Foley Follies, Part Deux
Alcoholics, gays, and Catholic priests all have a right to be indignant with Mark Foley. He has scapegoated them all. First he blamed his actions on alcohol, then on his homosexuality, then on his being molested by a “clergyman.” Foley is Catholic, so presumably the clergyman who purportedly molested him was not a Unitarian. But who knows? Maybe Unitarianism will come in for its share of the blame, as well.
Reading about this story, and especially listening to conservative commentary on the radio, I don’t know how many times I’ve heard it stated or implied that Foley’s homosexuality and his predilection for teenage boys are somehow one and the same thing. Foley himself made the connection when he “came out” (apparently to himself, since everyone else on Capitol Hill seems to have known he was gay all along), thus implying that somehow because he is gay, he is also a pervert.
A conservative I listened to on the radio this morning, Andy Parks of WMAL, suggested that the FBI should conduct yearly deep background checks on all Congressmen to determine if they are gay or not. Under criticism from his co-host, he later drew back a little and said that he might be willing to let a Congressman’s sexual orientation remain a secret, but everything else was fair game. After all, if a Congressman has defaulted on a loan at some time in his life, that indicates a problem managing money, and therefore the Congressman might be susceptible to bribes.
Republicans just want to be all up in other people’s business. That’s a primary reason I’m not a Republican anymore; I have a strong Libertarian streak that gets ruffled when Republicans start preaching their superior morality.
The real eyebrow-raiser in Parks’ diatribe, however, was his suggestion that somehow homosexuality itself is cause for concern, because obviously, a homosexual congressman is going to be attracted to the teenage pages.
Equation of adult-oriented homosexuality and homosexual pedophilia is widespread in our culture, and the Foley scandal does not help clear up the distinction in the minds of most Americans. There is a difference: gay men are not necessarily attracted to teenage boys or boy children. Pedophilia is the disease, not the perpetrator’s homosexuality.
There is also a question whether or not Foley’s particular sexual fixation, or “fetich” as he called it in his IM, constitutes pedophilia. As William Buckley points out, Foley’s IM friends were all sixteen years or older, above the age of consent in D.C. and most states. If Foley had simply had sex with them, he probably could not be prosecuted as a pedophile. However, laws against the corruption of minors contradict laws governing consent to sex, and a minor can be “corrupted” until the age of eighteen. However, between sixteen and eighteen, any kind of sex, with a person of whatever age, is probably not prosecutable.
It may turn out that Foley knew this, since he served on a committee that wrote sex predator legislation. Perhaps he used his knowledge to his advantage. It seems to me unreasonable to suppose that he never at least attempted sex with the boys he courted. I think its likely he even succeeded. A man who is obviously, ostentatiously soliciting boys is likely going to get lucky once in awhile. And of course, his luck will also run out, eventually, as it did this week.
It’s interesting, too, to read the IM’s between Foley and his boy toys not only for the salacious content, but for what one finds between the lines. Limbaugh has been asking every day on his program, “Why did these pages save these IM’s? Who had them all these years?” Limbaugh believes the answer is that obviously this was a political hit job that Democrats have been cooking for five years or longer, and they were just waiting until the right moment to spring the trap (but why not spring it in 2002 or 2004?).
I believe the answer is simpler. By default, their IM program saved a chat log. Apple’s iChat saves chats by default. There is even a folder in a user’s Home directory where these are saved, labeled “Chats.”
This was no hit job. But I don’t believe these kids were babes in the woods, either. If you read the IM’s between Foley and Tyson Vivyan for example, what you discover is a young man who chats with Foley as a friend, not as a stereotypical “victim” of a sex predator. If Limbaugh wants to know why these pages did not come forward until now, the answer is not that they are part of a Democrat/media conspiracy. The answer, as Vivyan puts it, is that “he didn’t want to ruin his connection to a powerful Washington personality.”
Essentially, if he is to believed, he was using Mark Foley every bit as much as Foley was using him. Vivyan kept up a correspondence with Foley until he was 24. Foley obviously was not some violent sexual sadist whom Vivyan feared. He was just the quintessential dirty old man.
He still deserves everything that has happened to him, if nothing else because of his hypocrisy. ABC reported yesterday that in a moment of high dudgeon, Foley once tried to shut down a nudist colony in his Florida district because children nudists could mingle with adult nudists.
All in all, this is a great story that I am not yet tired of reading about. It has everything there is to love about a good Washington scandal: sex, Republicans, and a detailed electronic paper trail. It is not going away anytime soon, either, thanks to Hastert’s unwillingness to resign.
I still believe Hastert will resign. I’m predicting he will be gone by Friday next week, maybe sooner. However, when Hastert does resign, that probably won’t be the end of the scandal either. Congress has ordered hearings. The FBI is going to examine Foley’s computers, and you know someone will leak whatever they find. More Pages will come forward, hoping to get on TV to say how “shocked” they were by the Congressman’s behavior (pardon me if I don’t believe them). We can look forward to more IM’s and emails. The anticipation is just killing me.
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Well, it is fitting. They’re going back to what’s worked before: Republicans won big in 2004, in no small part, because of the image of two men getting it on. This was, after all, the reason for america’s decline.
And check it: Pat Robertson weighs in on the matter. Though he said he “didn’t condone” what Foley did, he also mused, directly after saying this, why the media and the democrats were going after him so badly, considering the crazy stuff dems apparently have done. (Yeah, I saw that segment. Sometimes you need a little Pat Robertson in your life.)
Comment by Heather — Saturday, 7 October 2006 @ 12:26 pm
Well, that link worked well. Here it is: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/2006/10/robertsons_advi_1.html
Comment by Heather — Saturday, 7 October 2006 @ 12:27 pm
Pat Robertson is one thing I don’t need in my life. As a Christian, he is one person I can almost guarantee that whatever he says I strongly disagree with. How someone can say so many ridiculous things so consistently… (shakes head)
Comment by Step — Sunday, 8 October 2006 @ 3:35 pm
It’s no suprise that pedophilia is linked with homosexuality. As long as one or both are seen as sexually abberant, they will share the same space and be linked. As a man, I find it interesting the sort of division I make (unconsciously) between men and women homosexuals. Somehow it is the men who get all of the knee-jerk, unconscious opprobrium. Lesbians don’t seem to threaten the structure nearly as much as gay men at the unconscious level.
Comment by Todd — Sunday, 8 October 2006 @ 5:56 pm
I think the reason lesbians are tolerated a tiny little bit more than gay men is that a) lesbians are allegedly fun to watch together, as long as they are the airbrushed femme sex kittens of pornos and b) because there’s always a chance that a “good man could straighten her out.”
Men are threatened by homosexuality because they don’t know better, because they’re generally still running the country. There’s the gross out factor for men … they don’t like to think of what men do together. Now women, you insert a man in that little fantasy, and what you have is a threesome.
Women pose very little threat to men, lesbian or not.
Comment by Mel B. — Sunday, 8 October 2006 @ 6:32 pm
I think you are exactly right. Lesbians fit the heterosexual fantasy quite well. . . that’s the difference.
Comment by Todd — Sunday, 8 October 2006 @ 6:34 pm
Robertson is just a case in point: pedophilia is what gay men do. That is essentially what he’s saying. My problem is not that he says such ridiculous stuff, but that he does get away with it. Sean Hannity counts him as a personal friend and routinely has him on his cable show. To me, that’s no different than a liberal host, say Bill Moyers, bringing Louis Farrakhan on his show and laughing it up with him like an old pal. That’s how crazy I think Robertson is.
As for the lesbian stuff, I think you’re both right that lesbians fit well into heterosexual fantasy. What I don’t understand is why that is a heterosexual fantasy. I don’t have that fantasy, myself. Not once have I ever had that fantasy, and it doesn’t excite me to see lesbian scenes in movies. If I’m abnormal, I wonder why.
To me, it seems abnormal, or at least weird, for a straight man to fantasize about two women having sex. Two women and a man…the threesome thing…yeah, I can see that working as a fantasy. Bur lesbianism just doesn’t do anything for me erotically.
Maybe men get off on the fantasy of “converting” a lesbian. I don’t know. Anyway, it’s just not my thing.
Comment by Matthew — Sunday, 8 October 2006 @ 7:03 pm
I don’t know if it’s so much converting than it is being threatened. You’d think men would be threatened by the thought of sex that doesn’t involve them, but hey. Lesbian porn for heteros is just an extention of straight porn for heteros–the one being pleased is the man, who is offscreen, watching. except it’s even better because there are no boy parts to get in the way of the real action. the man is still in control because his desires and wishes–long nails, blonde hair, anorexic chicks–are still being fulfilled, as the women perform not for their own pleasure, but for the man’s.
two men together? this means one of the men is being entered. he’s submitting. he’s clearly less than a man. that’s a total loss of control, and that’s apparently very threatening and frightening.
or, that’s how i see it.
Comment by Heather — Monday, 9 October 2006 @ 3:22 am
Your porn analysis is pretty astute
I think you’re basically right. I was prepared for my friend Todd to say “You are weird for not having lesbian fantasies.” And I was prepared to respond, “Ifstraight men fantasizing about lesbians is perfectly normal and unweird, then why don’t straight women fantasize about two men having sex?”
I think the answer is, as you say, about power and masculinity. There is something inherently unmasculine and immasculating about male gay sex. Straight women don’t like it because they don’t like seeing men in a feminine posture. Straight men don’t like it because it undermines notions of what men should be doing as part of the sex act. Men don’t submit. Men are the dominant ones, either physically joining with the women, or compelling her to please him in some other way. In gay sex, both men usually take turns giving and receiving. That is threatening. And of course, what if the nominally straight viewer enjoys watching it, just a little? That’s even more threatening.
Comment by Matthew — Monday, 9 October 2006 @ 8:22 am
Matt, you are weird for not having lesbian fantasies.
Comment by Todd — Monday, 9 October 2006 @ 10:19 am
I second Todd.
Though I find this whole discussion too much for me - I have quite strong opinions on sexuality, that can’t properly be conveyed without a long and detailed discussion. Comments don’t exactly work for that. Note that the reason I find it too much is because of childhood issues and personal struggles, not because I don’t think it’s a worthwhile discussion. I’ll be leaving now.
Comment by Step — Monday, 9 October 2006 @ 3:23 pm
Darn it, just when the conversation gets interesting, people start dropping out. I admit I’m a little uncomfortable with the topic as well, however; mostly out of insecurity about what is “normal” and “abnormal.” I was reading in the New York Times today about a movie called Shortbus , which is a film in which actors have real sex. I don’t expect I will ever see this film, not necessarily because it is explicit, but because it is bound to make my own sex life seem utterly boring. I don’t need that kind of pressure. Funny, but if I knew the sex were fake, as in most films, I’d probably be more likely to go see it, but knowing that it’s real just makes me uncomfortable.
Comment by Matthew — Tuesday, 10 October 2006 @ 9:30 am
I’ve been trying to think of something to add to this discussion, but I can’t get beyond Heather’s analysis. I did want to mention TransAmerica once again as an excellent look at gender issues. Go out and rent it…
Comment by Todd — Wednesday, 11 October 2006 @ 7:57 pm