i read the news today... oh boy!

I like Anthony Weiner. I’ve always been proud of what he’s had to say and how blatantly he’s stuck it to the GOP. He says things I wish more people had the courage to speak up and articulate in political arenas. 

And then… this week, well quelle surprise… he proved he’s just a man.  Am I disappointed? Well, kinda… and yet… well, whatever. The annoying thing about this story is the volume with which it becomes a story. As if it’s NEWS. That a man is fooling around and doing inappropriate things with his penis. I’m sorry – well, no I’m not sorry actually – but that is NOT something new to my apprehension of humanity. 

Maybe it’s because my circle is full of bohemians and unmarried people and heathens that I don’t have such entrenched family based ‘morals.’ But, come on, really. Is this new that a male has done and said something sexually inappropriate? Of course it isn’t. Wait a week. There will be someone new in the headlines before June is out.

So why do we react? Why is it suddenly surprising when something like this happens? The neverending baby boom in my life assures me that people are having sex all the time… but well, I guess if a baby is the consequence, that is the good kind of sexual behavior, right? Within the confines of marriage, blabbity blah blah.

I spent some time with a fourteen year old boy last week. I’ve known him since he was seven and we have a pretty good friendship. But now… well, he’s discovered Family Guy and South Park and the wicked deliciousness of ‘accidentally’ noticing double entendre. I find it kind of amusing and forgivable as he stumbles through puberty… but… honestly… I know a few 40 year old men who aren’t far from that sort of behavior. Except they aren’t so subtle about staring at my chest or quite so apologetic about a lewd joke.

I suppose… context is an issue here. And I don’t know the context of Congressmen Weiner’s sexting. I don’t want to. Because. It. Isn’t . For. Me. To. Know. I don’t tell the world every time one of my male friends makes a dirty comment. Because a. whatever. And b. telling the world is honestly only going to suggest I’m impressed by that behavior. I’m not. I don’t care though… because in return they have to listen to me gush about British accents. 

But there is that whole lying thing. Yeah, that’s the ucky part of this story. And yet, that is the part of the story for which I really don’t blame the Congressman. Because we have this unspoken rule that politicians are somehow monogamous asexual beings. Or maybe we don’t. We just make them present that veneer and look for the cracks so we can publicly humiliate them and create a media circus to distract from the more debasing insults that the Congress commits against women, the poor, and the children of this country.

I am not going to applaud the Congressman for his inability to speak honestly this week. But… I find it less repulsive than a politician who tells the country that gay marriage is an abomination and then leaves his wife on her sickbed to run off with another woman or hooks up with a male prostitute in a bathroom stall of an airport. At least the only things Weiner has told us not to do is to let the GOP have their way.