Weiner's....Wiener.

Once again, we have another sex scandal among our senior government officials.  And it couldn't have happened to a more aptly name Representative.

Anthony Weiner (no, seriously), a Democrat from New York was caught sending sexts and various pictures of himself, including his actual wiener, to various young women.  Of course, it's made local news, people are calling for him to resign, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is calling for an ethics investigation, blah, blah, blah.

I don't sound particularly thrilled and that's because I'm not.  The fact is, we get a lot of sex scandals in American politics.  Wikipedia has a lengthy incomplete page of just federal political sex scandals alone.  And a lot of these aren't particularly, well, scandalous.  Basically, it's a lot of extramarital affairs.  You may see something particularly bad like sexual harrassment, coming onto an underage page, etc., but really nothing particularly spicy.  Hey, the woman who lived behind us when I was in high school had an extramarital affair which was found out when she got pregnant with the other man's child.

But, whenever a political figure gets caught with his (or her) pants down, we jump all over it.  I can think of two reasons myself for why this is.  First, political figures are, well, figures.  They have a higher degree of fame and public knowledge than the regular person.  Therefore, when they cheat on their spouses, the pool of people that would potentially find out is far greater than normal.  If it's a particularly well known figure that does this, like President Bill Clinton, the entire country and a good chunk of the world knows too.

The second reason is basically irony.  In the United States, we have a heck of a lot of politicians running on "family values" platforms.  And by family values, I don't mean "making things better for American families" necessarily.  When a lot of politicians talk about family values, they really refer to a Hollywoodized, bowdlerized view of the perfect American family, where Daddy is the breadwinner and Mommy stays home.  Where couples marry early and stay married til Death Do Us Part.  Where children are presumably respectful, well-mannered, and innocent.  It's a curious amalgamation of 50s sitcoms, Evangelical Christian to even fundamentalist values, and hyper-conservatism.  In this viewpoint, there is no room for reproductive choice, the often-necessity of a dual-income family, gay rights, women's rights, government programs to help the poor, and really anything that is not included in this ideal.

Granted, Anthony Weiner was not a "family values" politician.  But many politicians that are involved with sex scandals are, including many politicians that condemned former President Clinton for his extramarital affair.  So, it's ironic that these politicians, who go on about morality, family values, blah blah blah, are the ones who are exposed for decidedly NOT practicing what they preach.  To the point that you wonder if there is a causation here.

To sum it up: Rep. Weiner showed his wiener.  It's definitively not the first time this has happened to a US politician and it sure as hell won't be the last.

This is Special

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/klu-klux-klan-protests-westboro-baptist-church-video/2011/05/31/AGgoiPFH_blog.html

You know you're bad when even the freaking Ku Klux Klan protests against you!

Nice job there, Westboro Baptist.  Nice job.

Why Would a Teen Need Birth Control? Well....

Kendall Jenner on Birth Control?

So, today started out really shitty for me and I was pretty emo all morning as one of my best friends can testify to. When I'm really emo, I sometimes read trashy gossip columns as a way to get my mind off of what is bothering me. Today I read, among other things, that fifteen year old Kendall Jenner of the media-whoring, reality show star Kardashian-Jenner family is on birth control. Of course, a lot of Middle America seems to be outraged, OUTRAGED I tell you, that a teenager would be on birth control.

Kendall's family says it's for medical reasons...and I'm inclined to agree. There are quite a few uses for birth control pills that are not preventing pregnancy. For example, Kendall, like many teens and women (including myself) might have very, very bad cramps. Cramps that are too severe to be treated with Tylenol/Midol/Motrin/your OTC painkiller of choice. Because these cramps are controlled by hormones, birth control pills help keep them under control. Kendall might also have extremely variable periods (more so than the typical teenage girl), bad acne, or other problems that can be easily treated by the hormones in birth control pills. All of these explanations are very common uses of the birth control pill, but are often forgotten in our rush to jump to the most scandalous conclusion.

But, what if she is sexually active and that is why she is using birth control? My response is....thank God someone in this country is being responsible! We have reality shows that focus solely on teenage mothers that are in no way responsible enough to raise their children. We have abstinence-only education programs that are woefully deficient in facts and does nothing to really prevent teen sex, only the use of protections when they do engage in sex. And don't get me started on the attempt by certain politicians to defund Title X family planning and low-income family health services. Or Bristol Palin, who promotes abstinence-only sex education despite quite obviously not following her own advice.

Not that I think Kendall necessarily should be having sex at 15, but the fact is that teenagers in this country have sex. They've pretty much always have sex, the main difference now being that we don't try to hide it...as much. Although I don't personally agree with the idea of a 15 year old having sex, if Kendall is, at least she's trying to be careful. That's more than I can say for a lot of teens in this country.