Saturday 30 September 2006

Pic of the day: Already the ancient Greeks did it... and as you can see from this Japanese anime, it is not an uncommon occurrence even on the opposite side of the globe. A questionable relationship with a beautiful young boy, indeed...

Foleying around

Just in time for the elections, the seasoned Republican congressman Mark Foley was caught with his pants down, almost literally, exchanging highly sexual messages with a teen boy whom he had evidently met through his office. The Honorable Mark Foley did the honorable thing and resigned with immediate effect on September 29th. (Though it would surely have been more honorable to do so on his own accord rather than waiting until exploded all over mass media.) His Florida seat now seems almost certain to fall to his Democrat opponent.

To complicate matters, accusations have been levied against Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the House. He had been made aware of a much less lurid but still unusual correspondence between Foley and another young man. Foley had evidently asked the young man for a picture and asked what he wished for his birthday. This is hardly something you call in the police on, even in America, and especially since Foley had not mentioned to his colleagues that he was gay. There are now rumors that Mr. Hastert may have known more, and some pressure on him to resign as well, which he understandably refuses. His promise of leading the Republicans to victory may however be harder to fulfill now, unless the Diebold voting machines really can be used to manipulate the vote count. (In which case it is anyway probably none of Mr Hastert's doing.)

Meanwhile, Foley informs the world that he has an alcohol problem, for which he is seeking treatment, and that he is gay (for which, it is believed, he is not seeking treatmen) and that he was abused by a clergyman when he grew up. (The name of the clergyman is not released, but it seems Foley grew up a Catholic.) The last part does not exactly help the Republicans who have made it a point that "not voting for a Christian is to legislate sin". It seems that no matter who you vote for, they will still sin. This could cause conservative Christians to abstain from voting this time, and they are a major part of the Republican vote base. But at least they are unlikely to switch to the opposite side.

***

From a distance, Mark Foley's crime doesn't seem particularly horrible. These are not children, but boys 16 years and up. Leaving aside the question of why young boys are doing this job in the first place - they are not preferred employees in much less important workplaces - they are old enough to know whether or not they want to flirt with elder men. It is not like Foley lured young boys into his home, served them spiked cola and raped them while they were drugged. While this would have made for even better headlines, the prosaic truth is that most of the boys rebuffed his advances at an early stage. And those who did not, clearly shared his gender preference to some degree. Or at the very least they enjoyed the attention of one of the highest ranking members of society, something they share with young boys back to ancient Greece at least.

Young boys not only look more androgynous than adults, they also tend to behave that way. Back when I (and Foley) grew up, textbooks of psychology stated right out that it was common for young men to have homosexual tendencies, but that almost all grew out of it. This is no longer politically correct to say, since it implies that gays are somehow primitive or immature. It is probably factually true, though, that a lot of men who grow up to be straight, have had experiences or dreams that were pretty clearly homosexual. If for no other reason, we would expect this because they grow up in same-sex groups and have very limited contact with girls, especially physically, for much of their late childhood and early youth, which is when these things manifest. Why is society arranged like that? Why do we encourage boys to spend much of their time with other boys? Presumably because we assume it would be even easier for mixed-sex play to cross the line and become sex play. But the net effect is that many boys have vague sexual feelings and haven't yet found the final form for it. As such they not only are vulnerable to clergymen and congressmen with complementary needs, but also themselves send out mixed signals.

Again, it is not like Foley were giving these guys haemorrhoids for life. It was just brain sex ... a bit of excitement in a boring office workday. Lots of men do that, probably many congressmen too, just with a slightly different target group. And in more civilized countries, boys from 16 year and up would be considered perfectly able to choose whom to flirt with or not.

The real treat is of course that Foley (and his protector Hastert) belong to a subculture where people proudly declare that they would rather burn in their homes than be rescued by a gay fireman. (Admittedly this could be largely because of the Fireman's Carry, which is so very very gay that one has to wonder why any gay would choose any other profession.) The Republican party was planning to win this election partly by outlawing gay marriage. But then again, it is not like the Honorable Mark Foley was doing the honorable thing and marrying any of these boys. Rather, he was just "Foleying around".