the whore whom daddy was banging.
All I can imagine is this: If I were one of them and my father ever tried to say anything at all parental to me (Where are you going? With whom? When are you coming home? You can't wear that; it's too provocative), it would be all I could do not to shoot back: What's that you say, whore-monger?
How do you raise a teenage daughter after being caught up in such a thing?
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It does make one wonder, what is "not safe" to a person who goes to hotels and has sex with strangers for money? I assumed "Kristen" was talking about not using a condom or inserting things into places that would cause physical damage, but perhaps I'm just old-fashioned and have a Pretty Woman idea about what the world of prostitution is really like.
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Well, all gerbils aside, there are several thorny issues here.
A male Slate contributor, who asked to remain nameless, wanted XX Factor to address whether it’s worse if your husband cheats with a prostitute or a nonprostitute.
I’m not sure that question really gets to the point. The real point, I think, is that people hate hypocrisy. Or rather, we treat it like shit and masturbation and homelessness—it’s OK that it exists, we just don’t want to have to look at it. So I’m not sure this Spitzer thing is about sex or cheating or prostitution or spending money or even about breaking the law, so much as it is about lying, about presenting one image of yourself to the public (crime-fighting avenger!) while doing something very different in private (partaking in the very crimes one is fighting). In fact, Meghan, I think that Spitzer did not become interested in prostitutes because he was prosecuting sex rings, I think he prosecuted sex rings because he was interested in prostitutes.
It’s like a pedophile who becomes a priest because he thinks it will help him stop.
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Ellen, you hit the nail on the head, like any good therapist ought to. Clearly, Spitzer liked hiring prostitutes, for whatever reason. Maybe it was that he couldn't find a sex partner who'd do what he wanted to do, or maybe it was that he liked the power dynamic of paying for sex. We won't really ever know. But this gets at the fundamental thing about sex that has been left out of a lot of the analysis of Spitzergate: Sex is basically irrational. What people need and want has nothing to do with what they think they should want or need. And how they behave in the bedroom has, for the most part, not all that much with how they would behave elsewhere in the world, if we're going to trust sex surveys. In other words, I don't buy that sex complies with any broken-window theory of moral probity: It seems to me sketchy behavior in the bedroom doesn't necessarily correlate to deeper corruption in the courtroom or the city hall.
Which raises a question about the idea that public servants should be held to a higher standard. That idea makes sense to me when it comes to things like paying nannies' Social Security tax or speeding. But isn't sex a different kind of realm? Spitzer's case is complicated by the hypocrisies inherent in his prosecution of a prostitute ring. But what if it weren't? Would that change how we feel? Is visiting a prostitute really so ethically wrong that he should never be able to perform public service again? Like Judith, I tend to think no.
Meanwhile: Ihe ironist in me has been wondering if it was actually prosecuting the sex ring that made Spitzer want to visit high-end prostitutes in the first place ... I'm sure that's not the case, but it'd be a fun premise for a novel about political scandal.