Piggate: David Cameron apparently put his dick in a pig.
There’s a fine line to be walked when commenting on the sex lives of politicians. It’s all too easy to sound like some moralising ‘think of the children’ type. Generally, everyone’s sexuality is their own damn business. It only becomes publicly relevant when either they have violated consent, or their private life shows up such a horrendous failing of character that it affects judgement of their wider activities. The former category I shouldn’t have to elaborate on: rapists etc. must not be in positions of power and responsibility. The second category is more a matter of opinion and judgement. Homophobic ‘family values’ campaigners sleeping with male prostitutes, politicians mistresses being paid pubic money, these are all areas where the ‘public interest’ makes the usually private become publicly relevant.
Shockingly bad sexual ethics generally don’t say great things about a person. Although I’m not sure if ‘sexual ethics’ even covers this weirdness.
So, is ‘piggate’ relevant? Mainly, I wanted an excuse to write about it, because it is the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time. In case you hadn’t heard, David Cameron, the Prime Minister of Britain, put ‘a private part of his anatomy’ into the mouth of a dead pig, as part of some bizarre Oxford University posho cult initiation ceremony. So already we have bestiality and necrophilia, and can only assume that he was also surrounded by a crowd of braying toffs, urging him on to this unusual act as a symbol of group belonging. This revelation should really destroy forever the pathetic ‘call me Dave’ pretense that he is actually some kind of normal human bloke. Normal people do not do this.
As an intermission, please enjoy this excellent song by Cassetteboy.
A small subset of awful people do spring to mind, who I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that they sexually violated an animal, dead or otherwise. If you went to university, you would probably find them in the rugby club, forcing each other to down pints until they vomit, while dressed in women’s clothes and braying sexist ‘banter’ at unfortunate passing women. Let me be clear, these are not normal rugby guys. They don’t even have to be rugby guys. Any relatively socially privileged group has some. You probably had one guy like this in school, the guy who just didn’t seem to have limits on what was acceptable behaviour. He always took jokes too far, hurt people, maybe killed small animals, but got away with it because his parents would never let the golden fruit of their perfect loins get into trouble. Imagine a whole secret society of these guys, with unlimited money. I’m sure pigs aren’t even the worst of it.
David Hameron (ha, see what I did there? Totally original humour that) and his weird sexual exploits are relevant because they say something about him. He is the kind of person who easily gets caught up in groupthink, so desperate to belong and be accepted that he will do anything, even something weird and humiliating. Or perhaps he is the kind of person who loves to do shocking things, to show off how ‘daring’ he is, to be known as that guy who doesn’t care what people think. (Who of course actually cares desperately what people think, and carefully curates his ‘wild’ behaviour to gain maximum attention.) That this was an initiation for a secret society tells us nothing we don’t already know: Cameron comes from a tiny elite, who consider themselves apart and above the hoi polloi. He is unaffected by the unspoken rules that govern normal behaviour. Rules like Don’t put your genitals into, onto, or around dead animals.
But mostly, it’s this. DAVID CAMERON PUT HIS DICK IN A PIG. If you can ever look at him the same way again, hell, if you can look at him without bursting out laughing, you are a stronger person than me.
Update: Downing Street refused to give an official response to these allegations.
Amygdala Waltz 
On the one hand, I agree with you its not something you can completely wave away.
One the other hand, like you say I think the only issue to ultimately take from it is
“He is the kind of person who easily gets caught up in groupthink, so desperate to belong and be accepted that he will do anything, even something weird and humiliating. He is the kind of person who easily gets caught up in groupthink, so desperate to belong and be accepted that he will do anything, even something weird and humiliating.”
HOWEVER
What we really conclude is that he was easily caught up in groupthink, desperate to belong and be accepted WHEN HE WAS A STUDENT.
I and I’m sure many others can identify with this. The degree to which you’ll do shocking things might vary but it is fundamentally a very common human fallibility he has shown here, LONG IN THE PAST.
And here’s the main thrust of my point – I think it is very damaging to society as a whole (nothing to do with Dave in particular) to mercilessly dissect mistakes of the past, and particularly damaging to use it as a major judgement of the present person.
The flipside of not being instantly judgemental is that people who have made mistakes should demonstrate they have learnt from them – so David Cameron should be upfront about it, but clearly explain how he has developed since. If he does this I see no reason to judge him negatively ON THIS PARTICULAR ISSUE ALONE (there are plenty of other things besides to do that on).
LikeLike
Yes, I think that Cameron’s record on austerity and financial corruption are a lot worse than this. But still, it’s nice to have some comic relief from the depressing parade of cuts and backhanders.
No one should be judged solely on what they did as a student, or most of us would probably be locked up! But he’s definitely not admitting to anything, or saying that he’s learnt from this, or from his Bullingdon Club adventures in bullying waiters & the homeless. Most of us grow up from our student days, but he’s never had to face anything but continuous privilege.
LikeLike