Thoughts on Gov. Spitzer

Well, if you haven't heard by now, Governor Spitzer of New York has been exposed in connection to a prostitution ring. We'll know more as the day and week goes on, I'm sure. A few initial thoughts:
1. Bad move, Governor Spitzer. I pretty much agree with Scott here:

If poor sex workers are thrown in jail under existing laws, then affluent white johns sure as hell should be too. This goes double for people who have positions that might allow them to work to repeal laws they don't feel are just.

2. I don't really have an opinion on whether, prima facie, prostitution should be legal or not. I don't really see what's wrong with the idea of selling sex, if it's done safely and consensually, so I suppose I would err on the side of making it legal, like any other service. On the other hand, I do think that whether or not prostitution is legal, there needs to be a way to ensure it is safe for everyone involved, particularly the prostitutes. That may be much easier if it is legal. This is all relevant because Governor Spitzer's record on the subject of prostitution is short, but it indicates that he mostly just sought to protect the prostitutes themselves, rather than punish them or the johns. He isn't in particularly deep shit on the hypocrisy front here, although his anti-corruption stance rings vaguely false in light of his criminal behavior.

3. The comparison will inevitably be made to the Republican sex scandals of 2006-07. It's a poor comparison. What made the Republican scandals so deliciously bad for the politicians involved was the hypocrisy they exposed on social issues having to do with sex. Governor Spitzer wasn't really a hypocrite here: his public policy stance on prostitution was limited to punishing sex trafficking. I don't see anything more than a tenuous connection to his anti-corruption stance, since hiring a prostitute isn't unique to being a politician—it's hardly as if his office shielded him from the consequences.

4. Via feministing, Dana Goldstein makes a good point (actually, she makes several, but I though this was particularly on the mark):

When politicians are caught cheating, I wish they'd leave their wives in the green room while they address the press. You're in the dog house, and it should look that way. Those "stand by your man" visuals are tired and demeaning.

Seriously. She shouldn't have to stand there and take responsibility for your fuck up. Also, you aren't fooling anyone with the display of marital solidarity: she's pissed.


UPDATE: Looks like Spitzer may have mistreated the sex workers. If that's true, all bets are off—he's a hypocrite and an immoral douchebag.

UPDATE 2: This is hilarious:

Sex, Robots, and Booze.

Part 2. What is it with alcohol commercials and sexy robots these days? Svedka vodka, it turns out, has a highly interactive website that introduces you to their scantily-clad robotic spokeswoman (her friends call her svedka_grl, and she's "the future of adult entertainment," a phrase I can't imagine some marketing exec writing without a smirk). Let's get this out of the way, because I could complain about these specific ads forever: svedka_grl has almost literally no waist, perpetually perked breasts, wears lipstick (gives those cold metallic lips a nice purple pout), and is apparently unable to be in a position that doesn't simultaneously show off her die-cast ass and breasts while allowing her to bat her freakishly-eyelashed eyes. She also spouts inanities like "Svedka salutes L.A., home of the first drive-through plastic surgery window" and "I go both ways: straight up, or on the rocks."

Now, with that out of my system, let's talk a little bit about these sexbot spokespeople, because apart from their popularity among postpubescent pocket miners, they represent a really interesting trend in alcohol advertising. Let's look at the sex component. Sex has been used in advertisement since its inception in the 1920s (advertisement's, not sex's). It attracts attention and creates an association between some of the best feelings somebody can have and the product advertised.

The robot bit is about the allure of complete control. A robot is an automaton, a programmable object. Give it the right input and it will give you the desired output. We know the output: svedka_grl doesn't function outside sex. What, then, is the input? Well, vodka. And that's the crux of the svedka and heineken ads' danger: they imply not only that giving a woman alcohol makes her an object of ultimate sexual control, but that that's the purpose of their product.

Dealing with the limits of "sex-positive:" Part 1

I guess this week is "questioning essentially good social movements" week here at Circumscription. I want to look at the limits of (circumscribe? ha.) sex-positive thinking and living. It's a movement of which I'm a big fan, generally: I'm a pretty vanilla guy myself, but I think that pretty much anything adults can do consensually is fair game and their business. But there are situations in which sex-positive thinking becomes complicated. I'm gonna look at some of those locations in sexual activity. I'm not going to address pornography, because that's a very very tired topic. Some other time. (Also, Feministe just addressed porn. Ending the debate forever, of course.)

This is going to be a three-part series, from the fairly basic to the extremely problematic. Part one (the one you're reading!) is about competing sex drives. Part two is about cheating. Part three is about taboos: incest, bestiality, and necrophilia (all those things the fundies think will happen if queers get married).

One problem with sex-positive thinking is that not everyone likes sex the same amount. So here's the dilemma. Your committed partner wants sex tonight/this week/ever. You don't. Are you obligated to put out for your partner tonight/this week/ever? Because women have conventionally been put in the position of "owing" sex for a number of reasons, feminists tend to come down hard on the "no" side. But what if, in an attempt to look at this issue normatively rather than practically,* we pretend this is a perfectly egalitarian relationship that isn't inflected by gender expectations. What the heck, let's make our thought-experimental partners lesbians, if that helps. In any event, Dan Savage came down with a resounding "yes" in his column a few weeks ago. He's a proponent of a standard he calls GGG:

'Good, giving, and game' is what we should all strive to be for our sex partners, as in, 'good in bed,' 'giving equal time and equal pleasure,' and 'game for anything—within reason.'

And, he says, this means we have sexual obligations to our lovers:

I happen to believe that we owe our sex partners a few things. Good personal hygiene, for starters, followed by a sense of humor, a willingness to meet our lovers' needs, and cleanish sheets. Someone who's unwilling or incapable of meeting a partner's needs owes 'em permission to get those needs met elsewhere—safely and responsibly, within reason, and on a budget.

Dan's standard puts the power in the hands of the horny one. Which sounds like it means a lot of unhappy lovers who are asked to grit their teeth and suck, fuck, and eat it. Except when you consider that there's a built-in failsafe: an unhappy partner can always leave the relationship. And in the world we're imagining, one in which the burden of sex falls equally on both** shoulders, they'll leave, rather than grit their teeth. The world we're imagining isn't as distant as I've made it out to be, either. Really, if partners ask for what they want, and are honest with each other and themselves, everything works out. Or doesn't work out, but that's for the very valid reason of sexual incompatibility.

So far, we've assumed that each partner is willing to engage in sexual activity at all. In the event that one partner is not ready for sex, for emotional and/or religious reasons, then I think the power shifts back into that partner's hands—agreeing to go down on your partner even though you don't feel like it that night is a lot different from agreeing to go down on your partner even though you are on shaky ground emotionally. It's important to ensure that sex-positive thinking means "sex is a good thing, but it's a good thing that everyone has to come (ha) to when they're ready."

That was easyish. Tune in next time for when it gets harder.

*I think a normative approach here can serve as a model for the practical. After all, we have to assume that some folks can kick The Man out of their bedroom somehow.
**Yes, I'm being monoamory-centric here, for convenience. It all applies equally well to a polyamorous relationship.