Thomas A. Foster: Sex and American Politics
[Thomas A. Foster teaches history at DePaul University. He is the author of "Sex and the Eighteenth Century Man: Massachusetts and the History of Sexuality in America" and editor of the forthcoming "Long Before Stonewall: Histories of Same-Sex Sexuality in Early America."]
In 2002, publishers of American history high school textbooks altered an image of Emanuel Leutze's famous painting "Washington Crossing the Delaware'' (1851) because the original painting depicted Washington's watch fob dangerously close to his crotch. Administrators feared that it would draw attention to his manhood. The altered image blurred the painting enough so the fob melted away.
It was not the first time educators had reacted negatively to the famous painting of the famous man. In 1999, teacher's aides in Georgia's Muscogee County school district were instructed to hand-paint 2,300 fifth-grade textbooks to erase the image. In Cobb County, they just tore the page from the book.
The controversy prompted some to ask: Have we, in our squeamishness about sex, become neo-Victorians?
We have not. In fact, judging by election-cycle waves of sex scandals, we now look a lot like the Founding Fathers' generation.
Former Congressman Mark Foley, evangelist Ted Haggard and former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey are only the latest in a long line of straying American public figures.
Like us, the Founding Fathers lived in an era that was more open about sexual matters than the 19th century Victorians. And they, too, embraced standards of morality for public men that often reflected ideals more than social realities.
The Founding Fathers also operated in a strikingly similar media climate - the 1790s was perhaps the last time the media poured forth so many sex scandals before a relative silence that would endure well into the mid-20th century. And the 1790s was not so unusual for the 18th century. Despite what you may have learned in school, people actually had sex in the colonial era -- and more importantly they talked and wrote about it. And not just about women. Sex was an important part of masculinity.
In the 18th century, much like today, men used sex scandals to smear political enemies -- and newspapers played a role. When a local tiff between two satirists arose in 18th century Massachusetts, for example, one used a scurrilous image and poem suggesting that the Freemasons with their all-male all-secret parties just might be up to no good, to set up his rival as the author of the harmful front-page item. In his defense, the man made to look like the author printed notices denying that it was his.
The shocking engraving -- a rarity in early American newspapers -- depicted one Freemason penetrating another with a wooden peg commonly used in ship-building. It enraged the Freemasons, who subsequently boycotted the newspaper and lobbied the government to punish the printer. ...
Our Founding Fathers era may well have emphasized a dominant ideal of marriage and family, but the reality is that individuals often lived in opposition to these standards. Even couples who did marry and have children tended to engage in premarital sex. At the time the nation was founded, one-third of all brides were pregnant on their wedding day.
Our Founding Fathers themselves also did not all hold to these sexual ideals, but for their transgressions had their names dragged through the mud in the muckraking media decades of the early United States.
Much of what we know about Benjamin Franklin (child out of wedlock), Alexander Hamilton (extra-marital affair), Thomas Jefferson (relationship and child with slave Sally Hemings), and Aaron Burr (multiple extra-marital conquests and relationships) comes down to us from that same early American media. For political manhood, it seems, the model of monogamy has changed little.
Given that contemporary sex scandals have a tendency to lump together abuses of power, pedophilia (sexual interest in pre-pubescent children), ephebophilia (attraction to adolescents), with adultery, consensual affairs and a host of other disparate but non-normative behaviors, some might ask if we have become overly puritanical about sex.
But we are not prudish neo-Victorians. Much like the culture of early America, a certain degree of openness and frankness about all things sexual pervades the culture of today. And much like the culture of the early United States, a certain desire for virtue exhibited by normative sexual desire and behavior is demanded of politicians -- despite the fact that many Americans when pressed on the question will acknowledge that politicians should be able to have private lives -- and that extra-marital affairs should have little bearing on political careers.
Read entire article at San Francisco Chronicle
In 2002, publishers of American history high school textbooks altered an image of Emanuel Leutze's famous painting "Washington Crossing the Delaware'' (1851) because the original painting depicted Washington's watch fob dangerously close to his crotch. Administrators feared that it would draw attention to his manhood. The altered image blurred the painting enough so the fob melted away.
It was not the first time educators had reacted negatively to the famous painting of the famous man. In 1999, teacher's aides in Georgia's Muscogee County school district were instructed to hand-paint 2,300 fifth-grade textbooks to erase the image. In Cobb County, they just tore the page from the book.
The controversy prompted some to ask: Have we, in our squeamishness about sex, become neo-Victorians?
We have not. In fact, judging by election-cycle waves of sex scandals, we now look a lot like the Founding Fathers' generation.
Former Congressman Mark Foley, evangelist Ted Haggard and former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey are only the latest in a long line of straying American public figures.
Like us, the Founding Fathers lived in an era that was more open about sexual matters than the 19th century Victorians. And they, too, embraced standards of morality for public men that often reflected ideals more than social realities.
The Founding Fathers also operated in a strikingly similar media climate - the 1790s was perhaps the last time the media poured forth so many sex scandals before a relative silence that would endure well into the mid-20th century. And the 1790s was not so unusual for the 18th century. Despite what you may have learned in school, people actually had sex in the colonial era -- and more importantly they talked and wrote about it. And not just about women. Sex was an important part of masculinity.
In the 18th century, much like today, men used sex scandals to smear political enemies -- and newspapers played a role. When a local tiff between two satirists arose in 18th century Massachusetts, for example, one used a scurrilous image and poem suggesting that the Freemasons with their all-male all-secret parties just might be up to no good, to set up his rival as the author of the harmful front-page item. In his defense, the man made to look like the author printed notices denying that it was his.
The shocking engraving -- a rarity in early American newspapers -- depicted one Freemason penetrating another with a wooden peg commonly used in ship-building. It enraged the Freemasons, who subsequently boycotted the newspaper and lobbied the government to punish the printer. ...
Our Founding Fathers era may well have emphasized a dominant ideal of marriage and family, but the reality is that individuals often lived in opposition to these standards. Even couples who did marry and have children tended to engage in premarital sex. At the time the nation was founded, one-third of all brides were pregnant on their wedding day.
Our Founding Fathers themselves also did not all hold to these sexual ideals, but for their transgressions had their names dragged through the mud in the muckraking media decades of the early United States.
Much of what we know about Benjamin Franklin (child out of wedlock), Alexander Hamilton (extra-marital affair), Thomas Jefferson (relationship and child with slave Sally Hemings), and Aaron Burr (multiple extra-marital conquests and relationships) comes down to us from that same early American media. For political manhood, it seems, the model of monogamy has changed little.
Given that contemporary sex scandals have a tendency to lump together abuses of power, pedophilia (sexual interest in pre-pubescent children), ephebophilia (attraction to adolescents), with adultery, consensual affairs and a host of other disparate but non-normative behaviors, some might ask if we have become overly puritanical about sex.
But we are not prudish neo-Victorians. Much like the culture of early America, a certain degree of openness and frankness about all things sexual pervades the culture of today. And much like the culture of the early United States, a certain desire for virtue exhibited by normative sexual desire and behavior is demanded of politicians -- despite the fact that many Americans when pressed on the question will acknowledge that politicians should be able to have private lives -- and that extra-marital affairs should have little bearing on political careers.