The one about the Weiner

Like everyone else with a functioning limbic system, I am sick of hearing and talking about Anthony Weiner. But this is one of those controversies where so many people seem to be willfully missing important points, and before you know it, the Dow’s back in the crapper and planes are falling out of the sky while we’re all yelling at each other about a randy congressman who sent penis pics to near-strangers. It’s stupid. But I am going to contribute to the noise because I need to get this out of me so the toxicity of even having to think about this stupidity does not eventually give me cancer.

I’m glad he’s resigning. I hope this means all the news people will stop saying his name and we can move on now. I think it really, really sucks for the Democrats to lose him because he was an incisive, funny, politically whip-smart pain in the ass to the Republicans. The party needed someone like him because the rest of them, by and large, seem to be able to engage the public about as easily as rotten carp. But you know what? He’s not my ally anymore. He did something exceedingly stupid, he lied about it, he got caught, he needs to go.

Some people keep bringing up other Great Mean in History and pointing to their unsavory personal lives as proof that what Weiner does in his personal life has no bearing on his life as a politician. Saying Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King Jr. were dogs with the ladies is a stupid argument. You mean to tell me that American men were freer to womanize without consequence decades and decades ago? When women couldn’t vote or own property or, later, when women were fighting for their civil rights to be recognized as full people and not just homemakerbots and babyfactories? You mean there were men of power who took advantage of their privileged station in life to fuck (and fuck over) whoever they wanted without having to answer for it? Next thing you are going to tell me is that toasters aren’t powered by wishes. Well then, let’s just all agree that since men once upon a time could point their penises at things and declare “WANT!” to a backdrop of trumpet blasts and rainbows, we might ought to keep it that way, or there might not ever be another Great Man In History ever again!

Horse shit.

On that note, the Bill Motherfucking Clinton argument needs to go on and die a stabbed death. “Bill Clinton actually had sex with someone who wasn’t his wife and he didn’t step down!” Believe it or not, Dems with amnesia, there WERE people on your side saying that Clinton should step down. Clinton abused his power in egregious ways and then lied about it (just like some of those other presidents Dems love to villify). He should not be awarded sainthood, he is not the best president ever, and conveniently forgetting about or glossing over his fuckups does not make them disappear. Letting Weiner slide because Bill Clinton lowered the personal-morality bar is a dumb thing to do.

Saying “so and so did a much worse thing and kept his job!” is a non-starter. If we continue to set the pace of the present and future based on how much we let people in the past get away with stupid, egregious fuckups, we are heading for trouble. How does that give us any incentive to evolve toward something greater, to strive to be better tomorrow than we were today? Isn’t that the chief charm of progressivism — to move forward, make progress?

Oh, and here’s something to think about: The fact that we consider abusing power in order to get sex a much less serious issue than abusing power in order to get money says something about how we value the human body and human dignity, doesn’t it?

There is a bit of “boys will be boys” attitude floating among Weiner’s defenders. Again, who’s the wacky man-hater in this scenario? Here’s that bitchy man-hating feminist, who wants all people — especially our supposed leaders — to aspire to be better people than the average flailing dumbass with his dick out on ChatRoulette. And then here are people defending Weiner by saying that men are just programmed to be complete idiots who are at the constant mercy of the muscle twitches of their genitals. Hint: It’s not me, the bitchy man-hating feminist who actually hates and devalues men. I think men are better than the bullshit standards they are often held to.

This scandal is not exclusively about sex and wanting Weiner to go away does not make me or anyone else anti-sex. This is not about legislating morality. It’s about judgment, doing the right thing, leadership, and earning the right to be a representative of the public. We’re not talking about a man who is polyamorous and in a marriage where his wife knows about his sexual proclivities and agrees to them. (If that had been the case, then I’d be the first to say we should all shut up and let the man work. But that requires that all parties involved in the the activities are up to speed on what’s going on. Clearly that is not the case.) We’re talking about deception. Sneakery. He took an oath of total commitment to his wife — who is having his child — and look how he treated her. How on EARTH could he ever treat constituents with any more respect than the one person he promised in a fancy frigging ceremony to put above all others?

Remember when we argued that saying George W. Bush is the kind of guy you could have a beer with is a dumb argument for why he should be president? This is along the same lines. I want my leaders to be better and smarter than the average douchebag. Saying “Anthony Weiner is just another dbag in pursuit of poon so give him a break” is not good enough for me. I want my leaders to be better than that. Smarter than that.

It’s a disservice to continue to think that it’s impossible for us to ever expect that kind of goodness from our leaders.

An example of how not to woo a woman

I had a Plenty of Fish profile once upon a time. My username? Hipsterectomy. Yeah, yeah. You wish you thought of it. Anyway. If you’re a girl and you put up even a semi-flattering photo of yourself, you get a shitton of worthless one-word e-mails from dudes (subject line: “hi,” e-mail body: “hi”), even ones who, were they to actually read your profile, would see they are not compatible in any way with you. It’s just how it goes on these sites. The men throw shit against a wall and see what sticks and the women lurk and wait for someone not insane to message them.

Anyway, I got some truly odd messages in my short time on PoF. (Two foot fetishists and one man who wanted to know if I needed someone to call “daddy” stand out in particular.) And then the other day I got this:

The pitfalls of online dating

I mean, I guess it’s an easy way of saying both “I don’t want kids” and “I don’t read for comprehension,” but still. Fellas, think before you hit send.

INSTANT UPDATE-O-MATIC! Do you think this guy was trying to make a play on words implying that I removed a man from my life recently? IS IT POSSIBLE THAT I HAVE BEEN OUT-CLEVERED AT MY OWN GAME?!

The problem with being a woman

If you keep your mouth shut and try to roll with the punches when something bothers you, you run the risk of being completely run over. Or of being called passive-aggressive later, when you draw attention to the fact that you knew shit wasn’t right but that you were picking your battles and trying to be understanding, even against your better instincts.

But if you open your mouth straightaway, you’re going to get called a nag.

You can’t fucking win. The game is rigged.

Poll: Should men be given the option to have babies?

This is just fucking embarrassing. I put up a post at iDiva approximately 12 hours ago but so far I am the only person on the planet to have voted in the little poll (I’m sure you can guess which response I voted for). I think as soon as people see my byline over there, they keep scrolling or something.

So go read the post and vote, wouldja? At least make it look like what I’ve said is worth consideration.

And then come back here and consider this:

It’s a given that medical research into the arena of male pregnancy makes a lot of people feel icky. Conservatives are probably particularly put off by the thought, because of its completely revolutionary and non-traditional essence. Male pregnancy turns all of human history on its head.

BUT — if men were given the option of carrying pregnancies to term, could it be spun as a way to reduce abortions? If, say, a couple found out the woman was pregnant, and she wanted to abort but he wanted to keep the child, could it be worked out so that the fetus could be transplanted into the man and carried to term as he wishes?

Assuming fetus transplanting in this hypothetical is safe and routine, where is the drawback to such a scenario? Presumably the woman would be bound to the same child-support obligations as a man would have been in a traditional pregnancy.

It’s science fiction (for now) and it’s controversial, but it’s damned interesting.