There's a rather fantastic story in Politico by my friend John Bresnahan about a chief of staff on Capitol Hill who resigned after the former porn star he used to date posted a picture of his penis on Twitter.* I'm not going to use any names because, well, that poor guy doesn't need any more bad Google mojo. But it did inspire a trio of different thoughts.
Thought the first: chicks be crazy. And chicks who bang dudes for money on camera are very likely to be some exceedingly large multiple of crazy. So, you know, caveat emptor.†
Thought the second: don't take pictures of your genitals. If you do take pictures of your genitals—which, again, you really shouldn't do—don't put them on the Internet or send them to anyone via SMS. If you do take a photo of your genitals and then send it to someone else via a modern means of communication, please draft a resignation letter and send it to your boss so he can forward it to the media when they inquire, as they inevitably will, about why your dick is being splashed all over the Internet. It doesn't matter if you've done nothing "wrong" (e.g., cheated on your wife, etc.). You're still an idiot. And idiocy is punished.
Thought the third: I completely understand that I'm on the wrong side of history on this issue. In the future, everyone will take pictures of every inch of their body while performing every type of boorish behavior and post said pictures to Facebook and Instagram and Twitter. But I find the sentiment baffling. I don't like taking photos of myself and putting them online at all—it took a lot of soul searching and convincing to do this piece, for instance—because, you know, the Internet is a terrible place. I blanch at the idea of taking group photos (wedding photobooths are a tool made by the devil to drive me insane) and feel selfies/group-selfies should be banned by executive order. So, needless to say, the idea of pulling my pants down and snapping a crotch shot simply strikes me as nuts.**
But I'm in the minority on this. I was discussing it with a couple of people in the WFB office who, like me, find the rash of rash behavior totally incomprehensible, and we came to the realization that there's nothing wrong with this guy, or Anthony Weiner, or every other moron with a phone full of dick pics or boob shots. No, the outliers are we, the publicity-phobic few, the people who don't see technology and think, "You know what, it's a great idea to send nude or semi-nude images of myself into the ether, from which they can never be recovered because everything is forever on the Internet." There's something wrong with us, something missing in our brain, something that shouts, "Hey, idiot, this is idiotic." As the rest of your are smashing your heads together so you can show the world how many friends you have and relieving yourself of your pants to show your lover how well groomed you are, we dwindling few stand apart, wandering how we, as a culture, got here.
Anyway, as you kids are vacating my lawn, allow me to leave you with a parting question: Why?
Just ... why?
*When the history of the 21st century is written, that sentence will serve as its opening line and the robot aliens who have colonized our long-dead planet will neither wonder why we went extinct nor mourn our passing.
†Update: A few people have complained about the gendered nature of that statement; I can assure you, my complaint is with both sexes. So allow me to add to the thought: Chicks be crazy, but bros be braggarts. Sometimes vicious ones. Ladies—especially you younger ladies—have to understand that if you send a guy a nude photo of yourself there's an 80 percent chance he's shown it to at least one of his bros. And there's a better-than-even chance that he's shared it over email or SMS, meaning there's a 100 percent chance that it'll show up on a porn Tumblr at some point in the future. So, again, caveat emptor.
**GET IT