Pam Spaulding of Pandagon has a nifty writeup of yet another “family values” Republican, this time Tennessee State Senator Paul Stanley, who a) pursued a typical evangelical religious social-conservative legislative agenda, including some anti-porn legislation, while b) conducting an affair with a much younger employee that included c) taking “compromising” photos of the intern at his apartment.

Instead of just handwringing or tisk-tisking I’m going to try for a different interpretation. But first here are the specifics…

The boyfriend, Joel Palmer Watts. 28, discovered a computer memory disc with sexually explicit photographs of [the intern, Mackenzie Morrison] that appeared to have been taken in Stanley’s apartment. Watts then blackmailed Stanley, demanding $10,000 in return for keeping quiet.

“Releasing the photographs to individuals or the media would cause embarrassment, both professionally and personally, to Stanley,” according to the court affidavit, as if we needed an explanation for why this might pose a small problem for our family values champion.

While this sounds like a garden-variety Republican Sexual Hypocrite, Stanley takes it up a notch with his legislative CV: 1) he campaigned against the right of gays and lesbians to adopt (“When you’re married, there’s a commitment there,” Stanley said last year, while discussing legislation to prohibit gay people from adopting children); and….drum roll…2) he introduced a bill prohibiting viewing porn while driving (WTF!? Is this some kind of rampant problem in Tennessee?)

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BTW, this hypocrite Stanley told NewsChannel 5 that he will continue his social conservative legislative agenda.

Read the rest of Spaulding’s post, and follow her additional links, here.

It being Half-Nekkid Thursday and all I’m going to see if I can cobble together some way for Paul Stanley to look somewhat like less of a hypocrite… though not less of a jerk… for legislating against porn while taking his own erotic photos. Here’s how something like that might work:

a) A lot of anti-porn people seem to define porn as the depiction of unwilling, disadvantaged victims performing unwanted sexual acts that leave them feeling degraded and abused. Depending on the degree to which one believes women have any sexual agency beyond the limited right to say no before marriage this may include believing that all persons, or at least all women, who appear in porn are by-definition coerced, degraded, and performing unwanted acts. Although it might not.

b) Sen. Stanley, and possibly Ms. Morrison, may have regarded the images found by the boyfriend as mere mementos of a sexual relationship where no one was coerced or degraded and where no unwilling or undesired acts were performed.

Therefore

c) There might be no contradiction and therefore no hypocrisy if the Senator was opposed to a) porn-as-bad-by-definition and b) provocative and/or explicit images taken with only the intention to arouse the parties involved and, possibly, anyone else the participating parties chose to share those images with. Which evidently would not include the would-be blackmailer, Mr. Watts. Nor, obviously, would the “certain members of the media” Mr. Watts proposed to share those photos with without the consent of Sen. Stanley and Ms. Morrison.

d) Which, of course, creates the distinction most right-minded people need to judge publication of so-called “revenge porn.” Revenge porn is often ordinary erotica taken by consenting parties for their personal enjoyment which is then discovered by or shared with third parties without the consent of all the original participants. Often with the intention of humiliating or degrading one or more of the original participants against their will. Thus, if one prefers the “it’s only porn if it’s bad, it’s only bad if its porn” definition then that’s the point at which ordinary, self-taken images can become porn.

Therefore, if that was Sen. Stanley’s position, it would not be hypocritical to legislate against porn while taking personal photos. I’m not buying it, but I could see someone trying to make that case.

Oh, and e) Bonus supporting point: When confronted by Watt’s blackmail attempt Stanley went straight to the cops who in turn set up a sting and arrested Watts. It’s actually kind of remarkable that a married evangelical ‘winger legislator would be so straightforward, but it’s actually the exactly correct thing to do when someone like, oh, say, the average HNT participant or anyone who’s own images are misappropriated. Because whatever social consequences one might run into (remember, even in socially conservative Tennessee Stanley appears to still be married and still be a Senator) the legal consequences to the blackmailer are way harsher. Anyway, Stanley’s behavior would be consistent with my attempted he’s-a-jerk-but-not-a-hypocrite interpretation of what came down.

Now.

That being all said and done there’s a rather prominent loose end I can now address — the bit about Ms. Morrison being an intern and Sen. Stanley being at least her nominal employer and supervisor. Such relationships may or may not be an issue for evangelical tub-thumpers but they’re considered actionable under employment law. Remember I’ve been attempting to be generous here so while not forgiving or forgetting, for purposes of the first part of this post I’m treating it as a separate offense. (For which, to keep things tidy, he probably ought to be investigated, and sanctioned, under any and all rules, regulations, and statutes.)

Happy HNT (or Half-nekkid Thursday!)