Sex as a Right Wing Weapon

This week I heard a heart-breaking report about the systematic rape of women in Zimbabwe. According to a human rights organization, men wearing the T-shirts, singing the songs and spouting the slogans of Robert Mugabe’s party systematically raped women affiliated with opposing political parties. The rapists told the women they were being raped because of their connection with the wrong political party.

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One of the very dark stains on American reputation in connection with the Iraq war was the use of sexuality as an instrument of abuse in the prison at Abu Ghraib. As in Zimbabwe, the actors featured in the news coverage were lowly foot soldiers. Yet it is clear the abuse was condoned, if not instigated, by those higher up, perhaps all the way to the top.

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Just this week I received an email with the subject line: “Do you recognize this person?” Since the email was from a devout Seventh-day Adventist and was addressed to a family circle that regularly trades emails, I opened it unsuspectingly. To my shocked surprise, the email featured a collection of photos of a nude young woman purported to be President Obama’s mother.

I presume the Christians (yes, more than one was involved) who forwarded the nude photos would condemn Mugabe’s thugs for their horrific violence. I hope they would condemn the use of sexual assault as an instrument of war in the Abu Ghraib prison. If they see the evils of Mugabe and Abu Ghraib, what blinded them to the gross evil of participating in a right wing effort to use sex as a weapon against President Obama?

The American “right” claims to be for family values, moral integrity, and the sanctity of marriage and life. So what’s up with circulating pornographic images purportedly of the President’s mother? What “family value” does this represent?

When I did a cursory look on line for more info, it seems the pictures were first circulated by right wing partisans in October, 2008. So it’s taken a year of forwarding before it was finally sent to the devout Adventist who forwarded it on to me. The same cursory search strongly indicated the person in the photos is not, in fact, the President’s deceased mother.

Even if the photos were genuine portrayals of Ann Dunham, the President’s mother, circulating them puts the people who forward them in the same moral camp as Mugabe’s thugs. I say this by analogy to Jesus’ statement in Matthew that hatred is allied with murder. Obviously, as a victim, it is preferable to be hated than to be killed. And it is preferable to have inappropriate pictures circulated than to be raped. Still, the circulation of these photos, authentic or not, is using sex as a weapon which is morally akin to rape.

Ecclesiastes declares there is a time for peace and a time for war. It is appropriate to strongly oppose policies, actions and statements by the president. Give money, sign petitions, contact your legislators, talk to your neighbors. Campaign for what you believe in and against what you believe is wrong-headed or evil. But the next time you are tempted to use sex as a weapon, don't.