The other side of sex scandals

BY JULIET WILLIAMS

Sex scandals are nothing new in U.S. politics. While the Clinton/Lewinsky saga is certainly the most protracted in recent memory, a sting of recently disgraced senators and governors, both Republican and Democrat, have provided much fodder for the scandal mill.

Sex scandals run a familiar course, erupting into the news with a force so dominating that coverage of globally significant events is suspended as the media pours over salacious details and tawdry tidbits. Within days, however, scandal fatigue invariably sets in, often accompanied by a wave of criticism of the media for foisting such dross upon us.

As the scandal recedes from view, many are left feeling that it has sullied not only those individuals at its center but all of us who made the spectacle possible by watching it unfold.

While it is tempting to dismiss sex scandals as nothing more than a trivializing distraction from the work of real politics, such a conclusion forecloses valuable opportunities to consider aspects of our political culture normally hidden from public view.

These include the construction of citizenship as participation in the media spectacle; the discourses enabling and constraining challenges to racial, gender, and sexual privilege; and popular conceptions of the distinction between the public and private spheres.

The real problem with media coverage of sex scandals lies not in the fact that too much attention is lavished on the private lives of public officials. Rather, the problem is that not enough attention is given to important social issues that arise when a scandal breaks — everything from sexual harassment and same-sex sexuality to prostitution and the very meaning of marriage in contemporary society.

While sex scandals may be seen as a threat to the dignity of public life, they also can play a productive role in pushing the boundaries of the political, enabling much-needed public discussion of topics that have too-long been unjustifiably shrouded in silence, secrecy, and shame.

For example, when sexual abuses committed in private become big news, those who have been privately victimized may be emboldened to speak out. And besides allowing victims to speak, sex scandals authorize the terms we use to describe the unspeakable.

For example, shortly after the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal concluded, news surfaced about the widespread sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church. The frankness with which these accusations have been discussed has been essential in redressing the grievances of victims. Such conversations would have barely been possible in the era before the phrase "oral sex" became a staple of headline news.

The same is true of the strikingly high number of sex scandals involving same-sex sex acts during the Bush era. While these scandals too often have invited the expression of homophobic attitudes and stereotypes, they also have brought to light both the hypocrisy and absurdity of state efforts to regulate the sex lives of consenting adults.

Nobody wants to see the nation dragged through another sex scandal. But we would do well to remember that sometimes the most uncomfortable conversations are also the most important ones.

Williams is a visiting associate professor in the Department of Women's Studies and the co-editor of "Public Affairs: Politics in the Age of Sex Scandals" (Duke University Press, 2004).