On August 1, 2016, The NY Post had emblazoned on its front cover, a picture of Melania Trump's nude form. I'm in no position to discuss whether these were artsy pictures or not but the inference and intent is clear: Melania is a slut, a ho, a woman who should never be First Lady.
My guess about these pictures is that this spread was more about Donald Trump than it ever was about Melania. Melania was but a means to an end. Every other thing that has been tried to shame Donald Trump into behaving like a decent human being has failed so this is the latest attempt in that quest. But there's a significant problem with that: Donald isn't a decent human being (cf his attacks on the Khan family if you're unconvinced), so a newspaper - run by a man no doubt - using a woman to shame her husband is not only beyond the pale, archaic, misogynist and just wrong with this particular candidate, it's also a waste of time. This hits on every arcane 'woman as property' line of thinking known to patriarchal society.
Look, I get it. The right wing has had innumerable melt downs over the mere mention of Michelle Obama's naked arms and yet, even with this in Melania's background, there's been not a murmur of disapproval, not even from the evangelicals who so love The Donald. The objections to Michelle Obama have been largely that she is a woman of Black in the house of White not that anyone has had the integrity and honesty to actually say so. We understand that. People of color in this nation have long learned how to read between the lines, but does that give anyone the right to do this? And more importantly, who exactly among us has the moral authority to participate in this ugliness? Let he/she who is without sin cast the first stone.
Let me also point out two other things, that I've noticed over the last two days:
First, the Don has failed to take the bait. Indeed, it may well have been he who threw the bait himself in an effort to deflect attention from his ongoing attacks on the Gold Star Khan family. The Don has no difficulty casting his wife, his helpmeet to use the biblical term, to the wolves for his own glory or salvation. Process that a moment.
Whatever the real goal of the spread, the Don was well aware that the general population would not greet these pictures kindly. He may be a miserable politician or candidate for public office and an altogether odious human being, but he's smart enough to know that. He may well have thrown us this red herring to get us off the Khan story. That he would sacrifice his wife's peace of mind and public reputation in this way defies appropriate descriptors. With all my $10 words, I can't come up with one to describe how I feel about that.
My second insight out of this mess is this: a lot of us are having great difficulty separating our feelings about the candidate from our feelings about his family. While I'm absolutely no Trump fan, I have to say that there's plenty to ding Trump about without descending to these depths. We can find fault with the man or even with the woman, on the merits of positions they have taken, but I suppose, this has been a boundary-breaking election in every way, so why not in this way as well?
We're all still very prudish about matters sexual. That prudishness has created a society wherein folk are still trying to figure out how to tolerate (rather than accept) other people's lives. We're still struggling with homosexuality, bisexuality and asexuality. We're still trying to comprehend what it means to be transgender and are terrifyingly tolerant of all manner of non-scientific behavioral adjustment therapy to 'fix' people who we think need to be fixed. We're still kvetching over polyamory and sexual liberation. And we have an absurd fixation on what's underneath people's clothes. And don't even get me started on abortion.....like any of that is any of our business. There is nothing inherently wrong with Melania Trump (or anyone else for that matter) taking nude pictures. Hell, even making pornography isn't illegal if the actors are consenting adults and yet, we get our nickers in a knot over a grown a$$ woman's twenty year old photos and call her a ho?
Melania's naked pictures aren't any of my business. Michelle's shorts or short sleeves aren't any of my business. Malia's partying ain't any of my business! None of it is any of our business. They're all grown!
We spend an inordinate amount of time policing others' behavior and choices on the one hand, and screaming about freedom and rights on the other. Folks, it can't be both. It's one or the other folks, it cannot be both. The two are mutually exclusive. We gotta pick one.
If the intent here was to get us off the Khan story, that doesn't seem to have worked partly because the Don himself is still talking about the Khans and partly because a decent husband - as Mr. Khan has demonstrated himself to be - would stand up for his wife vociferously and decry the ugliness.
If the intent here was to shame Donald, that hasn't worked either. Worse still, it has exposed us as hypocritical in the way we're treating Melania, in the way we've treated Michelle and in the claims that we make as a nation, when we talk about equality.
Get it together America! This level of disconnectedness between theory-in-use and espoused theory can't be good for your health.
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