Personal, Political: Welcome to Aries, 2012-style

By Amanda Painter

The Sun is on the Aries Point, where the personal is political. We’re just a few days on the heels of The New York Post’s story on Meghan McCain’s interview with Playboy (she’s the daughter of 2008 Presidential candidate John McCain, and a political contributor for MSNBC and The Daily Beast). And as if on cue, the threads of the big ‘personal/political’ issue of the year — who gets to control sex and sexuality — are in the news yet again. But with a couple of twists.

First, let’s check out a segment of that interview, available in full here. It’s full of down-to-Earth commentary (aside from her assertion that her dad would have had the country in better shape by now if he had been elected president instead of Obama) but what caught my eye was that she calls out the role of sexual repression in political sex scandals:

PLAYBOY: Why do so many politicians get caught up in sex scandals?
MCCAIN: I always say repression breeds obsession. Politicians have to be goody-goodies. They put on this face of perfection and pretend they’re completely above indiscretion. But the more you deny your sexual side, the more it builds up and comes out in inappropriate ways. Not to bring any particular politician into this discussion, but I always find it fascinating that the number one state per capita for downloading porn is Utah. All those pious Mormons and they’re drooling at their laptops all day.

Spoken like a true Scorpio, eh?

In fact, Meghan — who did not pose nude for Playboy, but instead wears a red sequined number while lying on white satin — openly proclaims she likes sex. And why not? It would seem the progressive pro-birth control forces could take a cue from this socially liberal Republican and take a positive stand for liking sex. Should access to birth control for medical purposes be protected? Of course. But when those on the front lines get squeamish or defensive about its use to prevent pregnancies by women who like to have a lot of sex, they do everyone a disservice by playing into the shame-and-guilt trap.

Even worse, pro-women groups run the risk of starting to sound more like Rick Santorum, the presidential candidate who has proven the most rabid in his anti-sex, anti-women crusade, as he proclaims how free he now is from his former porn addiction. That’s right — according to freewoodpost.com yesterday, Santorum told a bunch of Baptists this weekend that he just couldn’t get enough of the stuff — or his own hand:

While making a pitch yesterday to a crowd of over 1,400 evangelical leaders at Greenwell Springs Baptist Church, Rick Santorum admitted to having a past addiction to pornography.

‘I believe the foundation of a strong society starts with the strong foundation of family. The threat of homosexuality and pornography is leading to the ‘sexualization’ of America. I know this because I’ve lived it. I’ve learned from my past addiction to porn.’

An awkward silence fell over the crowd as Santorum went on to say, ‘The devil pulled me into lust. I would stare at screens, magazines, my hand… but now I’m free. I’m free of the devil’s grip.’ The crowd organized by the Family Research Council erupted into cheers as Santorum vowed to wipe the ‘pandemic of pornography’ out of America.

The devil’s grip? Well, as much as I dislike Santorum, I hope the Devil used plenty of lube. And note that in this latest statement, slow-hand Rick acknowledges that his crusade is not just about putting sluts or gays in their place. It really is about eviscerating everyone of their sexuality — their basic human creative potential. But then, we knew this about him already, because we’ve seen his natal chart.

Meanwhile, what does John McCain think about his daughter’s appearance in Playboy — a porn mag, albeit one of the ‘softest’ around? Apparently, not much. She claims she talks to each of her parents daily, so it seems unlikely he did not know about her decision prior to the issue hitting newsstands this month. To the contrary, John McCain has called for his party to drop their focus on the uterus. (Hmm… given that women’s breasts are such a sexualized body part, could we call it the Right’s ‘Tit Offensive’ in its War on Women? Anyway…). Here’s what he had to say on Meet the Press on Monday, when host David Gregory “sensibly asked McCain whether he thought there was a war on women being waged by Republicans in light of this sudden, bizarre fascination with whether women are having sex they enjoy without suffering the divinely-prescribed consequences,” according to Jezebel.com:

I think we have to fix that. I think that there is a perception out there, because of the way that this whole contraception issue played out. We need to get off of that issue, in my view. I think we ought to respect the right of women to make choices in their lives, and make that clear, and get back on to what the American people really care about: jobs and the economy.

But as Jezebel contributor Erin Gloria Ryan points out,

Oddly, McCain’s assertion that the GOP should ‘get off’ the issue of contraception and babies and onto things like jobs and whether or not all these babies born of compelled pregnancy will ever be able to find jobs comes on the heels of McCain’s vote in favor of the Blunt Amendment. That stinker of a bill would have allowed any employer or insurance company to refuse to provide any sort of insurance coverage they found morally objectionable. Nudge nudge wink wink birth control.

And as our own Len Wallick noted, McCain is a military man and a strategist. If he sees his party shooting itself in the foot, he’s going to find a way to point the gun elsewhere. But that’s not the same as taking out the bullets. This is, after all, an election year — and McCain isn’t likely to leave politics any time soon.

It doesn’t look like Meghan McCain is going to go into hiding anytime, either. And strange as it may seem, that could be a really good thing for anyone who cares more about getting sex — and living — out of the dark, shameful shadows and out in the open where it can breathe, even if it’s counterintuitive for some of us to appreciate a Republican these days. Planet Waves often makes a point of describing the strength that can come from shrugging off the shame game and instead living your life no matter who’s watching. Meghan seems to get that:

PLAYBOY: Do you ever think twice about partying in public for fear it will show up on Gawker the next morning?
MCCAIN: Oh, I can’t live like that. I do get paranoid when I’m wearing low-cut dresses that somebody’s going to take a picture and put it on the internet and be like, ‘Meghan was showing off her breasts again.’ But you know, showing a little cleavage can make a girl feel sexy too. Like Jessica Simpson says, if you got it, you should flaunt it once in a while.

Most fun of all, perhaps, is the fact that she’s single:

PLAYBOY: And you’re still single?
MCCAIN: Oh my God, I love being single. I can do whatever the hell I want all the time. I have no one to check in with. When you’re in a serious relationship, you kind of have to check in before you go out with your friends or do whatever. I think I’m a bit of a commitment-phobe. Or maybe it’s just that I haven’t met the right guy. Dating’s okay, but guys can be weird. They think if they Google you and talk about stuff you’ve said, they get to make out with you at the end of the first date.

She’s single. She likes sex. She’s 27 years old. She’s a Scorpio. She posed in Playboy. She has chastised conservatives in the past for hypocrisy regarding abortion and sex education, saying “They go on and on about how evil and wrong abortion is, but don’t like to talk about how easy it is to not get pregnant.” I have a feeling she regularly “stares at her hand.” But unlike Rick Santorum, I don’t think she’ll start loathing herself for it anytime soon — or turn that loathing onto the rest of us.