Sex Scandals, “Responsible Fatherhood” and the 2008 Election Campaign: When “Sex Talk” Trumps Race and Class

After reviewing the 2008 election campaign season, a newcomer to U.S. politics could reasonably conclude that Americans are obsessed with sex. The media kept up a steady stream of sex scandal coverage. And with each breaking story, the press and blogosphere ferreted out the seediest details, the miscreant offered his penitent confessions, and his long-suffering wife stood by her man. Whether it was Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) being arrested in a sting operation after soliciting an undercover police officer in the men’s room of the Minneapolis airport, or Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer of New York being caught in a wiretap investigation arranging dates with the sex workers of a high-end escort service, or John Edwards being pressed to confess an extra-marital affair with a campaign worker after exiting the Democratic Party’s nomination race, there were entire weeks in which mainstream news outlets talked non-stop about sex.

From a feminist perspective, this coverage falls far short of the mark. In this paper, I want to make two arguments about the 2008 campaign. First, that coverage of the sex scandals is actually symptomatic of neoliberalism, the right-wing ideology dictating that virtually every public matter could be properly resolved if we gave free rein to the capitalist market. In particular, sex scandals in America are a product of a corporate media that puts profits first and social justice last. Second, that there were, in fact, serious sexual politics issues at play in the election. I am especially interested in how the family values agenda of the religious right is being re-packaged as centrist, and the complicated ways in which race is deeply woven through issues as diverse as single mother-headed families and abstinence education. However, these crucially important openings for feminist critique are being all but ignored in the corporate media’s sensationalist sound-byte (or nano-byte) coverage. To take but one example, I will touch on President Obama’s “Responsible Fatherhood” initiative. The race and class politics deeply embedded in this invocation of “family values” need to be recognized and brought to the fore.

Sex Scandals in the U.S. Media: The Neoliberal-Imperialist Interest in “All Monica, All the Time” Coverage

The use of sexual humiliation techniques at Abu Graib and Guantanamo ought to go down in history as the most significant sexual scandals of our period. However, the corporate press does not prioritize human rights in its coverage of American politics; it is oriented instead toward profit-seeking, audience-capturing, and the perfection of multimedia synergy (the complementary promotion of a single conglomerate’s cultural products, whether in publishing, the recording industry, film, television news, consumer goods, weapons systems, and so on.) Thus, we are fed a junk food diet of sex scandal, sensationalism, and celebrity drivel. The lines between “news reporting,” commercial advertisement, and mindless entertainment are almost imperceptible.

Why is sexual scandal so well suited to the commercial agenda of the corporate media in the U.S.? After all, we could imagine a completely different culture in which other distractions would fit the bill, and the popular media operates differently in other countries. Here we must remember not only the Puritanical dimension of the dominant paradigm for thinking about sex in the U.S. but also our anti-feminist and apocalyptic context. Sexual scandal gives us an opportunity to indulge in the pleasures of voyeurism, even as we claim to condemn immorality. It provides a compelling stage upon which we can organize women into their proper roles: either as Jezebels (e.g., the sex worker or the adultress) or the handmaidens of God (e.g., the politician’s long-suffering wife). Lee Quinby argues that we Americans inhabit a common secularized apocalyptic paradigm: we are all influenced, more or less, by the idea that we are living in the “end times.” The clash of mighty civilizations is upon us. ¹ Virile masculinity will go forth to triumph, albeit in a manner suited to our post-feminist times. As Iris Marion Young puts it, today’s brand of rediscovered masculinity is uplifted through its chivalrous relation with feminine moral virtue. ²

Within the apocalyptic paradigm, sexual scandals indicate that the final battle and the salvation of true believers are imminent. To the extent that they consume sexual scandals from this perspective, the Americans who are struggling with declining real incomes, job loss, steep increases in fuel costs, and mortgage foreclosures can find some solace in them. These images of moral descent are the harbinger of Armageddon. Traditionally, American culture frowns upon the economic “losers” as work shy and morally suspect. However, the apocalyptic paradigm teaches us that there are morally good persons who are scattered among the economic “losers.” Because we have descended into the decadent condition of end times, our judgment is now clouded; the corrupt elite has unleashed evil forces that are unjustly persecuting the good and the bad alike. Signs of the apocalypse, to individuals humiliated by economic failure yet proud of their upstanding moral character, indicate that this confusion is coming to an end. Their status as members of the chosen people will be recognized, and they will finally prevail. ³ Indeed, the apocalypse narrative can be marshaled by skilled populist demagogues on the right, such as Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly, to create the impression that they alone have the capacity to unmask the evil-doing elites and ensure that the true sentiments of the people will prevail.

The spectacular collapse of the newspaper industry is only accelerating the corporate media’s exploitation of apocalypticism and its failure to call demagoguery to account. Even the “serious” national newspapers are pressed to imitate the bottom-feeding tabloids, the worst gossip bloggers, and the most lurid punditry by their corporate directors. The form of the coverage declines from restrained and cautious disclosure to a “flood the zone” effort designed to give us “all Monica, ⁴ all the time.”

1.  Lee Quinby, “Virile Reality: From Armageddon to Viagra,” Signs, 24:4 (1999): 1079-87.[↑]
2. Iris Marion Young, “The Logic of Masculinist Protection: Reflections on the Current Security State,” Signs, 29:1 (2003): 1-25.[↑]
3. Quinby, “Virile Reality.”[↑]
4. I refer to Monica Lewinsky, with whom President Bill Clinton had an affair while he was in office.[↑]