The Dry Pussy Demographic
May 5th, 2008 at 10:23 pm by Susie
Via Lance, I read this Michael Wolff piece in this month’s Vanity Fair:
The Hillary story is—and how could it not be?—largely a sexual one. This is not so much a sexist view as a sexualist view: What’s up here? What’s the unsaid saying? What’s the vibe? Although it’s not discussed in reputable commentary, it’s discussed by everyone else: so what exactly is the thing with Hillary and sex, with the consensus being that she simply must not have it (at least not with her husband; there are, on the other hand, the various conspiracy scenarios of whom else she might have had it with). It’s partly around this consensus view of her not having sex that people support her or resist her. She’s the special-interest candidate of older women—the post-sexual set. She’s resisted by others (including older women who don’t see themselves as part of the post-sexual set) who see her as either frigid or sexually shunned—they turn from her inhibitions and her pain.
Hmm. Where to begin?
Well, for starters, this is right in line with my theory that the men who really, really hate Hillary Clinton are men with Serious Mother Issues. Because it’s not just about the idea of Mommy having sex (”Not MY mother! No way!), it’s this sexually immature (not to mention shallow) illusion that only firm, tight, photogenic youngsters are worthy sexual beings.
Honey, you have no idea.
I forget the source, but it wasn’t that long ago that one blogger referred to Clinton as “the Joan of Arc of the dry pussy demographic.” And the thing is, he just “couldn’t understand” why anyone would think that was sexist.
This is only a lengthier, more pretentious variation on that same theme: Sexual women are hot for Obama!
And these are supposed to be the smart men. But I digress.
Lance, God bless ‘im, begs to differ:
With very few exceptions—Jack and Jackie Kennedy, Bill and Hillary Clinton in their prime—most people do not look to politicians for the same vicarious thrills and escapes into fantasy as they do movie stars.
We want our politicians to represent us but that’s far from saying we want them to stand in for us as surrogate selves. We hire them to do a job and our interest in them is in how well they do that job and that’s why, to the consternation of the professional scolding class in the Media, we often don’t care at all about their personal oddnesses.
Wolff, though, believes otherwise. Stranger than this, however, is Wolff’s contention that while we’re all imagining our political leaders naked we’re creeped out by what we’re imagining and what creeps us out is the fact that all these naked politicians are middle-aged.
Middle-agedness is in itself creepy. To be middle-aged is to be grotesque, repulsive, and ridiculous, and all of this creepiness, grotesquery, repulsiveness, and ridiculousness is, tautologically, both caused by middle-aged sexuality and makes sex in middle-age creepy, grotesque, repulsive, and ridiculous.
Which, according to Wolff, is why folks like Barack Obama so much. He’s not middle-aged.
Gee, I don’t know why any woman would find it demeaning to be reduced to A) fuckable or B) non-fuckable. Because that’s what Wolff is saying, right?
This Michael Wolff. Maybe it’s just self-loathing, pure and simple. Looks old and bald, doesn’t he? Wonder if he can still get it up without Viagra? And look at those wrinkles. Surely this guy makes enough for some Botox…. and really, there’s no excuse for those yellow teeth these days! (Hello? Crest Whitestrips?)
UPDATE: Damn, Digby beat me to it.
I am a long-time married woman, aged 57. My husband just turned 70.
We are far to the left of both Clintons politically, but we both enjoy the spectacle of these insanely ambitious people taking turns supporting each other as spouses. We’ve done the same for each other, over the years.
And, yes, we do the nasty, NOT as often as was the case before, but…whenever that happens, I glow the next morning, and some guy at work will give me a second look.
Hillary Clinton has been glowing a lot lately, and when you really look back, she always has looked better than most women her age.
Vanity Fair having a reverse subscription drive?
Yow! Michael Wolff really is an imbecile isn’t he? Jesus, he’s writng this for a major publication, and they printed it? Yow.
And:
“This [is a picture of] Michael Wolff. Maybe it’s just self-loathing, pure and simple.”
Touché!
i dunno…whenever i see the clintons together i get the feeling they do it.
wolff could have done that column in 6 words “i’d rather fuck barack than hillary.”
Isnt Barry a bit femme to be a sex symbol for the ladies? As a straight, sexually lively woman, I find him unattractively swishy in the extreme and his wife seems to me to be butch (as well as strident and remarkably unhinged for someone who ever held a job. Oh right — she never made partner in a law firm nor received a promotion other than based on hubby’s political clout. And didn’t he marry her Chicago machine rolodex?).
The love of the Barry girlz’ cult reminds me of when my daughter was little and she and her friends always had crushes on gay guys. Clueless. By the time they were 12, however, and knew something, only the most immature and pathetic still believed that these queens might look at them. But the fact is, the appeal of these guys to immature girls is in fact their sexual harmlessness.
By Wolff’s analysis (which I couldn’t read given its idiocity and so am forced to speculate upon), then a sexy, young woman known as a nympho would trump all in electability? I don’t follow. Other than Bill Clinton and JFK, I don’t recall a president in my (long) lifetime that was at all sexually appealing, and both were cheaters deluxe. No one vilified JFK’s wife for his randiness — probably because he left her a young widow. Maybe thats the analysis to be followed for the next VF stupid waste of paper.
When I looked at the VF article in the magazine I almost fell off my seat. Who TF would publish this heinous bullshit? And why would I read it? Well, after 3 paras, I couldn’t. And indeed VF has been falling into the abyss of pitiful shit for some years now (starting with Dominick Dunne and followed by everyone else).
His assessment of Michelle Obama is fun, too: she only fucks Barack to keep him in line!
It really speaks volumes about the way that Wolff views sex, and in particular female sexual desire. Just another to-do, something used as a bribe to keep your man from straying. Not something you could enjoy for your own sake.
Wolff should consider moving to Italy and covering some of their more colorful parliamentary candidates. He could totally write the authorized biography of La Cicciolina.
I guess when all else fails, throw up an insane sexist fluff piece that gets the pro-hrc camp to twist into somehow showing how OB is the wrong choice.
white! There goes my keyboard! And my coffee. Damn!
This is the same VF that published the Miley Cyrus/Lolita photo spread. Somehow I don’t think I’ll be subscribing.
Wow, joe.
You just achieved perfect trolldom.
Susie, thank you for publishing a picture of Wolff with your post. That was my first real belly laugh in a while.
Good post! I’m a bit turned off by the title, but I’ll get over it.