Straight Indiscretions or Queer Hypocrites: Public Negotiations of Identity and Sexual Behaviour

Abstract

Sex scandals among the political and religious elite are seemingly everpresent in both the United States and United Kingdom. Nary a week goes by without a new scandal, whether it’s a married politician using tax dollars to visit his lover or a religious leader caught with his pants down. Each new set of revelations seems to bring a collective sigh among journalists, news anchors and cultural critics, as if to say, ‘here we go again’. Simply perusing the headlines from major newspapers and blogs in the last few years can give a salacious thrill. News stories about British MP Mark Oaten, caught having sex with men, declare, ‘Oaten[’s] Wife Tells of Her “Horror” over the “Gay Sex Scandal”’ (’Oaten Wife Tells of Her “Horror”’, 2006). Mark Oaten explained, ‘That Rent Boy Affair? It Was Because I Was Going Bald’ (Carlin, 2006). Brits wondered, ‘At the Risk of Stating the Bleeding Obvious, Maybe Oaten’s Just Gay’ (Hyde, 2006). Headlines about former Representative Mark Foley (who sent dirty texts to his US Congressional pages) confirmed that the ‘Foley Follies’, were ‘No Shock to Some’, but to others revealed the ‘Complex and Hidden Life’, and ‘Two Faces of Mark Foley’ (Grossman, 2006; Levey, Reynolds and Schmitt, 2006; ‘The Foley Scandal, in Perspective’, 2006; Nilsson, 2006). As one headline clarified, ‘”Foley” Us Once, Shame On You; “Foley” Us Twice, Shame On Us!’ (Wrenn, 2006). Not to be outdone, the leader of an evangelical mega-church, Ted Haggard, when exposed by his male lover, offered a ‘Morality Tale: A Pastor’s Fall from Grace’ (Darman et.al., 2006). Media outlets loved to report that Ted Haggard is ‘Convinced He’s Completely Heterosexual’, all the while implying that this was clearly impossible (’Disgraced Pastor Convinced He’s Now Completely Heterosexual’, 2007).