Politics Mark Foley & Me
posted by on October 2 at 12:12 PM
I was on airplanes most of the weekend, so I wasn’t able to Slog about the exploding Mark Foley scandal. I don’t have much to add at this point. There’s nothing I can say about the scandal that John Aravosis hasn’t said better at Americablog, and nothing I can say about the warping dynamics of the closet that Andrew Sullivan hasn’t already said better at the Daily Dish.
But I did want to, uh, insert myself into the Mark Foley scandal just a bit.
You know how with each passing Bush administration scandal—male prostitutes running amuck in the White House, “Bin Laden Determined to Attack in U.S.,” widespread domestic spying, lies that lead us to war (those of us who supported the war at the outset are more angry about the lies than those that had the good sense to oppose it all along), the loss of an American city—you listen as Republicans make excuses for Bush and think, “Shit, if Clinton had done that he’d be impeached!”
I have to own up to a moment’s self-obsession, I guess, because every time a Republican opens his mouth excuse the House leadership’s cover-up or minimize what Foley did—they were just “naughty emails,” says White House spokesman and former Fox News hack Tony Snow; those teenage boys egged Foley on, says Matt Drudge—I can’t help but think, “Shit, if I had done that I’d be in fucking prison!”
I may not have any pages at “Savage Love,” but I do have access to plenty of teenage boys through my column. Hell, I access to more teenage boys than Mark Foley has in his wildest dreams. Teenagers send questions to “Savage Love” every day. And while Foley had to manipulate teenagers into having conversations with him about sex—telling these teenage boys that they’re hot, asking if he makes them horny, pumping them for info about how they masturbate—teenagers that write to me already have sex on their minds.
Most of the mail from teenagers is pretty straightforward: they send questions about birth control or STIs or their kinks or their relationships. But some gay teenagers, having only seen one extremely flattering press photo of me (I wish I looked like the picture of me on my Wiki page), email offers. Some send pictures, some send links to the their all-too-revealing MySpace pages. (Confidential to Mark Foley: If you really wanna live your dream—teenage boys hitting on you—get an advice column and a really good press photo.)
And what do I do with these emails? I delete them. Responding to these emails—to say nothing of taking any of these kids up on their offers (offers most would withdraw if they saw me in person)—just wouldn’t be right. Because the last thing gay high-school boys need in their lives, in my opinion, are gay middle-aged men.
In all honestly I have to admit to be tempted on occasion—did I mention that some of these guys are freaking hot? and over the age of consent?—but it would be professional and personal suicide for me to respond to these emails. Imagine the shitstorm if some parent found flirtatious emails from the middle-aged, openly-gay author of American’s sleaziest sex-advice column on their kid’s computer.
Another good reason not to respond: I’m just paranoid and/or self-involved enough to suspect that some of the flirtatious emails I receive from teenage boys—particularly emails from very young teenage boys who attach pics that look a little too pornified—are set-ups. Licking Gary Bauers doorknobs, ruining Rick Santorum’s good name, and writing the occasional op-ed for the NYT hasn’t exactly endeared me to the knuckle-draggers on the far right. I wouldn’t want to engage in a flirtatious chat with a gay teenager and then have to read the transcripts at FreeRepublic.com—or hear them read out in court.
And if I did engage in that kind of chat with a teenage boy and got caught—if someone turned up email and IM threads in which I asked a kid to measure his cock for me, asked him for details about his masturbation habits, asked him if I made him horny—I’m thinking that Dennis Hastert, Tony Snow, Brit Hume, Matt Drudge, et all, would not have engaged in a cover-up to protect my skanky ass or, once the cover-up failed, would rush to my defense, pointing out that it was just, you know, a few naughty emails and the bad actions of teenage temptresses. No harm done, nothing to see here.
The ultimate irony in this scandal is that up and until he got caught, Mark Foley was doing everything right—at least as far as the GOP’s base is concerned. Religious conservatives don’t seriously believe that gay men to become straight; they don’t believe in “ex-gays” anymore than still-gays do. (Wanna stop a straight person from making the ex-gay argument? Ask him if he’d let his daughter marry one.) They want us to be closeted, like Mark Foley, a single man and a public figure who refused to answer direct questions about his sexuality one way or the other. (Has any straight man ever refused to reveal his sexual orientation?) Just like Mark, the GOP’s base want all of us to deny who we are, to go without intimate adult relationships, to live our lives alone, and to refuse to answer all direct questions about our sexuality. To the GOP, Mark Foley was a good homo.
Which is probably why the GOP leadership was only too willing to cover-up for Foley. Foley had been covering-up for them for years—covering up his sexuality—so why shouldn’t they return the favor? So what if closet cases tend to act out in sexually inappropriate ways? A few raped altar boys and skeeved out congressional pages are a price the gay-haters are willing to pay if it means fewer out homos.
Needless to say, being a bad homo—bad here defined “uncloseted”—I would not come in for the same consideration from GOP elected officials and their media apologists.
"Altar boy" is a good comp. The RNC and the Vatican have identical approaches. They knew but covered it up, and are denying that it's a systemic problem. It IS a systemic problem. That's why we need never fear the end of creepy, hypocritical Republican sex scandals, until the day that sexuality becomes permissible in Republican ideology.
I think writer Cenk Uygur summed it up best:
"They left Foley in charge of the Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus. Come on!
If you put it in a movie about a corrupt Congress, I wouldn't believe it. It's too over the top. You'd walk out of the theater saying, "That's too much. No one would do that." Apparently they would and they did.
Remember this is the same Republicans who spent 140 hours investigating Bill Clinton's Christmas card list. I'm not kidding. They even started an investigation into his cat. If you put it in a movie, no one would believe it.
Not one investigation into what's gone wrong with the war in Iraq, the $9 billion dollars missing in Iraq, why a CIA agent's name was leaked, why Osama bin Laden hasn't been caught or any of the corruption scandals. But they spent 140 hours on the Clinton Christmas list (it turns out they were just Christmas cards, in case you were wondering). They're not even trying to appear fair. They think there's nothing you won't let them do. They're in charge and they can get away with anything."
Drudge is blaming the victims. I kid you not. "They are egging him on" "These are not innocent babies"
I'm jealous. You were referred to as a "militant homosexual" and a "purveyor of filth" in the comments of the link to your NYT column. Thank you for being willing to be a target. I hope more of us get the chance to join you at the whipping post, Dan. We all need to raise our voices.
Foley is out of his mind (apparently) and I am holding my breath waiting for him to come out of the closet. He might as well do it now. That would frost the cake for the Republicans. They can blame it all on homos.
Whatever political gain the Democrats capitalize on (as they try to keep it respectfully quiet), I fear the backlash (figuratively or literally) this will unleash on those of us that are out. Assuming he does consider himself a homosexual, he chose to keep it quiet to advance his career. What do the people who call Savage a militant homosexual think about guys like Foley?
After his alcohol "rehab" (whatever...) he will start writing the book and then he'll join Jim McGreevy on the tour to promote his memoir.
Their sexcapades are dissimilar, but their opportunism is frighteningly unsurprising and a result of America's sexual cravenness.
These former congressional pages are clearly traitors who hate Amerika.
Now it's up to the brave, Christian Republican voters to make sure that every member of the party led by their god, Jesus W Bush, is not only re-elected, but dipped in gold and worshipped. No doubt they will be speaking in tongues as they dark the oval next to the (R) on the scantron ballot.
Supplicate yourselves!
All hail Big Bush!
PS - Pope John Paul II also blamed the victims. Nice.
Disgusting filth like the book Lolita are to blame for this crap. Straight men get off reading about underage sex. Gay men get off writing e-mails to young boys.
Ancient Rome fell because of all the man-boy sex. Dan Savage you're the only one in Seattle with guts enough to speak out against the perverts who read and dream about sex with teenagers.
when did they start getting called STI's instead of STD's? it seems like, until very recently, i've never heard this.
Damn, that comments thread makes me want to crawl in a hole and die. Or live in a city of robots. Humans sure suck.
Dan >going back to your first point about "what would they do if it were BC?"...At every disaster, I used to think, "this is it. People can't ignore Bush's BS after THIS!" Especially after Katrina.
But here we are. 2700+ lives lost in Iraq, the Lower 9th still fucked, and NO ONE seems to mind.
Thinking back to the witch hunt that was BC's last term blows my mind. Are we ever going to change this course?
STDs became STIs because having a "disease" is less stigmatizing than having an "infection". Apparently.
Humans don't suck, Noink. Free Republic commenters do. Big difference.
that's a stupid reason. std rolls off the tongue much better.
Teenagers are not children. The law says as much in almost all countries where age of consent is typically 14-16. The indidividual states as well have lower ages of consent than the federal govt uses to define a “minor” for internet/telephone contact. Even in DC, age of consent is 16.
Get over it.
Actually Foley has not committed a crime because the age of consent in District of Columbia is 16. Furthermore, the page in question was not in his employ, so sexual harassment is not a probably charge either.
Oh... well then, Jude... I suppose what Foley did was okay. Thanks for straightening things out.
Yes, 16 is legal in DC, but it is NOT legal no matter where you are according the internet protection legislation which Mark Foley WROTE. What a boob.
Personally I never switched to "STD" from "venereal disease", which is so much more Gothic and Olde-Worlde Catholic sounding. Ah, Venus, the warmth hidden in my veins.
Keenan?
I'm straight, and when questioned in person I deliberately refuse to reveal which way I swing.
You know, Dan, I used to walk to work passing directly by The Stranger's office, and I'd occasionally see you walking by, scruffy and carrying a cup of coffee. You spoke at my Gay and Lesbian Studies class when I was in college. I thought you were pretty damned hot. I think if you were skeevy enough to take up those offers, you wouldn't get rejections when they saw the real deal.
Still, I'm glad you're smart enough not to indulge any temptations that are e-mailed your way. It makes you much, much, much smarter than Foley.
Well, AOC is 16 in DC? That sure is a inch of rope... I sure hope more repubs try that justification, Matt Drudge seems to be the vanguard of the movement...but even an inch is enough to hang oneself when justifying pedophilia (that AOC thingy is pretty much what NAMBLA advocates, and look at how respected that Political Action Committee is across the board).
Really, not many people give a flying shit about peds to begin with and with a violation of public trust, well, it will be interesting to watch.
October Surprise
The October Surprise might be all those ships heading to the Persian Gulf. But that's off topic.
Best Slog posting ever. Thanks Dan.
When I was in the Junior Homo League, I pined for plenty of men in their 40s--and was lucky enough to be turned down, gently, by most of them. They set a great example, which is particularly valuable now that I'm on the verge of 40 myself.
I think everyone is missing the bigger picture here: Savage actually referred to himself as "middle-aged." Pretty presumptuous for a 27-year-old.
I'm sure it was unintentional, Paulus. Dan was trying so hard not to claim credit for the Scissor Sisters' shows tonight and tomorrow that he forgot to lie about his age.
Foley is a pedophile. He preys on kids. He is abusing them via an imbalance of power, i.e., he's a fifty-something male, they are young teens, who even if they aregetting interested in sex, really don't have much of a clue about it. Beasts, indeed. Foley is the hoary old beast here.
That isn't homosexuality, it's pederasty. About wanting to stick your viagra-stoked pole into some young thing's hole, real or virtual.
And if anyone dares to defend Foley on this, and you have children, I want you to imagine them being skewered by some shit like that.
A Log Cabin Repug favorite goes down (no pun intended!). Where's the Gay Proud Repuglican now??
My response to this post, Dan, is: well, duh!
After 6 years of a Bush and Rove, does anyone really pretend anymore that right-wing logic is at all logical, or that they apply principles in a fair and consistent mannger? The only principle underlying all of their efforts is do whatever it takes to gain power.
To that end, they are far more consistent and logical then the left.
Where's Dateline when you need it?
ionolsen16 Your site is very cognitive. I think you will have good future.:)www_4_2
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dan, you make a good point about how hypocritical the radical right's claims are in regards to homo "conversions" to straightness, one that had never occurred to me: of course they don't want their own daughter to marry one, because they don't trust such "conversions." and actually, this test works in other contexts as well. remember michael moore's experiment asking members of congress if they had their own kids in the military fighting in iraq?
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