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A couple of months ago we discussed the cultural legacy of the Playboy mag of all things under an effort post by @FiveHourMarathon. I was reminded of this by a recent lame-ass political scandal in Hungary in which a local/district volunteer coordinator of the main opposition party and apparently a single(?) mom was doxxed by some pro-government journos as a former porner / sex worker. Technically I’m supposed to call her a former porn actress, but the actual level of ‘acting’ that is involved in all of this makes me decide against doing so; supposedly she also appeared in a grand total of one casting video only (by Pierre Woodman) so calling her an actress would be a big stretch either way. Pretty much the only factor fueling this whole thing was that the party leader and MEP was pictured shaking hands with the ‘lady’ during some public events.
What does Playboy have anything to do with this, you might ask? Well, said party leader decided it’d be a swell idea to reverse the accusation of sleaziness and would also be some sort of clever gotcha to point out that a 51-year-old woman who’s a government commissioner and a former ‘Secretary of State for Sports’ (if you’re one of the few female politicians in Eastern Europe, it’s the sort of government position of lesser importance you can ever hope to fulfill, I guess) appeared in a photoshoot in the local edition of Playboy ages ago.
Anyway, I’m aware that culture wars are waged with maximal cynicism, dishonesty and opportunism, and this is a case of culture-warring alright; no need to remind me of that. Still, I found myself asking the rhetorical question: who the heck actually believes that posing for a photoshoot in a completely mainstreamed, slick, high-class magazine which eventually shifted to a women's fashion and lifestyle brand is the cultural/moral/social equivalent of anonymously getting your holes stuffed and swallowing cum/urine on camera for a handful of cash?
Why not have literal whores become politicians?
Directional whoring is pretty much the overtly default career of young (and not so young) women in the West. They dress skimpily, date industriously, engage in serial monogamy, and are not at all averse to material benefits resulting from these activities. Many women very aggressively argue that all sexual practices and all sexual conduct that does not harm any one party without their consent is nominally okay, and if you listen closely you'll notice that the valence of such conduct is actually considered very positive. That they sometimes turn around and viciously shame individual women for their promiscuity or sexual practices or material benefits derived from either seems more like pokerfaced opportunism than ideological inconsistency.
At the same time, politicians are widely known to be the scum of the earth. Eternally corrupt, consummate liars, shameless hypocrites, will sell out your country for a handful of cash and will ruin your life's work out of sheer incompetence. At best they're naive idealists who produce policy catastrophe after administration catastrophe, but let's face it, when people think "politician", they think either of morally bankrupt sociopaths looking to line their own pockets or of rabid ideologues aiming to stroke their egoes. Natural selection among politicians selects for the ability to out-smear your opponents, not for any sort of object-level competence or moral stature. Politicians are, by necessity, cheats and liars and if they weren't they wouldn't survive.
So why not have whores becomes politicians? Do we lose anything by this happening?
“Directional whoring?” That’s ridiculous and insulting.
None of my half-dozen female cousins are whoring themselves out. None have any overlap between their careers and their relationships.
That’s not because they’re all following the same script, either. One’s an accountant, another works for the government. A third got pregnant in college, but married the guy and started a stable family. She only has a job now that the kid is in school. Not exactly a gold digger.
What’s your justification for insulting the modal Western woman?
It's how some people talk about women here. You notice the nails that stick up. People's impression of discourse they dislike is based on notable examples of that discourse, not examples to the contrary.
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