Note: Scroll down to the next post for this week’s HNT video special.

Echidne of the Snakes says

There’s a double standard about that, don’t you think? Scott Brown can have naked pictures from his past and it doesn’t cause much of a stir at all but a woman politician? Probably the end of her career.

Read the quote in context here.

I know this is less true than it used to be. I wonder if it’s still true at all?

For instance it’s hard to imagine photos any more… frank that the “Dr” Laura Schlessinger photos that were released by a “vengeful” (a.k.a. slut-shaming, gender-power-leveraging) former partner. She received little criticism from her right-wing fans. The criticism she got from the left wasn’t as much about the photos themselves as about how they contrasted with her conservative pronouncements and accusations on her show. A dozen years later Schlessinger is no less (if also no more) popular than she was before the photos were released.

I also have a hard time imagining that conceivable sex-related revelations, photographic or otherwise, about Sarah Palin would make any difference at all with her core constituents (or of course her critics.)

You could make a plausible case that right-wing extremists get a pass on everything, and it’s almost certainly true that the right and their toadies would make a nine-day shriekfest out of similar revelations about any Democrat or progressive. But big deal. They’re setup to make shriekfests out of anything, everything, and (often as not) absolutely nothing. So no news there.

But here’s my point: I feel pretty strongly that rather than focus on the double standards of Brown’s male privilege, or his it’s-ok-if-you’re-a-Republican privilege a better strategy would be to immunize everyone else who might be at risk for being outed!

By saying “after Scott Brown naked photos no longer have an impact even in major elections: the best you can say about anyone who still thinks otherwise is that they’re either a desperate partisan hack or a knee-squeezing twit.”