David Brooks, in his most recent column is shocked, shocked at what Congressman Mark Foley did to those teenage pages — but he’s even more shocked at what a fictional character in the Vagina Monologues did to another fictional character. You see, imaginary female predators are just as bad as real live breathing male predators because they spread … Ideas David Brooks Doesn’t Like!
This is a tale of two predators. The first is a congressman who befriended teenage pages. He sent them cajoling instant messages asking them to describe their sexual habits, so he could get his jollies.
The second is a secretary, who invited a 13-year-old girl from her neighborhood into her car and kissed her. Then she invited the girl up to her apartment, gave her some vodka, took off her underwear and gave her a satin teddy to wear.
Then she had sex with the girl, which was interrupted when the girl’s mother called. Then she made the girl masturbate in front of her and taught her some new techniques.
The first predator, of course, is Mark Foley, the Florida congressman. The second predator is a character in Eve Ensler’s play, “The Vagina Monologues.”
(cont.)
You see, according to Brooks, even though no living human being was actually preyed upon sexually by the female character in The Vagina Monologues (by definition, duh!) it seems that what she does in the play is equally as bad as what Mark Foley did in real life when he sexually harassed male pages. Why in hell does he say that? you ask. Because this product of Eve Ensler’s imagination tears a big whopping hole in the Social Fabric of Our Great Nation, that’s why!
By the rules of expressive individualism, Ensler’s characters did nothing wrong. They performed an act that was mutually pleasurable and fulfilling.
This code dominated cosmopolitan culture during the 1970’s and 1980’s. When Congressman Gerry Studds was censured in 1983 for his relationship with a 17-year-old page, he argued that the sex was consensual, and he was re-elected several more times.
But there’s another and older code, and people seem to be returning to this older code to judge Mark Foley. Under this older code, we are defined not by our individual choices but by our social roles. […]
In this view, the social fabric is a precious thing, always in danger. And what Foley, and the character in the Ensler play, did was wrong, consent or no consent, because of the effects on the wider ecology.
In discussing the Foley case, the political class, with its unerring instinct for the aspect of any story that will be the least important to average Americans, has shifted attention from Foley’s act to Denny Hastert’s oversight of it. It has fled morality to talk about management.
But the real import of the Foley story is Foley’s act itself. In a country filled with parents looking for a way to raise their children in a morally disordered environment, Foley’s act is just one more symptom of a contagious disease.
Please note the multiple straw men (and women) erected by Mr. Brooks so that he can fallaciously knock them over. First, his equating the actions of a real sexual predator with the actions of the character in a drama is — how shall I put this? — obscene on its face. What Foley did was immoral, abusive and quite probably illegal. What Ensler’s fictional character did was — nothing. Fictional characters aren’t REAL! They DON’T EXIST!
But Brooks’ doesn’t stop there with his flawed logic. He then goes on to blame the “political elites” (Brooks’ code word for liberals and Democrats) for fleeing “morality” because they want to talk about the cover-up by House Republican Leaders of Foley’s transgressions. You see, in Brook’s parallel universe, covering up a fellow Congressman’s sexual crimes and allowing him to continue to prey on teenage pages in order to obtain a political benefit for your own political faction isn’t immoral, it’s simply a “management” issue.
Brooks argues that we shouldn’t be focusing on the lies and omissions and failures of House Leaders such as Mr. Hastert, which, by the way, enabled Mark Foley to continue to get those kinky kicks from harassing 16 year old boys which Mr. Brooks is so upset about. That’s evading the “real” moral issue. Instead we should be railing against the immorality of The Vagina Monologues. Because, after all, it contains bad ideas about sexuality that “hurt” society.
To Brooks, Foley’s conduct is only a “symptom,” but Ms. Ensler … she’s a subversive. She’s out to destroy the moral fabric of the nation with her deviously entertaining play. In short, Brooks thinks we ought to be more concerned about Ms. Ensler (and anyone who stages her play) exercising her right of free speech because single handedly she’s bringing about the collapse of our Great Society. Why, in the Brooks universe, if her insidious ideas had never been released within the body public, no one would ever have thought to molest a child, male or female. Really. That’s the basis of his argument. How stupid can one “public intellectual” be?
Paging Keith Olbermann! Paging Keith Olbermann! I got your “Worst Person in the World” right here. That man right over there with the bald head and the stupid smirk who graces us with his august presence on the OP-Ed pages of that known liberal rag, the New York Times. The one whose name is shared by his suit.
Have at him.
