I suppose it’s a sign of a sort of twisted progress that men’s sexual activity is (as least when politically helpful to the powers that be) questioned the way women’s sexual activity is and has always been questioned. Still, I would rather that nobody be slut-shamed in this day and age, particularly as a way from distracting from the issues at hand:
Assange was asked in a BBC interview questions such as “how many women have you slept with?” When Assange refused to answer, many WikiLeaks critics pointed to this as hypocrisy — oh, see, he doesn’t believe in transparency for himself – and my tweet pointed out the obvious fallacy of that claim: there is nothing inconsistent about demanding transparency for governments while insisting upon personal privacy.
Moreover, the question Assange refused to answer — “how many women have you slept with?” — is relevant to absolutely nothing of public interest, including the rape accusation. By stark contrast, the information Wired is concealing — whether Lamo is telling the truth about his various claims — goes to the heart of one of the most significant political controversies in the world.
If this had been about a Julia Assange who was just some random person and was accused of raping two of her lovers, you can bet there’d be a huge (and justly so!) hue and cry about how this was unfair to imply that the number of sexual encounters a person had somehow any bearing on their guilt or innocence of a particular crime. But since this is about a man who various people, including several prominent US politicians, want dead because he and his group released information that pulled back the curtain on how the powerful people operate (and more importantly showed them to be utter hypocrites), only someone like Glenn Greenwald notices, much less complains.
By the way: The rest of Greenwald’s piece is well worth reading, particularly in his utter demolishment of Evan Hansen and Kevin Poulsen, and Poulsen’s efforts to mischaracterize his connection with Adrian Lamo.
