The following is part 2 of a 2-part guest post from Ken Yee, a self-defined recreational typist in San Francisco, known as @yuweiquan on Twitter. See part 1 here.
There was a recent “controversy” about American Idol winner Adam Lambert’s sexual performance at the American Music Awards where, I’m told, he kissed a guy and simulated fellatio with a male dancer. Whatever. Who cares?
Oh, it turns out people do care. The producers of Good Morning America cancelled Lambert’s appearance on the show after this (they claim that this was because of his unpredictability, despite an uneventful appearance of Lambert on some CBS morning show), but at the same time, they continued with a scheduled interview with Chris Brown – who, if I may remind people, did plead guilty to felony assault. Now, is this a case of a gay male being more controversial than a domestic abuser? On the surface, that’s exactly what it says, but maybe the producers really are concerned about the singer’s unpredictability. I’d like to also point out that Rihanna’s interview with Diane Sawyer was a ratings bonanza for the network. Personally, I don’t think we know enough about what went into that decision to cancel Lambert, and frankly, there are more important things to worry about, such as the State Dinner crashers and whatever it was that Tiger Woods may or may not have done to crash his vehicle.
So let’s get back to gay marriage and private sex photos. There are many Americans who have problems with same-sex marriage. Personally, I think they (the opponents of same-sex marriage) are wrong and immoral in their efforts to maintain or enforce the prohibition against same-sex marriage, and it upsets me when they invoke various Abrahamic gods or texts to justify it. Remember my silly ideals about love and Eros? Well, note that mentioned nothing about genders, and frankly, I don’t give a crap what gender(s) the loving partners may be. But people do, and one who has spoken at length against same-sex marriage is Carrie Prejean.
Carrie Prejean, as you may know, is the former Miss California USA 2009 and runner-up to Miss USA 2009. Her fifteen minutes of fame truly began in April when judge Perez Hilton asked her whether she believed in gay marriage during the Miss USA pageant. Her response:
I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And you know what? I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised.
Ultimately Ms. Prejean did not win the highest prize of Miss USA in the pageant, but was awarded the runner-up spot, losing to someone else, whose name is considerably less accessible to me than Prejean’s. Later, on Hilton’s web site, he castigated her stance on same-sex marriage, referring to Prejean as a “dumb bitch.” In the days to follow, Prejean became the symbol of homophobic bigotry to some and a courageous, principled defender of traditional marriage willing to speak out against the entertainment world’s liberal orthodoxy by others, in a proxy battle in the culture wars to be played out across the national media. Claims were made that this stance may have cost Prejean the Miss USA crown.
By having to answer that question in front of a national audience, God was testing my character and faith. I'm glad I stayed true to myself. It was not about being politically correct; for me, it was about being Biblically correct. I am so proud of myself and I have so many people that are so proud of me. And [winning] wasn't what God wanted for my life that night.
I was true to myself and I know that I can go out and speak to young people about standing up for what you believe in and never compromising anything for anyone or anything, even if it's the crown of Miss USA. (Source: Guardian UK)
So let’s make something absolutely clear here. I find Prejean’s view on same-sex and defense of so-called traditional marriage abhorrent.* But what was to follow is, in my mind, also abhorrent, and frankly, I’m pissed off that I feel compelled to defend someone like Prejean, but if I want to honor my principles, my idealistic, romantic beliefs about love, then that’s how it has to be.
As the controversy about the Miss California USA 2009 / Miss USA runner-up began to grow, in May, a topless photograph of Prejean was posted to the website, TheDirty.com. It was reported that Prejean had received breast augmentation surgery at the urging and funding of the Miss California USA pageant (and this was confirmed by the pageant organization). Additional nude photos were “leaked” to Perez Hilton’s TMZ.com (but not published due to laws restricting distribution of pornographic material of an allegedly 17-year-old Prejean). Questions were raised as to whether participating in these photo shoots constituted contract violations tarnishing of the crown of Miss California USA. Fortunately, perhaps, Miss USA co-owner Donald Trump decided that the crown was untarnished (leading to at least one prominent resignation in the Miss California USA organization), and that Prejean could retain her titles. At the same time, Prejean was courting groups affiliated with the religious Right and opposition to same-sex marriage.
Well, the celebrity morality play to coalesce is that of the righteous defender of God and Country being revealed to be a sexually active in apparent opposition to the morals of God and Country. By June, the pageant organization chose to strip Prejean of her titles, citing breach of contract and "unwillingness to make appearances on behalf of the Miss California USA organization” according to pageant officials. Prejean asserted that it was her activism and position with regards to same-sex marriage that led to her firing, and by August, she sued the Miss California USA organization accusing the organization of libel, public disclosure of private facts, religious discrimination, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent infliction of emotional distress" for her stance on same-sex marriage. The pageant organization countersued, seeking to recover the cost of the breast implants and profits related to a forthcoming book allegedly written in violation of Prejean’s pageant contract.
And then in early November, Prejean and Miss California USA abruptly settled, and although the details are under a confidentiality agreement, Prejean had apparently capitulated when shown a sex tape of Prejean masturbating. In a November 10 interview with Sean Hannity:
They can call it whatever they want to call it, but it was the biggest mistake of my life. I was all by myself and I was sending a boyfriend at the time who I loved and cared about a video of me … I was not having sex with anybody and you call it whatever you want….I was a teenager at the time and never did I think it would ever come out. But it was bad judgment and it’s embarrassing and it’s humiliating to be talking about this now on national TV if you can imagine.
As one might imagine, many of Prejean’s conservative supporters began to distance themselves from her, as she became yet the latest protagonist of a conservative hypocrite narrative. So, let’s set aside her views on political and religious views. Her treatment has been appalling. Pageant officials encouraging and paying for breast implants? Unseemly leaks of erotic material intended for an ex-boyfriend onto the Internet? Once again, we have a young woman’s sexuality being used against her. One column about the matter that broke my heart was San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford’s “Sex tape tips from Carrie Prejean: Hi, I made a sex tape! Eight, actually! And you can too! Praise the lord!”
Like the Rihanna photos, these tapes and photos that were intended for a private audience are being used to destroy Prejean’s career (as a conservative spokesperson and beauty queen). How is this not sexual harassment or sexual assault? Consider the damages, be they monetary or otherwise.
Personally, I believe it’s unfair to use how Prejean chose to express her love and erotic feelings for her then-boyfriend and use this expression to attack her. What happened to the sex-positive idea that masturbation is a healthy activity, and that there exists an endless variety of ways to do it? Prejean is a young woman exploring her sexuality with someone she loved, and who are we to judge how she chose to do so? I think we should be encouraging it. That these sex tapes should be used to leverage a legal outcome with beauty pageant officials only adds to my uneasiness. Why must we accept the Madonna / Whore dichotomy in the world of beauty pageantry? Why can’t a Miss California USA or whatever own her sexuality on her own terms, without risking a tarnishing of the crown? It is, perhaps too soon to see how Prejean will emerge from all of this. Personally, I’d like her to choose a stance similar to Rihanna’s, to fully embrace and own her sexuality, but how or if she chooses to do that is up to her.
And what of these people who are leaking these materials? How are these actions not sexual harassment or assault? How are these actions not a hands-off form of abuse? Where is the focus on this activity? It doesn’t take much in the ways of resources or sophistication to create a sexually-explicit love note, and by the same token, it doesn’t take much to distribute it on the Internet; but the apparent damage that can be incurred seems disproportionately significant compared to the effort exerted to create the material. There’s something to be said for being a celebrity with access to publicists and legal machinery, but what of the ordinary youth, trying to figure themselves and their sexuality out, who chooses to lovingly express and capture their sexuality with someone, only to see this expression of love transformed into an instrument of humiliation?
* I’d also like to point out that the tradition on marriage is less about a man and a woman as much as it is about an owner and property. Holy matrimony as Love, honor, and obey, my ass. I often wonder if the role of the Divine in marriage ritual is to elevate the commercial transaction to some special status where the husband is allowed to ritually destroy/kill his property with consequences that are less severe than those of, say, man-on-man murder. See Exodus 20:14, Deuteronomy 22:22, Leviticus 20:10, Proverbs 6:32 for an example of Judeo-Christian sacred insight on the matter. (Source: Answering Christianity)
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