Whether you’re a fan of Christine O’Donnell or not (and I’m not), this grubby, tell-all piece by a 25-year-old man who had a Halloween one-night stand with her is mean and personal. Apart from criticising her sexual prowess and her, er, lady garden, the tone throughout is meant to undermine and demean O’Donnell. The night in question was three years ago and Tea Party hopeful (dressed up as a ladybird) is painted as predatory – yes the word ‘cougar’ is blithely used – and because she made the first move, is described as “aggressive”. This guy agreed to let her use his apartment to get changed, then dressed up himself for Halloween, went to a bar, drank heartily with her, got “cosy” on the couch in his apartment before moving to the bed. So maybe the sex wasn’t great and that he had a bad hangover on no sleep, but does the encounter warrant this sort of mean attack, which is so personal?
Christine O’Donnell’s one-night stand
October 29, 2010 by Sinéad Gleeson
I cannot bear the woman, but equally I cannot stomach that someone would be so low to publish such lurid details resorting to derogatory and sexist nonsense as describing her a cougar and ‘aggressive’.
The woman’s views are more than enough to go to town on, low-level attacks like this is of no benefit to anyone.
I’m with Redmum. I think O’Donnell is an appalling idiot, but that’s because of her loathsome and ignorant (and unintentionally hilarious – mice with fully functioning human brains!) political views, not her sex life. No one deserves to have their consensual sex life dragged out at all, let alone mocked. Liberals who attack conservative women in this sexual way let the side down. And I’ve always been pleased that prominent US feminists and feminist sites have always defended their conservative female opponents from this sort of attack, however much they may disagree with their politics.
Anyone who attacks anyone, whether in the public sphere or not, for their sexual behaviour is a f**king idiot and the light of criticism and opprobrium should be football pitch shined back on them. It’s King of Low Blows stuff. I don’t care if you’re a conservative toff with an orange stuffed in your mouth and anal beads up your arse or a hairy-minged Christian hypocrite, the concept is ridiculous. Political positions aligned to sexual positions are apeish to the extreme. As regards morals, what are they?
What a horrible horrible piece! And utterly pointless as well. So three years ago, a single, grown-up woman had sex with a man? Well hold the phone!
He’s a scumbag. That’s the only word for him. A perfect example of double standards. It’s ok for him to have a one-night stand – and after all he’s the victim cos she was old and had a bush – but not for her to do the same? Pah!
I can’t say I’m a fan of hers, politically, but I think that piece is absolutely revolting. It paints a very particular and ugly picture of the writer, and does little else.
I completely agree that this man’s article is a worthless waste of typing and view it for the tat it is. O’Donnell should be criticised for her policies, ineptitude and looney logic, not for her sexuality or private choices. And I believe, very strongly, that we lack decent male and female politicians, the world over, because societies insist on judging them, hypocritically, on their private issues rather than our public ones (of course O’Donnell is not a decent politician, she is a particularly rotten one, but I have hoisted her onto this bandwagon for the sake of argument).
But wouldn’t it be nice if she and the rest of the Tea Party shared this view?! The problem with O’Donnell is that her policies include advocating abstinence, refusing to allow sex education in schools, and declaring sex outside of wedlock to be bad for society. She also believes that homosexuality is a mental disorder. Because of all of this, I believe her sexual choices are relevant to her campaign, as her political views openly judge, and disregard, other people’s choices.
Unfortunately for O’Donnell, Tea Partiers take a dim view of such shenanigans and I suspect that the article was intended to make her own party turn on her (even more than it already has). When fellow Tea-Partier, Jim DeMint, down the road in South Carolina, is proposing that sexually active single women and homosexuals should not be allowed to teach in schools; it is hard to imagine that he will be wanting a single woman, accused of being sexually active (outrageous!!!), to be working with him in the Senate. Sharron Angle too, seems to think that all women should marry and become stay-at-home mums, so O’Donnell, as a single working woman over 40, must be Angle’s worst nightmare.
Her colleagues in the Tea Party are such a delightful bunch aren’t they??? But, if she insists on aligning herself with bullies and bigots, I am afraid that she will find that the only people willing to defend her human rights, are her worst enemies – the shameful Liberals, like shameful me.
She is about to be eaten alive by her own party but I can’t say that I am feeling particularly sorry for her.
Actually @Noparticularpurpose- this may shock you now, so maybe sit down and have a nice cuppa first – her “tea party” colleagues have rallied to her defence. Mainly because they’re, you know, people too.
The problem with posts like yours is that the (otherwise smart) people who write them seem unable to distinguish between the expression of a moral view, and the expression of a political position.
Christine O’Donnell may well take the view that extra-marital sex is either doctrinally impermissable, or harmful to the self. If you can find me something she’s said that suggests she’d actually try to legislate it away by making it illegal, be my guest.
Morality is something we aspire to. Genuine Christians recognise that even the most devout amongst us can fail, because even the best of us is wholly imperfect. The difference between Conservatives and Liberals is that whereas Conservatives largely (and with some exceptions, admittedly) try to accept imperfections of all kinds while urging us not to give in to them, Liberals tend to try to eliminate the imperfections that they don’t like.
So smoking in public becomes illegal, as does not wearing a seatbelt, while at the same time we reduce the age of consent, or allow condom vending machines in schools, or support the legalisation of weed, or whatever. It’s not about personal freedoms, it’s about the personal freedoms you like.
Anyway, that was a tangent. The point is that Christine O’Donnell, much as I disagree with her, is a person just like you, who loves her family just like you, and wants the best for her country just like you. The idea that her friends and colleagues would run away from her at a moment like this shows, frankly, that the person with the warped view of human morality and decency here is most certainly not her.
You are right, Mr McGuirk, Liberals can get it wrong; I hold my hand up and admit that I often do (and, when I do, a cuppa is always welcome!). But the Tea Party candidates in the US are keen on strong-arming a particularly one-dimensional view of morality into US politics – and they are the first to admit it.
State Senators have a great deal of power (the Senate can prevent the government from doing anything, if there are sufficient “no” votes) and O’Donnell can make life much harder for the people in Delaware whose actions she finds morally reprehensible without having to propose any new legislation. For example, she can veto bills which disagree with her views and fight to repeal the Roe vs Wade Supreme Court decision. Like any politician, her views are important because they influence her actions.
When I suggest that Christine O’Donnell is not a “decent” candidate, I mean that I do not see her as an “impressive” or “strong” candidate – I am not referring to her moral code but her skill-set and experience. Her own campaign, however, has been all about morality, and very little about politics or policies.
I think it is healthy and positive for politics to have both Right and Left voices, and for policies to be developed by both, but the Tea Party is not a mainstream or inclusive Conservative movement. The Tea Party candidates who have stood in 2010 have extreme views on things like sexuality, reproductive rights, racial equality and climate change, and they tend to argue their case only on rigid moral and religious grounds, rarely, if ever, on political or factual ones. This is why I support Christine O’Donnell, as someone whose privacy and individual human rights have been abused (and hope that society as a whole does the same), as I view the story-writer as the scumbag he is, but I won’t be overly sympathetic or surprised if the Tea Party movement (as a whole), which has been funding and promoting her candidacy, fails to jump to her defence.
And, of course, I too agree with Megan. Note to self: it is possible to create pithier posts, must try harder….
It sounds like he is sour about the fact that Christine didn’t sleep with him in the end. He had no problem going along with everything while he thought he was going to have sex with her. He is a spiteful coward, afraid to name himself or have his face in the pictures that he uploaded.
It amazes me that a man will admit in public that he was deterred in his sexual interest, at least in part, by his distaste for furry pudenda. Is this a cultural distinction between Americans and ourselves?
There are plenty of men over here terrified of a bit of muffy von mufflington. Just read some of the more public boards and you’ll see. Ridiculous.
I was born in Muff so I suppose I must have immunity.
Love how he says that he didn’t even try to kiss her goodbye in the morning. He’s so proud of being an asshole.
Slut-shaming never goes out of style.
It’s a wide world of wankers, but did anyone not know that already? This case in principle appears to have the exact same dynamic as one that I feel more keenly: the Sarah Palin / Trig situation. I have absolutely no time for the woman’s policies because I think she represents a very powerful and unequivocal side of the US psyche, one that cannot see very far beyond apparent self interest as far as I can fathom. It’s dangerously rational, but insular as all hell. That said, I would lay down my coat in a puddle of Alaskan oil spill for her to step on, simply because she normalises – as much as she possibly can – little Trig’s existence. It isn’t popular in the US. Over 90% of babies detected with Down syndrome in utero are aborted. She celebrates her child, and for that I will never damn her, although I hold her policies to high ridicule. I’m not even clicking on Mr Stud’s tell-all idiocy. This life isn’t black and white. That much I have learned.
Megan is dead on.
John, noparticualrpurpose was making a valid point. O’Donnell and her Tea Party colleagues have publicly condemned the type of behaviour for which she has so miserably been outed indulging in herself.
The bottom line is that this miserably distatestful man has outed her as a hypocrite.
Surely, John, the expression of a moral view, when spoken at political rallies, informed by political advisors and meant to be included in your personal brand as a politician, is a political position.
The personal is political.
The way it was done was both unnacceptable and at its root revoltingly sexist.
One of the reasons the American political system and vlaues are held up as an example to the rest of the world is the forward thinking separation of church and state. It is not surprising that those seeking to impose inherrantly sexist religious morals and standards over socially developmental societies are targets for outing as hypocrites.
None of that changes the fact of what Megan said. She may (metaphorically and under her own ethics) be burned as a witch but communally women are right to object to her being shamed as a slut. It could happen to the best, as well as the worst of us women but not to men. That’s a double standard, morally and politically.
This piece reflects badly on him, not her.
“Hear hear” though I also abhor when would-be WAGs and so on do similar. Sex = private: should be kept out of football, politics, pop culture, etc etc etc. Even if O’Donnell’s hypocrisy galls. We’ve had many examples of the same, DUP ‘anti-sodomites’ turning out to be errrrrr gay themselves and so on after pulpit preaching..priests who spent their ‘no contraception at any cost’ years shagging their housekeepers and hiding the consequences, I don’t think it’s ever going to change.
I would doubt that the guy in question wrote that article himself. I’m sure he gave some details and obviously some pretty personal ones too. But a 25 year old who never heard the word cougar before? He’s painted as a naive pushover whose easily duped for a changing room, dressed up, brought to a pub and seduced by an aggressive cougar who doesn’t even have sex with him…despite all the elaborate planning for 3 months. Then by the end he’s an outspoken female grooming expert. The article isn’t very cohesive really. In fact I think he tries very hard to insinuate she is a slut but instead ends up criticising her for not putting out for him or his friend. It really is much ado about nothing.
If the better part of valour (personal courage) is discretion what would be the worst part? Foolishness, personal /political death? There is no doubt that Christine O’Donnell casts herself upon life. But is she a loser? Not much, to her own mind, between the sheets and bound for political ignominy and failure. Should one be sorry for her? A little milk of human kindness would go a long way.