Representative Chris Lee (R-N.Y.) resigned from the House of Representatives this week following an email flirtation with a woman he met after responding to an ad in the “Women Seeking Men” section of Craigslist. Sadly for him, the woman also knows how to use Google to look up people’s names, and how to send emails to Gawker.

See the Gawker reporter who broke the story.

And while it’s remarkable what 24 hours can do to damage the life of a politician with high libido, low impulse control and a camera phone, I want to – instead – look at one particular sentence that the Washington Post wrote in their article covering the incident:

“The familiar cycles of a Washington sex scandal were compressed into a blur of tweets and news alerts.”

This sentence is remarkable to me in so many ways.  Take the first part: “The familiar cycles of a Washington sex scandal…” Can you feel the fatigue in that sentence? The implied “here we go again” sigh? The list of scandals pepper the headlines of the past: The obvious Clinton-Lewinsky saga, Newt Gingrich’s affair with aide Callista Bisek, Elliot Spitzer’s foray into, well, whatever it was. And just recently, new allegations about Speaker John Boehner having multiple affairs (reported by The Enquirer, but possibly coming closer to being printed in a more reputable news source soon.)

But even the San Francisco Chronicle’s online version of Lee’s recent misbehaviors asks of the many scandals, “Is anyone keeping count?”  The answer is, yes. We are. The same way we keep track of celebs who are dragged to rehab time after time. There’s an equal mixture of distain and train-wreck-curiosity that simultaneously makes us want more juicy details (Are there more photos? More women?) while also claiming we’re above it all.

Let’s also take the second part of the Post’s sentence: “…compressed into a blur of tweets and news alerts.” Within hours, the man’s dalliances were posted on thousands of websites, and tweeted relentlessly (not without some humor, mind you: “cellphone camera is the worst thing to happen to men with bad impulse control”). The story broke at noon, and by 3pm, he had resigned. That is astounding to me. Pre-Internet news, this would have taken weeks to formulate and resolve itself. Now, a man’s career is over in 3 hours (barring any further revelations, which I have an inkling might be lurking somewhere in Rep. Lee’s email box.)

So, as another politician’s sex scandal flashes through the headlines, this time it’s not the weeks-long-affair (no pun intended) of news days gone by. Within hours, it’s published, denied and verified. Capitulations are made, leading to the astoundingly rapid resignation of a rising politician. The news cycle gets faster and faster, thanks to emailed photos, online news distribution, fast-forward Twittering, email tracking, Google, and Gawker. This was the 3-hour flash scandal. Do I hear 3 minutes?

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t over.  The former Rep. Lee will definitely write a book, possibly get a divorce, and may even be offered a talk show on a cable news network depending on his level of charisma. He may even make his lie come true and become – as he stated in his emails – a lobbyist.

Then again, maybe it’s better if he just disappears. The statement on his website,“I have made profound mistakes,” leaves me – and undoubtedly a thousand tabloid reporters – asking one question: Why is the word “mistakes” plural?

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He and his camp haven’t responded to the drip-drip, drip-drip of tapes containing angry, racist and misogynistic rants directed at his ex-girlfriend and mother of one of his children, Oksana Grigorieva. (To be clear, there’s no confirmation that the man on these recordings is Gibson. Nor has it been determined if they were edited.)

But people are already proclaiming that his career is over. If it is him on these tapes and the investigation into violence against Grigorieva goes anywhere, it’s easy to see why people would say that. Put the recordings alongside the anti-Semitic comments he made during his 2006 drunk driving arrest, and it doesn’t take a PR expert to doubt the likelihood of a Lethal Weapon 5 or anything else from Gibson.

Nothing is impossible, though. A public figure, particularly a Hollywood celebrity, can do a lot of negative things, but people will still admire and work with them. So, I think Gibson can have a career after all this. In fact, I’m pretty sure he will. It’s just a question of how he’ll go about it.

Apologies mean a lot, especially to the public. If Gibson wants not only to work, but have the adoration of fans and have people see that work, he’s going to have to have a mea culpa moment: Say he’s sorry and get help for the anger. If he suffers from bi-polar disorder, get help for that too.

Then, he must turn his life around. He’ll probably have to reach out people in the black, Hispanic and Jewish communities. I could see him appearing on Oprah to talk about the racist language and the verbal and alleged physical abuse toward Grigorieva. He could even do a film about one or all of these issues. These recordings will probably always haunt him and his career, but time and action can heal many wounds.

Another option is to do nothing. Gibson can independently produce and distribute his films outside the major studio system in Hollywood. Don’t think people would work with him? Look at Roman Polanski. He gave a 13-year-old girl champagne mixed with part of a quaalude and then forced himself on her. Polanski pled guilty to having unlawful sex with the girl, but fled the U.S. in 1978 before he could be sentenced. So, what does the Hollywood community do? They continue to work with him. Hollywood also honored him with one of it’s highest honors: He won an Academy Award for best director in 2003 for The Pianist.

Gibson hasn’t done anything like Polanski, but it shows what Hollywood and the public will let slide. So, Gibson has a choice. He could lay low for a while, wait for the next few celebrity scandals to come around and then slowly reappear in the spotlight with carefully chosen work and parts. As long as his anger issues don’t get in the way of his work (outbursts on movie sets, etc.), he could just wait it out. His other option is to apologize, get help, make amends and then re-emerge as a re-invented person. The second option would obviously be better for him personally. Exorcising whatever demons he has would give him a better quality of life. But, it is his life and career.

Mel, the choice is yours.

See also:
Forgive And Forget

In case you haven’t heard, Debrahlee Lorenzana is suing her former employer, Citibank. She claims she was fired after her bosses said her beauty was too distracting. On Wednesday, a 2003 video surfaced showing Lorenzana getting her second breast implant procedure. In the video, she said she wants to “look like a Playboy Playmate” and be “tits on a stick.”

That’s a slightly different impression from the interviews and articles we’ve seen of her over the last week. Her story has been that she’s a single working mom whose bosses at Citibank said her beauty was so distracting to her bosses that they fired her. Whatever she wore, the beauty that blessed her  (or cursed her?) was too sexy for Citi.

Photo by Carrie Schechter

Here’s what she said on Monday’s “Today” show:

What I’m trying to make is the point that enough is enough. I’ve been through my whole entire life going through this type of harassments [sic]. And I have done the other.. gone the other way where you stayed quiet. You just leave, get a better job and it just.. it continues to happen. And it’s the point that you say, ‘I don’t want to go through this anymore.’

After hearing that, it’s hard not to feel a little sorry for her. Which makes it sound like such a great story. She’s a beautiful working mom who was pushed around by the big bank. Then there are the issues of workplace dress codes, what’s too sexy and what isn’t, and tons of reasons to show more photos of Lorenzana and have commentators say how beautiful she is.

The new video, however, shows that some of her beauty wasn’t a blessing. It was a purchase.

I was skeptical about Lorenzana’s motives from the beginning. There was the cover story in the Village Voice along with the extensive and professional-looking photo gallery. There were the “Today” show and “Early Show” appearances. And then all the appearances New York’s local TV media. It was like she was going on a press tour.

But this video and her appearances don’t mean she’s not telling the truth. Her breast implants and desire to be desirable don’t mean Citibank did fire her for her looks. Maybe she and her lawyer see this lawsuit as a way to seek justice and are using her looks and the media to make some money in the future. Perhaps she could be a Playboy Playmate. Maybe she could host a reality show about working moms, personal finance, or people standing up to big corporations.

What do you think?

Does the new video change your opinion about Lorenzana’s claim that she was fired for being too sexy? Does it matter that she claims she was fired for being too sexy when she had plastic surgery to look like a Playboy Playmate and be “tits on a stick”?

What do you think about her making herself available for so much media over the past week? Would you watch a show with her in it?

Leave your comments below.

Watch Debrahlee’s Breast Enhancement Surgery – Long Island Plastic Surgical Group in People & Blogs |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Kotex is coming out with a new tampon line called U by Kotex. The original ad for the campaign used the word “vagina.” It turns out, using the proper word for female genitalia in a commercial was too much for three broadcast networks. So, they rejected it. Kotex came up with another version of the ad that replaced the v-word with “down there.” That was still over the line for two of those networks because they rejected the revised spot, too. (The networks involved weren’t disclosed.)

It’s bad enough that these corporations rejected the vagina version. It’s not like it’s inappropriate. The ad is for a tampon! But “down there” didn’t make it either? It’s vague, playful without being dirty, and relevant when talking about stuff that happens Down There. (Maybe they should’ve used vajayjay.)

So, after two strikes, here’s the sanitized version Kotex came up with:

Melanie Harris from JWT who made the ad is quoted in the New York Times saying:

It’s very funny because the whole spot is about censorship…The whole category [of commercials] has been very euphemistic, or paternalistic even, and we’re saying, enough with the euphemisms, and get over it. Tampon is not a dirty word, and neither is vagina.

Elissa Stein, co-author of “Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation” was also quoted in the article.

Fem-care advertising is so sterilized and so removed from what a period is…You never see a bathroom, you never see a woman using a product. They never show someone having cramps or her face breaking out or tearful — it’s always happy, playful, sporty women.

You’d think we’d have come farther than this, not just in tampon advertising, but talking about sex in general. Since the national freak-out over the Super Bowl Wardrobe Malfunction a few years ago, though, the broadcast networks have been very worried about about offending the public. They’re afraid to treat us like adults, which is ironic because these products are for adults. If you’re buying tampons, let’s hope it’s not the first time you’ve heard of a vagina.

It’s as if just because sex happens Down There, body parts used during sex can’t be mentioned in a network commercial. If we can’t talk like adults about periods and tampons, how are we supposed to talk openly and honestly about other sex issues like teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases?

What do you think? Is it silly for the networks to reject the versions with “vagina” and “down there” in them? Were they being sensitive to the public or fearful of it?

The life of these guys are so miserable because they have to spend time with their mothers-in-law and take their wives’ calls? What assholes. These guys are whining about how whipped they feel because they have to watch “vampire shows?” Having to do those things doesn’t break down the American man. Feeling that those things do break it down is being whiny. It’s the opposite of the manly-man they’re trying to be.

I never understood the whole “life is over because I’m married” line of thinking. First, the reasons “life is so bad” always seemed lame, like in this commercial. And second, no one forced these guys to get married in the first place. So, conclusion: Stupid commercial.

A few weeks later, I noticed an ad for Dockers khakis that said “Wear the Pants.” I saw it and others for the same campaign in a few places in Midtown, but didn’t initially pay too much attention to them. Then I thought about “Wearing the pants” in light of the Dodge ad. It turns out the Dockers campaign is telling men to “wear the pants” to bring back manhood. Wearing khakis is going to bring macho back?

Really?

Here’s the full ad (via NYDailyNews.com)

This ad really pissed me off.

“Once upon a time,” the ad begins, “men wore the pants and wore them well.” Later, the ad continues, “Men took charge because that’s what they did.” No, men took charge because women weren’t allowed to. Men wore the pants, remember? “The world decided it no longer needed men,” claims the ad. (It did?) We were “stripped” of our khakis (read: manhood, balls) and “left stranded on the road between boyhood and androgyny.” How? ”Disco by disco, latte by non-fat latte.”And while the ad claims, “The World sits idly by as cities crumble,” it seems to blames cities for the emasculation of the American man.

Disco was popular in cities with blacks and gays. The whole “Disco Sucks” movement and the infamous Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park in 1979 are regarded as having racist and homophobic undertones: White, working class, rock music pushing back against black, Latino, gay urban disco. So, saying disco is a reason that men lost their mojo is ignorant at best. At worst, it’s offensive.

As a New Yorker, I find the anti-urban sentiment offensive. What offends me most about this ad, though, is that it yearns back to the time when women, gays and people of color were second class citizens. This ad sets itself up as harkening back to the 1950′s before the Women’s Lib movement. I really like “Mad Men,” but as a black man I wouldn’t want to be in it. As far as gender and racial relationships, it’s offensive to wish for that period in American history to return.

This manifesto isn’t on the Dockers site anymore. The two articles I’ve seen about the campaign link to the Dockers site, but the manifesto is no where to be found. As of just a few days ago, it’s still part of a huge poster in Midtown Manhattan. Whether or not it’s soon taken down, a bunch of people who are paid a lot of money thought this campaign was a good idea. They claim it was tested with women, “It’s not about men taking over again,” and it’s not about whether men are “gay, straight, whatever.” That doesn’t seem possible. It’s amazing that people who use cultural phrases or images don’t understand their meaning or why they’re offensive.

It’s worth noting that the two ads came out in a few months of each other. Dockers in December and Dodge in February. Both state that American masculinity is being threatened. Yes, there’s the “mancession,” more women graduating college than men, and boys not learning as well as girls in elementary schools. All are important issues for society as a whole, not just men. But Dockers and Dodge aren’t talking about those things. They’re talking about men being emasculated and dominated by women. The implication is that men are under siege, mostly by women. Guys, they say, need to man-up and once again wear the pants. (Dockers literally says this.)

The norms of what it means to be a guy in this country are changing. Masculinity is entering unchartered territory. More and more, men are equal partners with women at home and work. Sometimes, the man may be the one who stays home. All of that is ok.Real men know how to handle change. There’s no need to “wear the pants.” We don’t need to bring that type of macho back.

The controversy over what ads CBS has decided to show and what they rejected is important, though. Those decisions over what an expected 90 million people will see says a lot about CBS’s and the NFL’s points of view. It also says a lot about what they think the 90 million viewers want to see.

The network rejected ads from ManCrunch, a gay dating website, and the web domain and hosting firm GoDaddy, whose ads have been rejected from previous Super Bowl broadcasts. CBS has agreed, though, to air a pro-life ad from conservative group Focus on the Family featuring Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow. There have been sexy ads that have aired during previous Super Bowls, including some from GoDaddy, and there will surely be some this year. There’s very little flesh in either the ManCrunch or GoDaddy ads, though. This seems to be more about sexuality than straight-up sex.

In the ManCrunch ad, two guy’s guys are on a couch watching a football game. Their hands touch over a bowl of potato chips, they share a glance and then they start making out. It’s nothing racier than something you might see on a late night sketch comedy (and apparently it’s already been done there). Here’s the ad:

In the GoDaddy ad, you have a gruff looking footballer who retires, comes out of the closet after leaving football, is flamboyantly gay, and starts a lingerie line using GoDaddy’s services:

See a pattern?

Two NFL-lovers who, while watching the game, realize they themselves want to be lovers. In the other ad, an ex-football player leaves the game and comes out of the closet.

Dan Neil says in the Los Angeles Times that there could be something going on here.

The subtext in both [commercials] is that football itself is, well, kind of gay.

…American football strikes me as a pretty homoerotic spectacle, beginning with the hypertrophic masculinity of the male form in tight pants and huge shoulder pads and ending with the most undignified gesture in all of sports, the hands-between-the-cheeks snap of the ball. Hike, indeed…The pats on the fanny, the showering together, the endlessly rolling around in the dirt. All things considered, I think figure skating is more butch…If I were one of football’s guardians, I might be a little touchy about it. Perhaps that is at the root of the ads’ dismissal.

Maybe. If Neil’s supposition is correct and the subtext (intentional or not) of both commercials is that football is “kind of gay,” no one had to make a big deal about it. CBS or the NFL could’ve just shrugged, laughed it off, or ignored it, but still aired the ad. Instead, CBS pulled it. So, was someone worried about the NFL being offended? Did someone worry about viewers being offended? CBS puts out generic statements when ads are rejected which read something something like the ad is “not within the broadcast standards for Super Bowl Sunday.” So, we don’t know.

Let’s get to the pro-life ad. It hasn’t been released yet, but it reportedly has Tebow’s mother talking about when she was sick while pregnant in the Philippines. She was told she should terminate the pregnancy, but she decided to keep the baby. Tim was born and grew-up to be a Heisman Trophy winner. The ad reportedly ends with “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life.”

Is that going to play with a Super Bowl audience? How’s it going to fit with the violent – um, action movie trailers, sports cars and buxom women selling beer? Will the ad fit in with the game itself that has 250-300lb men slamming into each other at top speed?

It’s one of the strange things about America. Violence, on some level, is ok. Most sex, is not. On it’s face, it seems antithetical that a violent, macho game would have an ad that’s supposed to “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life.”

The powers that be – not just those at CBS and the NFL, but also those in Washington – think the Super Bowl is an event that every American family should be able to enjoy. Remember how everyone flipped-out over the Jackson/Timberlake Wardrobe Malfunction in 2004?

Celebrate Football. Celebrate Family.

When 90 million people are watching, celebrating anything other than violence, in movies or on the field, or heterosexual sex, within marriage for the sole purpose of making babies, is unacceptable.

Neil also says in his piece, “The [ManCrunch] ad’s real transgression is to imply that football-loving straight men, the sort who high-five after touchdowns, might under the right circumstances act out sexually with another man.” Someone saying that gay sex is possible by the very men who are watching the Super Bowl is out of the question. Making that implication to almost 1/3 of the American population would be pretty ballsy.

This whole thing reminds me of something Bill Maher said a few years ago about how Americans who are homophobic really don’t have an issue with lesbian sex. They have a problem with gay male sex. “In America, when a man puts something in another man, it had better be a bullet.”

Violence is ok for family time. Straight sex is ok, too. Sex between two men is a no-no.

What do you think?

Are CBS and/or the NFL too conservative? Are they being anti-gay?

Is CBS being careful because of the Jackson/Timberlake Wardrobe Malfunction?

Does CBS have to be ideologically fair or neutral when choosing the ads that run on it’s air?

Leave a comment below.

UPDATE: I saw the Tebow/Focus On The Family commercial. With the exception of the “Celebrate Life” tagline at the end, it wasn’t overtly pro-life. I’m not sure what the controversy was for. It would have been easy to release the ad before the game to show how benign it was. It makes me wonder if the ad wasn’t revealed so it could be hyped. By doing that, everyone would be talking about the abortion issue and the ad itself. And since so many people know about the controversy, there wouldn’t be a need to say anything explicitly pro-life. It’s implied. Or did the controversy make CBS decide to have Focus On The Family pull back on the more blatantly pro-life rhetoric?

Thoughts?