T&A

What, exactly, are people expecting to see? Turns out "Ashley Alexandra Dupre" (the bogus name adopted by Ashley Youmans), the woman implicated in the Eliot Spitzer case, has already done the typical "Girls Gone Wild" thing for professional asshole Joe Francis. Saves him a million bucks - his offer to Dupre to appear in one of his publications.

Which leaves me wondering: I really don't understand the way so many people are fascinated by particular T&A. Dupre's certainly not awful-looking...but neither is she exceptional. I see any number of women every day on campus who are as nice-looking as she is...though, presumably, less willing to remove their clothing for nearby cameras (not that I've tested that hypothesis). What exactly do people expect to find...that somehow these breasts, these lips, that ass, that pussy are going to reveal the mystery of what brought down a governor and putative future progressive leader? Fat chance - since someone like Spitzer clearly could have had anyone on offer, his choice of a call girl indicated that something about the whole call girl scenario appealed to him (rather similar to Hugh Grant's situation some years back). I honestly don't understand this tendency in some men - particularly when they already have considerable power. I suppose I'm supposed to add "and particularly when they're already married to rather attractive women"...but I do understand the attraction to "other than." I don't understand the desire to pay for it. Spitzer may not have been a huge hunk - but he was personally compelling, powerful, and somewhat wealthy. It seems to me that men in that position typically have reasonably good odds persuading at least certain women that their bedrooms are appropriate destinations.

I almost think my confusion is the point: if Youmans/Dupre poses for nude pictures somewhere, and the general public can look at them and think, well, she's alright but she's not that fantastic, it allows them to think, huh, that guy's not so extraordinary after all...if he could be driven to a fall by this rather ordinary example of female trade. It's the very ordinariness that allows that vicarious sense of superiority.