You may have heard by now about Nailin’ Paylin. It’s being made by Larry Flint and that’s really all you need to know.
Although I understand people’s anger, I think that’s exactly what Flint is challenging. I see it as a critique of Palin’s and the West’s (especially the U.S.’s) hypocrisy about sex and sexiness.
What is it that makes her sexual portrayal of herself in beauty contests more acceptable than her portrayal in porn except for societal values about the lines of acceptable sexuality? (Well, that and consent – but that’s why it’s a critique.) As a beauty queen she is like Artemis, irresistible but untouchable (think of Actaeon, people). But make her Aphrodite‘s devotee, as porn star/sex worker in this scenario, but it could as easily have been as sex education advocate (remember Jocelyn Elders‘ ideas about masturbation?), and she would be perceived as vulgar. As she is now, beautiful and inaccessible but also the “ideal” mother, Palin is a walking reinforcement of patriarchal standards of acceptable womanhood; she’s a friggin’ Hestia for goodness sake.
As for the inclusion of Condi and Hillary, these two women have generally been cast in our culture as Athena and Hera, respectively. Condi as the asexual woman who is the Man’s scion (Bush as Zeus here) extending His power; Hillary as the long-suffering wife who cannot be sexy except in the context of her stereotypically sexist relationship (Bill Clinton as Zeus here) and longs for ultimate power in her own right. And yet, sadly, they are both the symbols of success for woman in this culture. This video turns that on its head, challenging public conceptions, expectations, and values that are sadly consistent with some from ancient Greece.
By thrusting them without consent into Aphrodite’s realm, Larry Flint reminds us of the violence inherent in our current portrayals of acceptable gender and sexuality. If we could embrace Aphrodite – the erotic – in our public and private lives, it would take us far closer to the equality we long for.*
I figure most of my readers are going to disagree with me, and that’s fine. One of the best things about a video like this, no matter where you fall on the issue, is the discussion that it motivates. Passionate discussion. Because sex matters and gender matters and they matter even more in politics, the public forum for our national identities.
*And there, too Aphrodite is should be our teacher as longing, himeros, is under her jurisdiction.
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