The Figleaf Principle: Salaciousness Displaces Substance in Scandals

In a piece subtitled "Why does it take a cliché to draw attention to the problem of fathers' rights?" Dahlia Lithwick of Slate makes the vivid point that our fondness for the stereotype of the dramatically aggrieved ex-husband seeking greater custody of his children interferes with reforms of divorce and custody proceedings that really ought to be, and maybe need to be, taken up.

I recognize the allure for some men of the man-pushed-till-he-snaps narrative. My husband rents those movies, too. But for every Clark Rockefeller and Darren Mack, there are dozens of nonviolent fathers who believe that the mere fact of their divorce should not result in an arrangement in which they pay for the right to see their kids on alternating Sundays. If the family-court system is ever going to improve, we need to hear their stories, not these endless tales of kidnappings and murder. Much of what's wrong with family law today lies in warmed-over stereotypes of men as fundamentally unsuited to caring for children. Lionizing Clark Rockefeller or other violent, lawless fathers will not promote fathers' rights or fix the family-court system. It merely perpetuates the same outdated ideas about fatherhood and fathers that have tainted the family-law system for too long.

The rest of the article is pretty cool. You'll find it here.

That seems about right. Of course I'm a father and I have a hard time with poorly examined stereotypes so of course I'd encourage that sort of destigmatization, where the Alex Baldwins, and Clark Rockerfellers become non-poster-boy icons of divorced fatherhood in favor of, you know, the more representative, um, majority.

But the general point seems pretty important for so-called "sex bloggers," who -- I'm pretty confident an assessment of court records would show -- differ from non-bloggers only to the extent that they publish rather than don't publish their experiences and opinions.

And yet thanks to current case law, in need of reexamination or not, bloggers in general and "sex bloggers" in particular are extraordinarily at risk of what I'd like to (arrogantly) deem the Figleaf Principle: twitting about sex obstructs discussion of substantive issues.

This can play two ways, by the way. First, upon discovery a judge officiating a custody hearing may be much more inclined to act on a motion that includes salacious allegations of sex clubs or bisexuality than on one that includes allegations of more substantive issues such as means of support or management of substance dependencies. And second, alarm over salacious allegations may distract supporters from what may be more seriously substantive ones.

Both concerns, I might add, are justified. An "otherwise" blameless divorced mom who supplements her income by anonymously reviewing sex toys in the privacy of her own home *should not* be at risk of losing custody. A couple involved in BDSM *should not* be able to wave their floggers or rope burns at each other in court. And a judge *should not* be swayed by the "scandalous" nature of a custodial parent's sexuality, *especially* if said sexuality in no way infringes on his or her parenting. But on the other hand *we* shouldn't let acceptance of a good party organizer enable his or her drinking problem. Nor should *we* let our admiration for this or that leather master enable his or her tendency to abuse the owl-shit out of acolytes.