That made me want to look back at my post on the subject — here it is, February 17, 2021 — because I seem to remember thinking — while others evinced outrage — that it's fine and not sexual behavior to swim naked in your own pool, and if you're stuck with Secret Service protection, it's their job to endure it stoically. I'd quoted Biden:
"[L]iving in the White House.... it's a little like a gilded cage.... The vice president's residence is totally different. You're on 80 acres overlooking the rest of the city. And you can walk out. There's a swimming pool. You can walk off the porch in the summer and jump in a pool and go into work...."
I said:
Joe Biden famously jumped in that VP pool nude. And we're told the female Secret Service found it "offensive," which if true, is ridiculous. It was his own home and he liked to just walk off the porch and jump in the pool. You don't have to go inside and change into swimwear. You can just shed whatever you have on and you're perfectly attired for swimming. Good for him. But the White House is, perhaps, a more formal place. And whoever sees the President of the United States naked? I mean, other than in your mind's eye when Bob Dylan sings "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding).
Ha ha. I always have to reference that the Dylan line or commenters will do it for me. If the topic is the naked President, the modern Dictionary of Received Ideas dictates that Bob Dylan must be cited.
But now I have the answer to my question "whoever sees the President of the United States naked?" The answer is the people who strolled in Rock Creek Park when Teddy Roosevelt was President.
Posts
90 comments:
How many times now have you tried to justify sexual harassment on the job?
It's disgusting.
It's creepy and a pattern from daughter showers.
He's a pervert in addition to being President LOLEightyonemillion
“But now I have the answer to my question "whoever sees the President of the United States naked?" The answer is the people who strolled in Rock Creek Park when Teddy Roosevelt was President.”
Don’t forget the “shivering members of his Cabinet.”
"How many times now have you tried to justify sexual harassment on the job?"
What is the sexual harassment here? A man swimming naked in his own pool?!
The question to ask is how often he swam naked when there weren't any female agents around.
"Joe Biden famously jumped in that VP pool nude. And we're told the female Secret Service found it "offensive," which if true, is ridiculous. It was his own home and he liked to just walk off the porch and jump in the pool. You don't have to go inside and change into swimwear. You can just shed whatever you have on and you're perfectly attired for swimming. Good for him."
And if he liked to jerk off after a good swim that's cool too.
"It's fine and not sexual behavior to swim naked in your own pool," unless you're the guy accused of stealing your wife, who showered with his daughter (which she blames for her sexual addiction) and approved of his totally corrupt drug addict son sleeping with his dead son's wife. His behavior - including sniffing hair - screams impropriety.
They're the Addams Family's worst nightmare.
The same guy who showers with his daughter, purposely swimming naked in front of female Secret Service people who are forced to watch the old perv show himself. He was wrong to do it, and people who are okay with this pervert are nuts.
I disagree that a president or VP is acting properly when she does whatever she wants in her private residence (please note that I am using what I refer to as the Late Heinlein convention with regard to generic pronouns - they match the speaker) - in this respect: it used to be understood that if you had servants, it was inappropriate to subject the servants to your pecadillos (which I'd define as "things you like to do that are unacceptable in public life"). Some rich people/aristocrats did anyway, and were considered douches (by their polite peers, and I'm sure by their servants) for doing so.
Your body servants would see you naked. Your housemaids wouldn't. It was a matter of what their duties were. A Secret Service agent isn't a body servant.
This is America, and we eschew the concept of nobility or aristocracy, and largely of "service," opting instead for "employment." I agree with all that. But noblesse oblige is just an extension of etiquette. In the US, we don't recognize that nobility resides in a particular person, but in a particular office. For better or worse, those who end up in elected office have chosen to live a certain life in which they're subjected to greater scrutiny and have less privacy than those who don't run for office. I believe they, like the polite aristocracy of, say, the UK or the old US, should properly sacrifice a bit of their personal license where necessary.
Are we not already impolite enough?
But Ann. There is a difference. Joe has a history of creepy sexual behavior and the same with his deviant son Hunter.
They are both sex perverts.
Did Trump, or Obama, or Bush, or Clinton, or …. swim naked in front of female Secret Service agents?
How about if he walked down the halls of the White House naked after taking a shower. Would that be OK?
Several questions come to mind:
Does he always swim in his pool nude or does he wear trunks if others are around?
Did he also swim nude when his secret service agent was a male?
Is he well known to be a sleazy guy?
I can only answer the last one and the answer is Yes, he is well known to be a sleaze.
The Kennedys also cultivated journalists to an extent that had never been done before and seldom since. Kennedy once invited Hugh Sidey of Time magazine to go skinny-dipping in the White House pool with him. - The Economic Times https://tinyurl.com/yh4jfxyu
Swimming naked, doing anything naked, with the politician you're covering? Welcome to Camelot.
Women are supposed to faint at the sight of a penis.
With his daughter... female - male? - secret service agents, so that they can ogle him. #MeToo
Ah..... my old friend nuance has come to call again.
Funnily enough, I could be amused by Teddy's behavior and disgusted by Joe's, all at the same time. Amazing, what the power of character can bring to the interpretation of actions.
Ann Althouse said...What is the sexual harassment here? A man swimming naked in his own pool?!
In front of people who have no choice but to be there. It's rude and creepy. A respectful man would have put on a bathing suit even if he would have preferred not to.
BTW the VP residence is not Joe’s own home. It’s a government building.
Being outraged by Joe Biden swimming naked in his own pool is like being outraged by how Mitt Romney transported his dog: fake and phony.
It's creepy because of the power positions. Personally I would want a leader with the lucidity to be sensitive to the potential feelings of others on that situation and then act accordingly. As it is it reeks of a perverted power play, like when LBJ would hold meetings in the bathroom while he was on the crapper.
...and as always, imagine if it were a Republican doing the nudie swimming. Perfectly normal, right Ann?
- Me in that post back then. Worth repeating…
Now do "Biden showers naked with his daughter".
I'm sorry but there is no circumstance in my mind where a politician assigned a bodyguard should be swimming naked in front of them in high visibility circumstances. It's creepy and wrong. Doesn't matter if it's your private residence and your own pool. Don't do it or ask the agent to leave.
Re: Jamie:
Your body servants would see you naked. Your housemaids wouldn't. It was a matter of what their duties were. A Secret Service agent isn't a body servant.
This is the correct framework here. If Biden were prancing around (or doddering around, I suppose) in front of hotel maids naked over their objections, I don't think it would be hard to understand why that's rude at best, and sexual harassment at worst.
Neither the White House nor the Vice President's house is a "private residence"--it wasn't "Joe Biden's own house," it's my house, and happens to go with the job he had. The Secret Service agents assigned to that post are there to die protecting him, if it comes to that--they're not his servants, and as Jamie said, no gentleman would treat his servants that badly. At what is his own private residence, the agents protecting him deserve more respect and consideration than that.
I agree that what the President does with Secret Service is more about the security and less about the President. I don't confine that to just how they choose to swim or be casual in what would otherwise be the privacy of their own residence. I also think the complaints about the cost of Presidential travel with the huge entourage of aircraft and motorcade is the silly levels of security imposed by the Secret Service. Certainly, politicians have allowed the secret service bureaucracy to become this behemoth, but it is both sides and seemingly all Presidents.
it's their job to endure it stoically...if that's the way you're going to be about it.
But look at it like this.
When it was just your private home and you wanted to swim naked, that was one thing.
But now you're Vice President of the United States and things have changed. It's no longer just your private home. Now you have Secret Service officers. Your private home is their workplace. They have no choice but to be there. They work for you. You are their boss. They can't and won't complain, of course, but they're ready to take a bullet for you. Is throwing on a pair of trunks such an inconvenience? Show them a little respect.
It’s Joe Biden, guys! He can always do whatever the hell he wants. He can shake down foreigners for millions of dollars. He can even be president while exhibiting and suffering from dementia. He can claim to be a unifier while indicting the leader of millions of the opposition party. No one F’s with a Biden!
Earnest Prole said...Being outraged by...
Who is this addressed to? Who said they were outraged? Or are you just being a manipulative putz with your dishonest word choices?
Thing I might do:
Swim naked in my private pool.
Thing I would never do:
Swim naked in my private pool when landscape crew, pool guy, or any other person other than spouse is on the premises or expected to be there.
Biden has a choice. He can always resign. To paraphrase Henry Clay, his one sentence resignation letter will say: I 'd rather be nude than president.
i Agree that Biden swimming naked is no big deal.
All I want is to square that common sense conclusion with all the Perpetually Aggrieved, that attempt to force the world to adjust, and allow them their universal safe spaces. I mean when President Trump was elected, snowflakes were so offended, and crippled, they could not take a test.
Which is it. Obligation not to offend, or the obligation to get over yourself,
“But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked”
Key word: sometimes.
When my dad was at UW-Madison in the 1960s, he was forced not only to learn how to swim at the pool in the Red Gyn but also to do it naked. Something about the dangers of impurities in the suits or something, I think they said. He did not relish the experience!
Biden is so old and decrepit - at this stage, it only conjures up images of saggy old man butt-flaps, and icky leg hairs. and the need for a close-by bathroom - or there will be pee in the pool.
Well if he wasn’t constantly fondling other men’s wives at WH events, sniffing and creeping on little girls everywhere and showering with his own adolescent daughter then your casual acceptance of his nudity might be a reasonable interpretation. Don’t forget that Biden has also been credibly accused of rape and there was contemporary corroborating evidence of it. Skinny dipping itself is not a problem but when the guy has already earned the nickname Pedo Pete the act takes on different character.
Joe Biden, Pervert in Chief of the United States. Decent people do not swim naked in front of their security personnel. They treat them with respect. After all, it's those same security people that are expected to put their lives on the line to protect their subject. When they are contemptuous of their subject, they will not put the extra effort required for protection and the subject will die.
Democrats are contemptuous of security. When Hillary Clinton was cordially greeted by a Secret Service agent, her response was "Fuck off!".
No. Even when it is your house, you do NOT have a right to impose your nudity upon others, especially when they are obligated to be there. Anyone with a basic understanding of simple human decency gets it.
Besides, if a Secret Service agent is forced to avert her eyes, to look elsewhere to avoid seeing Biden's ancient penis flopping around - with Biden knowing full well what he's doing, just as he does when he sniffs little hair and touches them - then that presents a safety risk. It is not an imposition to tell someone to put on some effing clothes when others are around.
Yes, Biden is a bank walker, he is also a pedophile, but those little predilections are the least of his failings as a human being. He is a narcissist in the sense that everything is about him and what he wants, and other people are just facilitators or obstacles to getting whatsoever his id demands at the moment. The reason they accused Trump of being totally driven by his id was because they knew very well what the country was getting with Joe Biden, and needed to get the accusation out their first to defuse it and muddy the waters.
It was was brought up in Kamalas interview.
nudge nudge wink wink, say no more
Do female Secret Service agents know about shrinkage?
-There was far greater separation between nudity and sexuality back in Teddy Roosevelt’s day
-Unlikely Kamala would go for a swim in the buff in front of her security detail
-You have some borderline creepy commentators here, Ann.
As noted, the VP residence is not a private home. I have rented homes, owned homes and made my home in military family housing. "Rules" vary.
Joe IS a creep. In fact... If Joe told a mental health counselor about some of his personal behavior, that counselor would be required to report it to legal, licensing and professional authorities. There would be consequences.
Your premise is wrong.
The VP's residence does not belong to him. He lives there as a guest.
Would you strip down and swim naked when staying at the home of a friend?
I suppose that depends upon the friend, etc., but it is an arrogant, pervy, power move.
that it's fine and not sexual behavior to swim naked in your own pool, and if you're stuck with Secret Service protection, it's their job to endure it stoically.
Sorry, no.
The Romans used to refer to slaves as "furniture with tongues". And that is the attitude that Joe Biden displayed:
They're not human beings, they're not worthy of respect or consideration, all that matters is what he wants.
And my response to that was, and always will be: fuck off you worthless douchebag
He wanted the role of VP. He knew it came with burdens, like the SS protection details. A decent human being would either not go for the job, or accept that it's going to change his life, and impose constraints on his otherwise legitimate behavior.
His complete unwillingness to show any consideration for those people was a strong marker for what a total jerk he is
And a strong warning that he would have no more concern for the faceless rest of us, than he has for the SS members forced to be there while he flashes them
What's the opposite of rizz?
Now you have Secret Service officers. Your private home is their workplace. They have no choice but to be there. They work for you.
They don't work for "you." They work for the citizens of the United States, who have decided corporately that we have an interest in protecting certain high-ranking officials and ex-officials so their knowledge and influence can't be used against us (which interest had been completely flouted by Biden for decades, apparently).
As my early-twenties daughter surprised me by saying the other day, you either have a dick (figuratively) or you are one.
"I disagree that a president or VP is acting properly when she does whatever she wants in her private residence...."
Straw man.
Naked straw man.
The Secret Service could have stopped this behavior if they'd just changed his codename to "Shrinkage".
You can't put on 'a swim suit'? It's pretty simple.
Exactly what is a Secret Service agent protecting if they are watching their charge swim naked? Are they there in case he drowns? Shouldn't they be watching the perimeter? Hell, I'd understand Biden swimming naked just to show his contempt of his privacy being invaded for his security, and frankly we should also support having our privacy over security. Ask Ben about his equivalent viewpoints for Safety and Liberty.
It could be worse. He could sit on the capper Taki g a dump with the door open.
Shouting commands and dictation to his male & female staff.
Like lbj.
Think how tha must have been :
Mandy, take a letter (plop)
Dear Harry (loud fart) I would love to come to lunch next week. (plop, splash) Mandy, get me a fresh roll of asswipe, wouldja?
Forget it Jake. They're democrats
John Henry
Joe also likes little kids rubbing the hairs on his legs in the pool. I guess that is okay if it is in his own yard.
Leland said...
"Exactly what is a Secret Service agent protecting if they are watching their charge swim naked? Are they there in case he drowns? Shouldn't they be watching the perimeter?"
As they say... Wins the thread.
Who is this addressed to? Who said they were outraged? Or are you just being a manipulative putz with your dishonest word choices?
Throw a rock into a pack of dogs and the one who hollers is the one you hit.
So it appears it was addressed to you.
That isn't as bad as when those Republicans made that "Waitress Sandwich". Oh, wait.
"They are both sex perverts."
When one gets down to it, everyone is a sex pervert in some way. Those with no detectable perversions are the biggest perverts of all.
I don't know what the big deal is. They had to give LBJ a talking to about his habit of urinating in the Senate Office Building parking lot. It upset the secretaries who were on their way home for the day. He was only a senator, though.
Does Kamala Harris swim naked in the VP residence while male SS agents stand guard?
“What is the sexual harassment here? A man swimming naked in his own pool?!“
Doesn’t that depend on the pattern? If he swims naked in front of all of his agents, yes: his own damn pool/his own damn prerogative. If he only strips down for the females, uh: Houston, we’ve got a pervert.
Just my own observation.
… I see Martin beat me to it.
Not shrinkage...that's a strange call name. Frightened Turtle fits the call name bill better.
True personal anecdote: An elderly member of my PhD committee lost his professorship six months after my graduation, when he exited his swimsuit in the university pool. The students in the pool might have put up with that, being a charitable lot, but then he parked in the shallow end and started pleasuring himself. While that behavior came as quite a surprise to one and all, it did explain to me some of the off-the-wall questions I got from him during my dissertation defense. Sometimes swimming naked is just swimming, sometimes not just.
"What is the sexual harassment here? A man swimming naked in his own pool?!"
What would you have said had a male dean of the UW law school invited you to dinner at his home and answered your knock wearing nothing but his birthday suit? What would you had done?
Blogger Tripp Hall said...
When my dad was at UW-Madison in the 1960s, he was forced not only to learn how to swim at the pool in the Red Gyn but also to do it naked. Something about the dangers of impurities in the suits or something, I think they said. He did not relish the experience!
I (permanently female) also had to take swimming when a freshman at UW-Mad in 1973. Thankfully I was allowed to wear a suit. I didn't even have to wear a cap over my long hair.
Sure it's his home. But the secret service folks are required to be there and cognizant of the (then) VP's activities. So it is also THEIR workplace.
But I'd bet Biden make bring your daughter to work a doozy of an occasion.
FWIW if someone invited you to a BBQ at their home and failed to note it was Naked Night, would you shrug and say, "Their home?" Yep you could leave - and that's why the SS people are mistreated.
President Kennedy apparently encouraged a young female aide to give a senior male aide a BJ at the White House pool - when he and other men were present. Pretty sure that's a worse precedent.
President Kennedy apparently encouraged a young female aide to give a senior male aide a BJ at the White House pool - when he and other men were present. Pretty sure that's a worse precedent.
'What would you have said had a male dean of the UW law school invited you to dinner at his home and answered your knock wearing nothing but his birthday suit? What would you had done?'
Brooks Brothers or Armani?
If you answer your front door bell, naked and full-frontal, then you will be arrested for indecent exposure, if the doorbell-ringer chose to file a police complaint.
Biden's nude swimming sessions in vice-president's residence is sexual harassment of female secret service officers, and arguably, for male officers too. It's an official building, staffed by employees of Federal Government (not VP personally), and standards of comportment and lawful behavior is expected from all occupants and visitors.
Being outraged by Joe Biden swimming naked in his own pool is like being outraged by how Mitt Romney transported his dog: fake and phony.
It's not his pool - and did it in front of people who were required to be there - while Romney was a private citizen at the time.
Not surprised you don't see the differences.
I don't even like seeing the old guy shirtless on his riding lawnmower. Put a shirt on. I end up crying like Phoebe on Friends, "My eyes! My eyes!"
Althouse: is it so hard to wear a bathing suit to not disturb his subordinates?
How fucking elitist of you and him.
You people need to start acting normal, respect norms, and try to have some respect for the peons.
GWB famously gave up golf, his favorite pastime, after 9/11. With great power comes great responsibility. With perhaps not-so-great responsibility but a mansion of 80 acres on the Potomac, paid for by the public, with full-time Secret Service, comes a little responsibility.
Suck it up and put on a pair of shorts, you asshole.
"But now I have the answer to my question "whoever sees the President of the United States naked?"
Monica Lewinsky. Maybe not totally naked, but a certain identifiable part...
In fact, since you don't work anymore, why are the fucking taxpayers subsidizing your library access, pool, and exercise benefits.
Cesspool grifter is as cesspool grifter does. Why not be an exception by example? Demand that all taxpayers get the same privileges they paid for, in university libraries and posh gyms, for example?
What's stopping you?
GWB famously gave up golf, his favorite pastime, after 9/11. With great power comes great responsibility. With perhaps not-so-great responsibility but a mansion of 80 acres on the Potomac, paid for by the public, with full-time Secret Service, comes a little responsibility.
Suck it up and put on a pair of shorts, you asshole.
What would you have said had a male dean of the UW law school invited you to dinner at his home and answered your knock wearing nothing but his birthday suit?
That's a very flawed analogy. See Tripp Hall's comment above. Swimming naked is a bit different than greeting them in the nude. Tell me that Biden walked up to and greeted the female Secret Service agent in the nude, and I would agree. But if he disrobed and went for a swim with no comment to the agent, that's not a greeting or invite to look at him. That's before we get into the issue that the Secret Service could assign a male agent for when the President chose to go for a swim vs the notion of a male Dean inviting a particular female Professor for a private dinner in the nude.
Earnest Prole said...Throw a rock into a pack of dogs and the one who hollers is the one you hit.
So it appears it was addressed to you.
What a surprise you watched too much Jon Stewart growing up.
Pro tip: wry quips are not arguments.
He's just an asshole.
How about showing some respect for the people who risk their lives for him?
Step outside the privilege bubble instead of sinking into it.
I'm seeing a rude and presumptuous pattern in recent posts. You mandarin public servants should at least pretend to take it down a notch.
Maybe think about who pays for your lifestyle. And show some humility, and ethical consistency because of it.
The President isn't "stuck" (Althouse's term) with female Secret Service; they are stuck with him. He's the President, he can specify that he only wants male protectors when he is in situations where he will be naked.
Someone needs to Rochambeau the guy. He's a pig.
It's NOT his home.
It's THEIR workplace.
You are SO wrong on this.
You framed your statement poorly, missing a BIG piece of evidence:
the agents are on duty, WORKING, and should not, male OR female, be exposed to a naked old man who could have easily worn trunks.
Remember, reading comprehension helps. He didn't swim, -- he swimS naked, so more than once. And Ann, don't pretend he just doesn't know. He KNOWS he is naked. And that such behavior is rude if not prohibited as a form of hostile work environment. Not sure that scumbag Biden or anyone in government is covered by the EEO regs as so many laws are not applicable to our "betters". Sending your employees nude photos of yourself has been determined to be an example of a hostile work environment. So being nude in front of the employees is not? Don't be silly, it looks stupid on you.
MarcusB. THEOLDMAN
There are women who will clean your house while they are in the nude. Think it is $200 a session, but more if you stay while they clean and much more if you "help".
In the Midwest in the sixties and seventies, swimming nude was not a big deal. I have no idea about the rest of the country. The leftist prudes have destroyed one nice thing.
You can learn a lot about a person by how he or she treats underlings, especially people who are well below him or her on the org chart. That Biden thinks nothing of swimming naked in front of females who have no choice — other than resigning — other than to be there tells me two things. First, I can infer that Biden doesn’t give a damn about the people who work for him. There’s nothing illegal about that, and lots of tinpot dictators are that way. However it’s a mark against him, especially when compared to to stories of Trump displaying kindness and respect towards his employees.
Second, it suggests that inside of Joe Biden is a nasty streak of misogyny. Althouse overlooks this because she has been educated to believe that all Republicans but only Republicans display racism and display misogyny and display every other evil trait. Thus she overlooks misogyny in the top elected Democrat because she’s been trained not to see it in Democrats.
Just imagine the outrage if this were Trump. The Pussy hat women would be crawling out of the woodwork to cry about him exposing himself to the Secret Service, and want him arrested for indecent exposure. YOU all know it is true.
rehajm said...
"It reeks of a perverted power play, like when LBJ would hold meetings in the bathroom while he was on the crapper."
Though he was what he was, that always told me LBJ was being uncouth, not belligerent, just as TR's swims strike me as practical, not perverse. It depends on the character of the man - which is why character matters.
We haven't seen much, in our leaders, since Eisenhower. Jimmy Carter, maybe. Kennedy, Clinton, and Nixon's were twisted. Obama's is as stealth as a drone strike.
"He's just an asshole."
Yes. Aren't most of our presidents assholes?
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