Sarah Palin Makes a Porno

After the invigorating romp we Americans have gotten to experience this election season, I’d like to tip my hat to the most honest political pundit of them all: porno producer Larry Flint, founder and proprietor of “Hustler” magazine.

It didn’t take Flint long to come out and express what all the Joe-six packs of the world were really thinking after a woman was announced as republican vice-presidential nominee. Sarah Palin? I’d hit that.

And so was the birth of “Who’s Nailin’ Paylin?” The standard-issue porno stars an oblivious character, Serra Paylin, who lets two drunk Russians into her home when they run out of gas near her home in Alaska. The x-rated flick was lovingly released on Election Day for only $26. If seeing a Palin look-alike isn’t enough to satiate viewers, the DVD also features duplicates of Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice in ménage a trios. Clinton, of course, was previously sexualized when “Spy” magazine photoshopped her in dominatrix garb on the magazine’s cover in 1993.

Like a lot of feminists, I’m no fan of Palin. Feminist blogs tore her apart for her rigid stance against Roe V. Wade, for charging rape victims for their examination kits, for flip-flopping on whether she feels she’s a feminist or not. The thought of Palin being the first woman running the country alights a sadness in my brain, especially after witnessing Hillary Clinton nearly claim the democratic nomination.

But hate her or not, she’s still a woman, and I’m deeply respectful of any woman who can climb the political ladder regardless of her ideology. I’d like to see more women as leaders, but not if it means we’re going to mock them sexually any time they enter the political sphere. Making a porno about Palin is a cheap way to criticize the woman when she gave us so many other ways to.

When “Who’s Nailin’ Paylin?” was announced, a lot of women bloggers seemed to all share a laugh that ol’ Palin was finally getting the mockery that she rightly deserved. One of my favorite blogs, “Broadsheet,” expressed their surprise and frustration that the porn had too much commentary, and not enough, well, nailin’.

Should I share a laugh at seeing Palin reduced to nothing more than a sexual object so that she can be demeaned even further than she has in the media: physically? Since the porno encompasses other female political figures, Flint is only reinforcing that all women, no matter how accomplished or intelligent, can be always reduced to the sum of their physical parts. And everyone can laugh at them.

While “Who’s Nailin’ Paylin?” is obviously marketed as a satirical joke that is probably not intended to have the weighty implications I glean from it, I can’t help but wonder how people would react if “Hustler” made a porn mocking Barack Obama for McCain supporters. Flint could dress him up as a young and naïve lawyer eager to get some “experience” under him. I’m sure it would get all the jovial press that Palin’s porno is.

A thicker tolerance has developed for public sexual discrimination of political women. Dick Morris, a political commentator, can say “Hillary Clinton retreats behind the apron strings [when the big boys pick on her]” and suffer no cross-examination; Sarah Palin has inspired a porn. It seems for every step a woman takes forward, there’s a man putting her right back where she belongs.

One thing is for sure, I’ll never think of the phrase “Drill, baby, drill!” the same again.