Political Scandal and American Pop Culture by Jim Twombly

Author:Jim Twombly
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030013400
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Not the Kind of Transparency We Wanted: Hey Weiner, Put Some Pants On!

By now, the word “sexting” is a part of our everyday lexicon. We know it to mean, generally, the exchange of sexual content via text messaging. It is a portmanteau of sex and texting, or the combining of two words to form a new one that reflects the combined meaning of the two words. It is possible that the first use of “sexting” was in the Australian publication, Sunday Telegraph Magazine , as early as 2005 (Roberts 2005). In the US, The Atlantic (Rosenberg 2011) argues that the word can be traced back to an article in The Los Angeles Times in 2005. The Atlantic further notes a survey by Cosmogirl.com from 2008 that 20% of teens engaged in one form of the practice “by sending naked pictures to one another.”14 Sexting can either be relatively harmless fun between romantic partners, a dangerous practice for minors, or a publically shameful expression of bad choices by public figures .

While much of the focus of the media was on sexting between teens, it was not a practice unknown to adults—even members of Congress. Anthony Weiner , a rising star in the Democratic Party,15 was a vocal critic of the Bush Administration’s policies (especially the war in Iraq) and an ardent supporter of a progressive agenda. He was considered to be a future Mayor of New York City , or possibly Governor of New York, perhaps a US Senator, or even a potential presidential contender . He was definitely not someone you might think would be involved in sexting .

Weiner was married to Huma Abedin , a close friend and adviser to Hillary Clinton . The marriage was notable in that Weiner, a fairly devout Jew, was married to Abedin, a devout Muslim. Former President Bill Clinton presided over their wedding. By May of 2011, they were expecting their first child. Things were looking up for the Congressman.

Then, on May 27, 2011, Anthony Weiner , using his most public Twitter persona, sent a link to a young female follower that contained a rather explicit photograph of himself. According to The Huffington Post (2011), Weiner sent “a waist-down photograph of a man’s underpants to a 21-year-old female college student in Seattle .” The photograph appeared to show that the subject was in a state of arousal. According to Jack Kelly of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (2011), it was “a photo of an erection barely covered by a man’s underwear.” Additionally, The Huffington Post, continued, “He quickly deletes it and sends out a tweet saying that his Facebook account was hacked.” Just a day later, Andrew Breitbart revealed the existence of the photograph via his BigGovernment.com Web site . The beginning of the end of Anthony Weiner’s career had begun.

Weiner’s initial reaction, as noted above, was to deny the photograph and others that began to surface over the course of the next few weeks, were real.16 He chose, instead, to claim he was hacked, and often in very angry terms when asked about the incident by reporters.

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