David Brooks' Thighs

OK -- that's not something I think about much, to be perfectly honest, but given the blogosphere lately, there doesn't seem to be room to think of much else, unless you're really in to Michael Jackson being dead. And in today's Daily Dish, we have Conor Friedersdorf defending Brooks against Hilzoy.

As a straight man, I can assure Hilzoy that we rarely if ever have that kind of experience (though we're vaguely aware that women fare worse, despite the fact that many aren't fond of talking about the matter in mixed company). That's why I think she's being entirely too hard on Mr. Brooks in her next paragraphs. . . .

In fact, Mr. Brooks made the remark that offended Hilzoy as a throwaway laugh line in an off-the-cuff television interview -- the kind of setting where it's easy to make characterizations based on your life experiences without being perfectly attuned to the fact that other people experience some aspect of the what you're describing differently. Upon reflection, I imagine David Brooks would grasp that women are touched in the way he describes, and perhaps he wouldn't cast that particular act as an example of contemporary societal decline.

Do you see something here? Somehow, making a remark like that as a "throwaway laugh line" strikes me as exactly the thing that Hilzoy is condemning. To be quite honest, an experience such as Brooks related is offensive, period.

And to be even more honest, as a gay man, I can top both Brooks and Hilzoy: I have had not only thighs but other portions of my anatomy grasped, fondled, and otherwise handled without invitation under circumstances in which there was no possibility of misunderstanding the availability of said anatomy. Contrary to what Brooks, Friedersdorf and other straight guys might think (depending on the degree of credence they bestow on the fantasies expressed by their colleagues on the right), this is not something I welcome, nor, I think, do most gay men.

Personal space is personal space, and to invade it without invitation is asking for it -- unless, I guess, the space involved belongs to David Brooks. My typical response in the situations I described above was to offer to break the offending appendage.

One question I have to ask, which I haven't seen asked anywhere else: Why the hell didn't Brooks tell the asshole to keep his effing hands to himself? Works wonders, especially if you say it loudly.

Although I suspect the answer to that one would reveal a great deal about why the relationship between the press and government officials is so fundamentally corrupt.