weinerama-lama ding dong (on perversion)

Music: Nordkapp: Gran Tiempo (2011)

Warning: This blog post is rated "R."

Today's blog subject might equally apply to the impending news Governor Good Hair is apparently poised to run for the presidency, as well as increasingly embattled New York representative Anthony Weiner, whom everyone is urging to resign. As tempted as I am to detail all the reasons why "prick" is slang for a stubborn, self-righteous Texan ("you're either with him, or against him"---sound familiar?), the photographs that leaked yesterday of Mr. Weiner in women's lingerie at a college Christmas party forces my hand.

HOLY SCHAUDENDFRUEDE, SCATMAN!

To extend my observations from last week: this morning it was reported a number of high profile democrats are meeting to consult about the Weiner Affair ---I'd say WeinerGate, but let's face it: the lack of sentry is part of the problem---which many are on record as saying is a "distraction." Privately, we can only imagine, these leaders are infuriated by Weiner's stubborn refusal to tender his resignation. That stubborn refusal is a hallmark of something, a peculiar psychical structure that Lacan (following Freud) terms "disavowal." About which more shortly.

For the moment, let's do be clear about the reasons for the resignation: technically, the man has not done anything wrong nor violated any known laws. His ouster is based only on moral grounds, the key among them not-so-much the dirty sexting as it seems to be Weiner's initial categorical denial and his attempts to deceive "the public" and his colleagues. What the ethics committee is charged with doing is finding something wrong---that is, looking for evidence so that Weiner can be forced out of office. The repeated suggestions by Obama, Pelosi, and others to the media that Weiner should resign can be easily read as an "or else." The politically prudent thing to do at this point would be to (a) resign; and (b) make public one's attempt to "get psychiatric help." You cannot do the latter only and expect to rehabilitate a public image. The damage cannot be undone.

From a colloquial standpoint, the pressure for Weiner to resign has to do with perversion, which generally refers to something (often a sex act) that is outside what is deemed "normal." Sending lewd photographs of yourself to random women---especially if one is married---is generally understood as a perversion of what is "normal" behavior. Of course, as I noted last week, this is quite hypocritical, for our watching the news about the perversion, as well as the apparent glee with which the MSM is reporting and circulating the story, participates in the perversion too. The whole thing is a jouissance salad of sexual perversity. Wheeeeeee!!!!!

And that brings me, in a round-about way, to the less colloquial but nevertheless insightful observations about perversion originally made by Freud: human sexuality, by definition, is perverse. What Freud means by this is not that we are drawn to extreme, abnormal acts of sexual non-conformity, but rather, that anything humans do other than copulate to perpetuate the species is counter to biological normalcy. So, neither my getting turned on by the sound of your voice, nor your little fascination with small nipples, are "normal" in some sort of genetico-biological sense. Freud observed humans are unique in their ability to derive (sexual) enjoyment from things that are, prima facie, not sexual at all. Cue discussion of the "fetish" here (and/or Foucault's discussion of "the norm").

So, the tie that binds all of us to the Weiner scandal is a tacit recognition of our own, ubiquitous, undeniable perversions as self-conscious human beings. The question is: what, if anything, makes Weiner different than the rest of us? If "peversion" is normal, then what can make perversion abnormal? When does perversion veer into pathology? I don't think Weiner's sexting or lewd photos or cross dressing count as pathological. I think the answer really comes down to his categorical denial of his sexual proclivities, the deliberate lying---a lying with such conviction one wonders if he actually believed his denial.

From a Lacanian perspective, Weiner's categorical denials could be read, at some level, as the operation central to all clinical perverts: a refusal to accept that lack is the cause of desire (or "disavowal"). Allegorically speaking, most of us are "neurotic" in the sense we know "lack" (after the event of castration) causes desire, and we repress this knowledge. In other words, symbolic limit is accepted at some level. The pervert is different because the pervert both recognizes the event of castration yet refuses to admit it has happened.

What may distinguish Weiner as a pervert, then, is not what he did online, but rather, what he did coupled with the denial. Moreover, what he did is, more or less, a casebook example of perversion (albeit very mild). The clinical pervert does not pursue the object of his desire; rather, the pervert needs to become or embody the fantasy of the other itself, becoming an agent of its exposure or traversal.

Politically, Size (damn autocorrect) Zizek often gives the example of the fascist as a pervert: The fascist comes to embody the law, executing the larger political fantasy for the "good of the people." The Nazi, for example, may physically weep as he terminates innocent human lives, however, Zizek's point is that he goes-through with the atrocity because his own sense of self---or "locus of control"--- is emptied out; it's like a narcissism except there is no "I" at the center---something Other comes to occupy that place. This is why the pervert evokes fear or astonishment: he unflinchingly exposes the perverse core of social phantasy.

It is in this sense, then, that we can engage Weiner's "sexting," in which he becomes (albeit temporarily) the agent of hetero-female fantasy; his enjoyment is not so much physical as it is psychical, deriving a sense of psychical release from becoming the agent of a well-worm pornographic fantasy: becoming a giant phallic object doing injury. In other words, rape (NSFW, folks!):

All the signifiers of a larger rape fantasy are here ("crawing for the door," his cock will "hurt" her, etc.), and the "female" apparently goads him on----but also note she stops short of validating the rape fantasy. She never invites symbolic violence, but he keeps persisting.

But . . . I don't think Weiner is a clinical pervert, in the end. Based on what's part of the public record thus far, he's too much of an obsessional neurotic and, regardless of his sexual conspicuousness, there is an element of "holding back," despite his compulsions. Now, he's apparently in "treatment," but most suspect that's for sexual addiction, insofar as sexting and related activities stimulate that part of the brain that is involved with addiction. Certainly if he is a clinical pervert he needs treatment (but good luck with that; many psychotherapists believe perverts are not treatable with therapeutic methods; also, extreme cases of perversion have been linked to brain tumors . . . . ).

Ultimately, what's characteristic about the pervert is that he usually goes all the way, that is, the pervert delivers the unvarnished fantasy so nakedly that the other person is fearful or disgusted. Enjoyment for the pervert is precisely in the surprised or disgusted or astonished reaction of the person for whom the fantasy is channeled or embodied by the pervert. In my mind, the best portrayal of clinical perversion is Dennis Hopper's character in Blue Velvet, Frank Booth ("Let's fuck! I'll fuck anything that moves," he screams, and then proceeds to make good on such a declaration). Antony Weiner is no Frank Booth. It's curious, however, that the MSM would like him to be.

I've been saying for years our socius is becoming increasingly psychotic. I have not considered that may be a misreading. Perhaps we are becoming increasingly perverse, which is to say, increasingly self-righteous . . . or cause-righteous, and not in a good way?