The 40th anniversary of Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court ruling that established the right to privacy and, essentially, birthed our culture war. Roe v Wade was the culture war’s baptism by fire and we, as America citizens, have been fighting about it ever since.
Griswold v. Connecticut essential told government to butt out of individual’s birth control choices because they had a right to make private decisions about the course of their lives. You might find it poignant to learn that one of Connecticut’s key persons of our state’s birth control movement died just days before this anniversary.
I’d like to think that, forty years later, the right to privacy has become sacrosanct and innate to our American way of life, but it’s not. When I google-news’d the ruling, I found the press releases were pretty evenly divided between the ruling’s proponents and decriers. Our power structures still very much fight over its impact on modern life.
And into this mix steps the Jessica Cutler/Robert Steinbuch debacle, aka The Washingtonienne v Spanker. Steinbuch is suing Cutler for gross invasion of privacy and I must say I’m stuck somewhere between colleague Rachel Kramer Bussel’s view and friend Alan’s take on the matter.
I wish the right to privacy was as sacrosanct as Alan portrays it, but I’m afraid it’s not. As long as social conservatives decry it and strive to undermine (if not outright overturn) it – and they’re angling to do it via court appointees – the right to privacy isn’t yet sacrosanct.
And a parallel, perhaps bigger component of this cultural mess lays in the right’s “family values” hypocrisies. As long as we have politicians decrying adultery, sodomy, non-marital sex, and homosexuality while privately indulging it, we’ll never be able to uniformly apply the right to privacy for everyone.
Why? Because hypocrisy must be exposed for its lies.
We have a broad politic structure in place that increasingly beholden to social and religious conservatism to keep its power and they pander along AFA/CWA/[insert acronym here] lines. I’m sorry, but I have no sympathy for the likes of Jim West, Guckert/Gannon, and the likes. They undermine the right to privacy by being public liars. (Dick Morris, too, the opportunistic turncoat. And I say that as a foot-fetish top.)
It’s almost like we’ve forgotten the value of glass houses and stones and the hypocrisy of “Do as I say, not as I do.” Anyone remember these? Anyone? Bueller?
There’s yet another facet to the Cutler/Steinbuch debacle I’d like to exmaine and that’s the D.C. culture itself. It’s steeped in commodified sex and breeds opportunism of every sort.
Years ago, I had a kinky friend who has strong D.C. ties. I will not divulge any particulars about our friendship (I don’t need that kind of book deal), but I will share my take on the D.C. tales he told me. Embassy dinners populated by stunningly beautiful women. Furtive sexual encounters everywhere. Men fearfully burdened by their proclivities because perversion and power don’t acceptably mix. Women who had to employ sex and brains to get ahead in a male-dominated culture. It’s every bit what Cutler barely fictionalizes in her novel and as Rachel observes in her column.
I came away from those discussions thinking that there’s a strong courtesan culture in D.C., permeating everything from grand embassy events to the lowly internship. And I learned that everything – everything – is a commodity there. That’s why Jeff Gannon could manwhore himself as both a paid escort and a political hack/insider; he could commodify multiple aspects of his life to get that inside edge.
And it’s all perfectly acceptable as long as you don’t get caught. (Remember Bob Dole’s kinky campaign manager? Didn’t think so.)
The D.C. culture would rather pay for sex than engage in it honestly and openly. They’de rather promote family values while getting a blowjob or giving a spanking on the sly. Honest, open talk about the broad spectrum of sexual activities just isn’t going to happen there because the culture doesn’t value sexual honesty. It values and rewards opportunism and ideology.
Frankly – and this is tangential to the right to privacy issue – I’m concerned that younger generations of D.C. employees see SSI (sexual supplemental income) as a perfectly acceptable means of income and activity. I doubt Cutler and Gannon are the only people in D.C. who were screwing their way to a livable income and feel justified doing so. That’s how broad-based commodities work. Everything has a price-tag.
All this said, I will say I do have some sympathy for Steinbuch and I’m willing to let him have his day in court (or at the settlement table). Why? Because I haven’t seen actual hypocrisy here. I’ve seen no evidence that he’s among the family values/marital-sex-only crowd, saying one thing and doing another.
Yes, he’s part of the courtesan crowd and one can’t help but wonder whether mistress pre-nups will become de rigueur. But, at best, you can argue they’re victims of their culture, Cutler beause she has to commodify herself to break even; Steinbuck because he fell prey to its downside. Both, however, perpetuated the unhealthy, on-the-sly culture.
When the hypocrisy ends, the commodification ends, the sexual shame ends, then we can talk about the right to privacy. When the right stops decrying Griswold v Connecticut, demonizing Planned Parenthood, and calling everything but procreate sex a perversion, then we can count on our right to privacy.
Until then, it’s going to be messy proposition.
