"To me, this is something you do, ideally, zero times. You never experience the impulse to do it, and you lead a pleasant life."

"You travel. You eat lunchmeat sandwiches. Maybe you do a marathon, or climb something. You lead a blithe existence for many decades, you die in your bed in your mid-nineties surrounded by your cherished relatives, and in all that time, you never walk up to a colleague on the floor of the House of Representatives and out of nowhere present him with a nude photograph of someone you claim to have had sex with. But if you can’t do it zero times, then ideally it happens only once. It happens only once, because the moment you do it, the person you show it to responds the way a person should respond. You produce your photograph to your colleague, and your colleague looks at you and says, 'Never show that to anyone, ever again. Go home and rethink your life. I do not feel closer to you. If anything, I want to have you removed forcibly from my presence by strong gentlemen whose biceps are tattooed with "MOM." The fact that you thought this would make us closer makes me question every decision in my life that has led me to this point. Leave now and never come back.' But we can probably suppose that this is not what happened, because life is regrettably unstingy with moments like this, when a small awkward 'no' seems too costly. Perhaps the person to whom this was shown emitted a sort of uncomfortable, nervous laugh, and this was viewed as acceptance enough. Or worse, he leered at it, encouraged it. Or, still worse (a scenario alleged to have existed during Gaetz’s time in the Florida state House), he joined a fun little club with Gaetz and others to assign themselves conquest points."

Writes Alexadra Petri in "Opinion: This should not happen more than once" (WaPo). 

She's talking about the way Matt Gaetz "used to wander around and show his colleagues nude photos of people he had slept with." Strange use of the word "people." These were all pictures of women, I think. I don't know why Petri would want to downplay that this is something a man was doing to women. 

Perhaps a new political correctness urges her to refrain from assuming that the human beings you're talking about are the sex they appear to be. But that diffidence drains power from feminism: We're all just people. In a culture that rejects colorblindness as the answer to racism, it's inconsistent to structure sex-blindness (gender-blindness?) into the discussion of issues of sexism. 

Petri is calling for good men — and men who'd like to think of themselves as decent enough to deserve the company of women — to say "no" to the male camaraderie that comes in the form of nudging to casually enjoy the graphic depiction of the naked female body. In that view, it's up to all men to create the environment where somebody doing what she's saying Gaetz did would get the message that he's a creep. 

Petri, perhaps unintentionally, points to a way out of cancel culture. The colleagues don't have the credibility to encapsulate and excise just the one person. They're all responsible. They must change. 

But I don't know what Matt Gaetz did. Consider this, by former Congresswoman Katie Hill: "Matt Gaetz Defended Me When My Nudes Were Shared Without My Consent/Now He's Accused of Doing Just That/Matt and I forged an unlikely friendship in Congress, and he was one of the few colleagues who spoke out after a malicious nude-photo leak upended my life. But if recent reports are true, he engaged in the very practice he defended me from—and should resign immediately" (Vanity Fair).

***

There is no comments section anymore, but you can email me here. Unless you say otherwise, I will presume you'd enjoy an update to this post with a quote from your email.

"People have speculated that Speaker Pelosi or the party leadership asked me to resign because of the photos and the allegations about me. That could not be further from the truth."

Writes Katie Hill in "It’s Not Over After All/I overcame the desperation I felt after stepping down from Congress, and I’m still in the fight" in the NYT:

In fact, one of the most difficult moments during my resignation process was my phone call to the Speaker, a woman I admire more than anyone and whom I had come to love. She told me I didn’t have to do this, that the country needed me and that she wished I hadn’t made this decision, but she respected me and what I felt I needed to do. I told her what I told everyone else when I announced my resignation: that it was the right thing to do.

Do you believe that? I think she got the Al Franken treatment — forced out, and now, on the outside, really regretting it.

I knew it was the best decision for me, my family, my staff, my colleagues, my community... [I]n the days that followed... I would start shaking, crying, throwing up....

[W]hen it got dark I drew a bath, lit candles and brought over a bottle of wine. I laid there and thought about what I’d lost.... The bath water had gone cold. The wine bottle was empty. Suddenly and with total clarity, I just wanted it all to be over. I got up and looked for the box cutter. I couldn’t find it... and I got the paring knife and got back into the cold bath.... And I realized I couldn’t do it...  I don’t get to quit...

So the next day I put on my battle uniform: a red dress suit that my mom had bought me. I put on my war paint: bright red lipstick. I stepped up to that lectern and told the world that although my time in Congress was over, I wasn’t done....

The contemplation of suicide, with some knife-wielding action, is getting the most attention, I believe. But what I think is more important here is the pro-Pelosi propaganda, and I think it's no accident that the NYT is running this very long essay now about something that happened over a year ago. [CORRECTION: No! It was only last October.]

NOTE: I did not get caught up in the Katie Hill story last year. I only wrote about her after she resigned, and I said "Katie Hill shouldn't have resigned! She Frankened!" I said:

I think there's too much willingness to resign and get out of the way. You got elected by a set of people. Are they asking you to get out or are you letting members of Congress tell you to get out of their way? They're not you're constituents. Don't Franken!

ADDED: Well, I was wrong about when the Katie Hill defenestration happened, so I must turn my suspicion of the NYT way down. But I still do not believe the assertions about Pelosi, the woman Hill purports to "admire more than anyone."

I'm wary of things I'm told "could not be further from the truth." That's never true — that the asserted thing is the farthest thing from the truth. Why obviously exaggerate right at the point when you're pressuring us to believe you?

"Katie Hill was taken down by three things: an abusive ex, a misogynist far-right media apparatus, and a society that was gleeful about sexually humiliating a young woman in power."

"None of those elements would be here if it were a male victim. It is because she is female that this happened.... Women are just so much more available for slut-shaming and victim-blaming. They face the terror and the fear and the gossip in a way that men generally just don’t.... [Hill says she resigned because] she was scared of what her abusive ex might do next.... Aside from the humiliation, being made into a national spectacle, she’s still dealing with somebody who is hell-bent on her destruction."

From "Revenge porn drove Katie Hill out of Congress. Would that have happened to a man?/She was taken down by people ‘gleeful’ about sexually humiliating a young woman in power, says lawyer Carrie Goldberg" (The Lily at WaPo).

ADDED: Compare "Katie Hill: Victim or Victimizer?/One misdeed does not negate another" (Commentary):

Hill has repeatedly (and without any evidence) claimed her husband has “abused” her.... She also denounced the political opponents who “happily provide a platform to a monster,” claiming her denouement came only as the result of a “coordinated effort to try to destroy me” and a “smear campaign” against her by the “right-wing media.” There are hints of Hillary Clinton’s “vast right-wing conspiracy” rhetoric in Hill’s self-pitying claims and attempts to deflect attention from her own behavior by attacking those who made it public....

She is clearly the victim of whoever made public deeply private images of her.... But as for the implosion of her Congressional career, it wasn’t a patriarchal institution or a right-wing conspiracy that accomplished that: it was Nancy Pelosi....

A chastened Hill could have acknowledged her errors of judgment and poor behavior, resigned, and then advocated whatever causes she wants to as a private citizen. But by embracing victimhood and refusing to take personal responsibility, all while claiming to be the victim of a right-wing conspiracy against her, she doesn’t look like a bold and trailblazing young woman. She looks like a fool....

Katie Hill shouldn't have resigned! She Frankened!

Get your Katie Hill background info by Googling "Katie Hill." I'm not into filling in on the details on this one. I think there's too much willingness to resign and get out of the way. You got elected by a set of people. Are they asking you to get out or are you letting members of Congress tell you to get out of their way? They're not you're constituents. Don't Franken!

ADDED: This is my first and perhaps only post about Katie Hill, but I've seen lots of talk about her in comments to my posts, and I responded to one of those comments, so let me front-page myself. I had a post about a WaPo column about Trump's supposedly horrible treatment of women (which began "Ew"). The commenter Leland wrote: