A lot of people have said "I don't know if it's fair to look at Sarah Palin's sexuality the way people are — I just don't know if it's sexist or appropriate. Why can't we just treat her like a human being?" Okay, I'm going to tell you why it's appropriate for us to gloat and delve into every detail.
#1. Sexual politics is important. It matters.
#2. Palin has made priggery, prudery and sexual hypocrisy a centerpiece of her law enforcement and public policy directives, as both the mayor of the beautiful Wasilla, Alaska, and the governor of the state.
She ran on a sex-is-icky platform. People who lived in Wasilla remember when being mayor was almost considered a thankless job, like being the town plumber. ("Who wants to deal with all the bullshit down at the city dump and the electrical wiring?") And then Sarah came along, with her Pentecostal church program behind her, saying "I'm not going to talk about issues like whose dog is pooping on whose lawn. I'm going to talk about stopping abortion now." That's the kind of stuff she ran on, and she got a bunch of people who'd never voted before to march down from her little church and put her into office.
About the author: Susie Bright is the host of the weekly Audible.com podcast, "In Bed With Susie Bright." For a free month's subscription, click here. The longer, audio version of Susie's analysis can be found here.
And then Mayor Palin cut funding for rape test kits. It's like, "If you want to complain about being raped, sweetheart, well, you can just get out your checkbook." Because the city of Wasilla, no matter how much money they had in revenue from their oil, wasn't going to spend it on you. So Sarah has made sex a topic by her legislation and her lobbying and her speeches.
But here's the most controversial part, and it's just as rich as any other aspect of her candidacy: we finally have an image of a powerful, fertile, virile woman on the national stage. And it's a female image that's been almost entirely absent from America's pop culture. When you think of women who've been in the news, two kinds come to mind. One we'll call the Paris Hilton model — or Lindsay Lohan, or Britney Spears — this illiterate, anorexic, or drug-addicted pop tart. "She's so rich. Everybody wants to fuck her. She's so special." This, as many mothers wring their hands saying "This is the role model for our daughters? This is who they see as someone they should look up to?" It's been a travesty.
The other kind of strong woman on a national stage has been an older woman like Hillary Clinton. In some ways, you can say that's how sexism worked against her. Every time she got a little ballsy, a little rip-roaring — every time she showed her fierceness and her strength — she was bound to be called a Wellesley lesbian, that somehow she wasn't enough for Bill Clinton, that all those girls she went to college with she was secretly fucking. Now all of this has just been a big pile of right-wing baloney, but it's what happened to Hillary Clinton. She has never allowed herself, or been encouraged to show her sexual side, because it's been considered something that would get her in trouble — like there was no positive way to show it. She had to refrain from being a ball-buster for fear of being dyke-baited.
So here comes Sarah Palin, who apparently is not in menopause at all. She just had a baby a few months ago, so her heterosexuality is just bleeding out all over the place. She's just rolled out of bed! That's the impression we get from this woman. They can't get her on the dyke thing. She's up in Alaska, shooting guns and taking names! So she's gotten a pass on this. And she is irresistible!
We simply haven't had an overtly fecund, butch, straight-woman sex symbol in so long. She's like Annie Oakley with her six-shooters and her polar bears, her caribou dressing and her moose stew. She's got five kids hanging off of her, and you're like "Hells bells, that woman can fuck in the morning, go out for a long hike on the Arctic tundra, take down a polar bear or two, and be back in time to pass some new creationist legislation." She just kicks ass. I mean, she's just so — mmm. So like a powerful woman.
It's exciting, isn't it?
I think for every woman who's been appalled at her politics and the platform she's been running on — and this certainly includes me — well, there's this little part of me that's thinking "Oh, If only she was on my side. If only I could kidnap Sarah Palin and just lick her pussy for a few hours, I think we could just work this whole thing out." Do you know how many lesbians are discussing this? My friend Marga Gomez, who's a fantastic dyke comedian, has this line where she says "Sarah Palin? She's having my baby. And we've already named her Drill." If only we could move her political viewpoint around just a little.
I was talking to my good friend Christina the other night, and when I told her my kidnapping/cunnilingus fantasy about brainwashing Sarah Palin, she said "I don't think it'd really be that hard. I think she really does like us. I think she's ready for anything. She just wants to be a winner. That's all this girl cares about." When she was Sarah Barracuda on the high school basketball team, when she was in the beauty contest — you can just imagine how mad she was that she didn't win Miss Alaska and only won Miss Congeniality.
I don't think she's very congenial. She wants to win. And in Alaska, that meant siding with a certain kind of fundamentalist church. At first, it meant bucking the Republican establishment without leaving the Republican party entirely. It was the same thing with her church. If you go onto YouTube and look at that Wasilla Pentecostal church she belonged to — I mean, they make Ted Haggard look like a sober Lutheran Minister. And when she ran for governor, all of a sudden she stopped going there every Sunday, because it was just a little too wacky. You know, she had a private talk with them and said, "I really love you guys, but it's a little too theatrical for my political career."
What have we learned about Sarah Palin's sex life so far? The most important thing is that, like every other single person in Alaska, she seems to have had premarital sex. You can look at the elopement date, and then you look at when their first son, Track, was born less than 8 months later. All of her children seem to have had premarital sex — all the ones who've gone through puberty, at least. This is not unusual in America, and especially not in Alaska, where you have all these long, long months, a very narrow economy, and not the biggest educational system in the world. There's not a lot to do except fuck, drink, hunt, and fish. In fact, I don't really know how this Wasilla Pentecostal church really works with their abstinence program, because it goes against the Alaska way!
This kind of hurts me, because you know how I hate slut-baiting, but people at Bristol's high school say she got around, according to the National Enquirer. It's easy to imagine this, because when you see all the photos that are floating around MySpace, there's lots of supposed pictures of Bristol, her sister, and her cousins with gigantic tankards of Jack Daniels, tossing them back — jello shots, party, party, party. The kids have apparently been in a lot of hijinx.
I mean, on one level, I'm sympathetic to Sarah Palin having her life torn apart like this, because every other candidate has all kinds of skeletons in their closet, too. The kind of problems this family is dealing with aren't unusual for any American family. But we never found out what was going on with the Bushes, because they were from a ruling class elite that has a shroud of secrecy around their personal lives, and no one in those circles talks. You're never going to find out what they did at Walmart. You're never going to find out if they pulled their pants down and mooned somebody out a car window — because nobody talks among the crowd they've grown up with.
Sarah, on the other hand, in this working class/middle class community in Alaska? Everyone's got a story. There's no veneer of nobility or discretion. It's all up for grabs.
I know the GOP makes it their practice to select candidates — and this very much includes John McCain — not based on whether these people have intelligence or leadership qualities, or experience or character. They pick them the way a modeling agency picks a spokesmodel — they pick them like it's a casting call. Somebody like Richard Nixon would never be picked for a presidential nominee in a million years now, because he's not good television. Ronald Reagan changed everything. Now the GOP believes that government should be handled by professionals whose names you will never know. And they just want the little puppets on the outside to do the song and dance.
"Do you think she's pretty? Do you think she's cute? Great! Vote for her!" And they don't have any respect for her. When they start screaming about how she isn't shown enough deference by the media, I'm thinking "But you don't respect her. You think she's a useful idiot!" If she's really like Annie Oakley, she wouldn't put up with that. If she's really a tough woman who can stand up to a grizzly bear — can she stand up to the GOP?
That would impress me. If she's not going to do that, then she's totally under their thumb — under her husband's thumb, under the GOP's thumb. She's sold out for the money, like so many others, and she doesn't have the barracuda qualities of survival and dignity that we'd hope that she'd have.
We'll see.
I realize some other unbelievable surprise may be unleashed, but until then, all we can do is just turn the pages of the National Enquirer.
See Also:
20 Wildest Reactions to Obama's Victory
Sarah Palin Photos and a Moose
Drugs and Sex and Susie Bright
CWILF Island: Hottie Candidate Spouses
FUCK YOU, SUSIE BRIGHT
Why would you repeat stories about rape kits that are not true?
http://slate.msn.com/blogs/blogs/xxfactor/archive/2008/09/26/debunk-a-bunk.aspx
Where did you get the idea that mayors, or governors, “legislate”?
Why would you just make stuff up like “And then Mayor Palin cut funding for rape test kits?”
Seriously–can’t you find true things to complain about?
Your basing your opinion and commentary on flawed information. I guess hate is justified.
“And then Mayor Palin cut funding for rape test kits.”
Got a reference for that? The previous allegations I’ve heard on this topic have been disproven.
The Palin rape-kit myth has been thoroughly debunked.
The ‘rape kit’ issue has been debunked. Even Slate has it. There may be reasons why one wouldn’t want Gov. Palin as vice-president, but shouldn’t we stick to the truth?
Sweet jabbering christ, woman, do you kiss your MOTHER with that mouth?
Stuff like your inane, factless, baseless smears against Palin make me want to vote for even more.
You have some serious problems.
Think what you want about Palin, but about that “rape kit” thing, you’re dead wrong. She never cut funding for it, and it’s a complete lie. This has been debunked by Slate, among others:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/xxfactor/archive/2008/09/26/debunk-a-bunk.aspx
and here:
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1122849
This is a lie that’s been spreading through the Obama supporter community by people who are spreading HATE about Palin over a topic that’s just a plain LIE.
And I completely agree with what she says at the end of that first article:
“If you’re an Obama supporter who gets frustrated that people still believe he’s Muslim or won’t put his hand on his heart for the Pledge of Allegiance, you should understand the frustration that Palin supporters feel when this slime is taken at face value.”
Get your facts right. I can’t believe how many leftists repeat this same thing about rape kits without even checking that it’s been debunked. Why not throw in the plastic turkey as well.
Leftists repeating falsehoods is always fine.
Rabid Right Wing Lunatics who point out actual facts are on a “smear campaign”.
Sheesh.
Seek professional help.
You’re not well.
“This kind of hurts me, because you know how I hate slut-baiting, but people at Bristol’s high school say she got around, according to the National Enquirer. It’s easy to imagine this, because when you see all the photos that are floating around MySpace, there’s lots of supposed pictures of Bristol, her sister, and her cousins with gigantic tankards of Jack Daniels, tossing them back — jello shots, party, party, party. The kids have apparently been in a lot of hijinx. “
You may be fooling yourself, but you are not fooling readers. I don’t for a minute believe that you had the slightest heartburn over trashing a teenager’s sex life for political purposes. That paragraph had nothing to do with the supposed point of this piece. Just admit that you’re trying to help Obama win, and any tool that can be used to trash Sarah Palin is fair game. Or do you have other articles detailing the exploits of a teenaged Chelsea Clinton of which I am not aware?
Oh, regarding the thouroughly debunked rape kit allegation – it’s called “Google”, and people find it handy for looking stuff up. See if you can get someone to show you how it works.
And then Mayor Palin cut funding for rape test kits. It’s like, “If you want to complain about being raped, sweetheart, well, you can just get out your checkbook.” Because the city of Wasilla, no matter how much money they had in revenue from their oil, wasn’t going to spend it on you.
This statement is an outright lie, and you do yourself and your readers a disservice by repeating it.
You really need to click on your ad in the middle of this tripe and get some therapy.
Another example of why we need to defeat net neutrality.
“a big lie repeated often enough becomes the truth” Goebells
the “rape kit” thing has been debunked. apparently you missed it.
Your own bile is eating you alive.
What fun to watch!
But don’t be surprised to find that the majority of Americans find you and your degenerative and degrading opinions disgusting.
You are an idiot.
I can’t remember the last time a “seasoned, professional journalist and author” used the phrase “my kidnapping/cunnilingus fantasy”. If I write a column about my Obama kidnapping fellatio fantasy, can I too be considered a professional? Can I? Huh? Please????
Susie,
“I mean, on one level, I’m sympathetic to Sarah Palin having her life torn apart like this, because every other candidate has all kinds of skeletons in their closet, too.”
Liar. When were you ever sympathetic to anyone but your own miserable, fanatical, hate-filled self?
When?
Supposing you dont censor your comments, this will appear.
The Palin Rape-kit story is false, been debunked already numerous times. How uninformed is this 10zenmonkeys.com site to still be peddling this dimestore magazine smears? You should apologize to your readers and maybe tone down the crazy talk.
You are basically disgusting.
I took a screenshot so if you censor this I will post the screenshot with date/time on my blog and email a few choice websites the screenshot in case others want to know you censor your comments to try to save face from a screw-up that any real blogger would admit, address, and fix.
You are shameless. How often has this lie been debunked? Only in a few states are rape kits purchased, Illinois is one. Perhaps an Illinois state senator could look into this barbarism. I think Obama has lost my vote because of the lies and many character assassinations of his followers.
Not that you care, but that rape kit story is a blatant lie.
And then Mayor Palin cut funding for rape test kits.
No, she didn’t. That’s a ridiculous myth that’s been debunked in multiple places.
Even to the extent that the town had a policy of charging insurance companies for the kits, there’s not even a record of anyone actually being charged. And even to the extent that the policy existed, it’s certainly not something that Palin introduced, nor “cut funding for” the kits.
I generally vote on the side that has to lie the least to advance its points; on the rule that if you have to lie to make your rhetorical point, you’re probably on the wrong side of the issue.
Susie Bright has just confirmed my decision to vote for McCain/Palin…
Thanks, Susie. You’re a wonderful human being. Or something.
You really should consider therapy. Just sayin’.
As a self described feminist you are an idiot. I’m not normally into name calling but the entire article about Palin’s sexuality is stupid and laughable. You are
smearing the feminist movement by writing such sexist drivel.
You do know, don’t you, that putting quotes around something doesn’t make it a quote? It does sometimes make it dishonest, though.
I think you have a lot of nerve using the word “zen” in the title of a blog like this.
Ms: Bright
Wow:
Such venom, such energy. What a vent. Feel better now?
I do not agree with everything the Good Governor stands for, but… I get the impression you never got over adolescence, that Governor Palin pushes your “I Must Rebel Against MOM” button and that you are afraid that if she does gets elected, she will pass legislation to make you sit up straight, wear a sweater and eat your vegtables.
You certainly have not done a discussion in detail of what she believes that would further the political discourse and improve people’s knowledge of this candidate’s positions on the issues. Instead we all get a “This Is How I Feel About HER!” emotion dump. Feels like something right out of junior high school.
Is it possible you could do something a little more productive than that? Is that asking too much?
Whose dog and whose lawn.
I stopped reading there, so you’ll have to copy edit the rest yourself.
The rape kit lie is like Jason in those horror movies – no matter how many times it’s killed, it comes back to life. I’m amazed that anybody who is politically aware is still peddling that now, into October, but it speaks to the success of astroturfing propaganda campaigns.
The jealousy and envy is dripping off every single word. Here’s a woman who is the feminist model – strong, confident, self-actualized, achieved goals on her merits, working mother, and dammit all if she isn’t a Republican! I have yet to understand why the feminist women drooled over Hillary, who we only know because she married the right Arkansas hillbilly, and has absolutely zero accomplishments other than those achieved based on her married name. She is not a leader in the Senate, failed miserably at national healthcare, tells lies at an Olympic level, and has absolute disdain for the type of women that the feminist movement has been trying to recruit for decades. Hilarious.
And really, “…can she stand up to the GOP?” Do you even have the slightest idea of her political history? My god, if you were 1/10 as clever as you think you are, you would have done your research rather than spout nonsense in the echo chamber. You see, she had to beat the good ole boys network and beat a well-financed male GOP incumbent to become governor. And she got GOP cronies fined for corruption. And said no to Ted Stevens’ bridge to indictment. All these facts AND MORE are readily available for review on this crazy internets thingy.
Oh, and if the best you can do is forced cunnilingus, seriously, are you in 10th grade? That kidnap a straight chick and convert her to lesbianism is yet another fantasy of the patriarchy! You’ve been duped and you don’t even know it! Truly, sadly, glaringly, vapidly pathetic.
Susie, surely your nickname in college was “notso”…
“And then Mayor Palin cut funding for rape test kits. It’s like, “If you want to complain about being raped, sweetheart, well, you can just get out your checkbook.” “
This is false. Why should I read your stuff when either you are lying or don’t know what you are talking about?
A couple of points
1) How do you honestly know what the people of Wasilla think? They elected her, maybe they liked her.
2) The “Paying for rape kits” has been debunked all over the place.
3) The Democrats don’t pick attractive candidates (Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Edwards, Hillary , Barack)? C’mon?
4) She stood up to the GOP in Alaska, that’s why she has an 80% approval rating in the state.
5) She’s actually gotten things done and been extremely competent in office.
I Do understand the wanting to kidnap her and …
Overall, you are not very tolerant or diverse in your thoughts, Ms. Bright.
The rape-kit story is a smear and a lie. Obama is a muslim is a smear and a lie.
Rape-kit smear has been de-bunked over at Slate.com
You should know that. This is not new. You are being dishonest by peddling this.
PS The nonsense about rape kits is a lie – it’s been debunked for weeks. Did I say pathetic earlier? Pathological may be closer to the truth.
“I know the GOP makes it their practice to select candidates — and this very much includes John McCain — not based on whether these people have intelligence or leadership qualities, or experience or character.”
And Barack Obama has what, one of the above? Even by the standards of most libs, given that nobody to the right of Obama could possibly be intelligent, McCain has the other three. So what is your point, really? Just taking time for a little gratuitous, illogical dumping.
(Intelligence is the least important of these anyway, because it’s all about sex, all about sex, and the National Enquirer is a quotable source Right Susie?)
“And then Mayor Palin cut funding for rape test kits. It’s like, “If you want to complain about being raped, sweetheart, well, you can just get out your checkbook.”
And how many times does this horseshit have to be debunked before you Obots quit repeating it. Although Goebbels would approve of the tactic. You know, repeat a lie often enough ….
BTW speaking of character, have you smoked any good cigars lately?
It’s a shame you’ve been a victim of sexual abuse. It must have been horrible. However, it does not qualify you (anymore than it does me) to speak crudely of others, regardless of your political fears.
Get help, because you don’t realize, apparentlly, how you come off and how that most certainly will continue to damage your public persona.
This is not true: “And then Mayor Palin cut funding for rape test kits. “
It’s been debunked at several websites.
Sort of knocks the underpinnings from the whole article, huh ?
Mayor Palin cut funding for rape test kits.
A lie bebunked by Slate and others. Try dealing in the truth and you might understand things more clearly. But I doubt it.
You are so obviously deranged. It’s pathetic.
“I’m not going to talk about issues like who’s dog is pooping on who’s lawn. I’m going to talk about stopping abortion now.”
So Susie, you got her on tape, huh? Good job!!
Really weird how the Reality Based folks don’t do research. Quotations in context are a foreign syntax.
According to wikipedia “the verb “google”, was added to the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006, meaning “to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet.” LexisNexis is good too.
Governor Palin addressed the Sex Scandal from Nowhere #92 See http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/xxfactor/archive/2008/09/26/debunk-a-bunk.aspx
Fabricate when you can’t fornicate.
You are mistaken in this matter of the rape kits; you might want to look at the article at the Boston Herald regarding this and issue a correction.
” The day that truth and fairness died: Globe edit hits Palin, evidence be damned”
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1122849
Lady, you are one sick puppy.
Palin obsession is getting weird. That rape kit nonsense has been repeated and repeated and repeated then debunked and debunked and debunked.
You’re wrong about the rape kit.
But you knew that.
Susie, I’ve always been a fan of your writing and admired your intellectual honesty but this particular essay has really disappointed me. I voted for Hillary in the primary and I plan to vote for Obama in November and I do not think that Gov. Palin is qualified to be President. (Unfortunately, I think the same thing about Sen Biden.) However, one must be honest about a candidate’s qualifications or lack thereof. To base your argument on things that have been clearly shown to be lies is to call into question your entire argument. That stuff about the rape kits has been shown to be a lie. This makes your argument against Palin to be as false as the arguments against Hillary. I think that if a political argument cannot be made based on truth then it should not be made because it only calls into question anything else that you might say. How can we object to distortions made by McCain supporters if we base our own case on falsehoods?
You’re a liar and you know you’re a liar. Sarah Palin never cut funding for ‘rape kits’, even the AP has thoroughly debunked it.
Like a friend told me 20 years ago, nothing worse than a liar. But you and Obama are probably happy together.