A month after he lost a January 1972 special election for U.S. Senate, once and future candidate Bernie Sanders penned an unusual piece in the Vermont Freeman. Titled “man-and woman,” it features dark descriptions of rape fantasy, digressions on gender in society and dialogue between an uncoupling couple.
“A man goes home and masturbates his typical fantasy. A woman on her knees, a woman tied up, a woman abused,” Sanders begins. “A woman enjoys intercourse with her man — as she fantasizes being raped by 3 men simultaneously. The man and woman get dressed up on Sunday — and go to Church, or maybe to their ‘revolutionary’ political meeting.”
The long-forgotten piece found a new audience this week after Mother Jones unearthed it as part of a Sanders profile it published Tuesday, just before the two-term senator formally kicked off his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Mainstream news organizations such as CNN, Slate and The Hill quoted liberally from it, mostly without characterizing its contents. Vox called it “bizarre.” Several conservative organs touted its coverage — or lack thereof — as proof-positive of a media double-standard: Had a Republican candidate written such words, argued Breitbart News senior editor-at-large Ben Shapiro, he or she would have been sidelined from the election.
“Welcome to the 2016 presidential race, where Republicans are targeted for scandal when the media deliberately misquote them, but Democrats get away with behavior that would make Caligula blush,” Shapiro wrote.
The candidate himself distanced himself from the piece.
“Over forty years ago Bernie Sanders wrote an article that in no way reflects his views or record on women,” Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs said in a written statement. “This was a dumb attempt at dark satire in an alternative publication intended to attack gender stereotypes in the 1970s, and it looks as stupid today as it was then.”
Briggs, whose boss often decries the media’s focus on “gotcha politics,” suggested there might be better things to cover than Sanders’ long-lost literary transgressions.
“When Bernie got into this race he understood that there would be efforts to distract voters and the press away from the real issues confronting the nation today,” the spokesman wrote. “He’s determined to run a campaign that takes on the big problems facing the American people, and not a campaign of salacious gossip and innuendo.”
In that argument, Briggs found an unusual ally: the National Review‘s Charles Cooke.
Like his conservative peers, Cooke argued that such an essay, if written by a Republican, would cause the liberal establishment to go ballistic. Cable news talking heads would blather on about it, “snarky memes” would inundate the internet and “we’d see a host of think pieces on the GOP’s apparent ‘rape problem.'”
“And here’s the thing,” Cooke wrote. “That’s bloody awful.”
Whether Sanders was “young and foolish” when he wrote it or “had bought into all sorts of faddish psychology” was beside the point, the National Review scribe argued.
“Sure, the Democratic party would crucify a Republican for the same offense. But they shouldn’t. A society in which people are drummed out of politics for things they wrote 43 years ago is an ugly society indeed,” Cooke wrote. “[U]ntil I see any sign of actual wrongdoing I’d much prefer to slam Sanders for his dangerous and ridiculous politics than to delve back into his past and embarrass him with a long-forgotten opinion.”
Despite all the coverage, there appeared to be little consensus in the media as to what “man-and woman” really is. While Briggs referred to it as “a dumb attempt at dark satire,” others characterized it alternately as an “essay, an “article” or a “column.”
The conservative Media Research Center’s Dan Joseph offered perhaps the most literal and least charitable interpretation: that Sanders was opining that all men “fantasized about women being abused. He also claimed that women fantasized about being gang raped.”
“Sanders didn’t specify as to how he had gained such a deep understanding of the male psyche,” Joseph wrote.
It’s difficult to tell what Sanders was really trying to say, though Joseph’s reading appears to be a bit of a stretch.
Are those first, troubling lines a celebration or an indictment of what Sanders believed were common male and female fantasies? Are they a satirical take on the contents of such men’s mags as Stag, Man, Hero and Tough, to which Sanders refers in the next paragraph? Or was this actually a work of fiction — not an essay at all?
That last theory is supported by the closing lines of the piece: heated dialogue between a man and a woman who appear to be breaking up after a long relationship. Perhaps the fantasies described at the beginning belong to the characters at the end — imagined or real. Does that make it any more palatable?
Without understanding the nature of the piece, it’s tough to divine what Sanders believed at the time — whether or not that even matters 43 years later. One thing, however, is perfectly clear: It’s probably for the best that Sanders pursued a career in politics, not writing.
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…yes, an attempt to distract from the real issues…and Paul Heinz fell for the whole thing…
Ah, the indiscretions of youth. I hope this blows over for Bernie. True that conservative counterparts would be grilled and it’s wishful thinking for equal treatment by the media. Media attention does not always focus on what matters.
Here’s what I think matters in what I want to hear from any candidate:
1. What are you going to do day one to dismantle savage ISIS? In addition to the torture and death of innocent people, it’s only a matter of time before our next 9/11.
2. To facilitate human service programs (that already spend and waste a lot of money), what will you do to not screw the taxpayer any further?
You see, to date both of the above items are ineffective and at some point it all comes crashing down.
What Bernie wrote 43 years ago, or what George W did in college pales in comparison to what’s really critical in the 2016 election. At least that’s my view.
BLACK SCREEN
Voice-Over
It’s the year 2057, and no one can run for President, on account of everyone having embarrassed themselves on Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and even LinkedIn. Except for one man…
FLASH OF WHITE
FADE INTO
A 70 year old man sitting behind a desk. He takes a drink from a glass bottle of warm milk, wipes his mouth with a clean cloth napkin, and looks into the camera, saying not a word, showing zero emotion.
TITLES
“THE WORLD’S MOST BORING POLITICIAN”
Coming soon to a theater near you…
Wow. Is this the best they’ve got to throw at us? Seriously? A piece from 4 decades ago? The first part is just shocking to pull you in, but the rest of the piece proves that he was trying to make a point at the beginning.
A humorous piece written 43 years ago? Really? I sure hope no one ever holds me accountable for anything I wrote trying to be funny 43 years ago. Hopefully people will see this “tempest in a teacup” for what exactly what it is, an attempt to distract people from the real issues that Bernie is addressing.
My respect for Seven Days just dropped a notch. Stick to the issues, please.
@ Bauer.vt
What, 7D is just supposed to ignore something that’s going on in all the other media and pretend it’s not happening, just because you like Bernie? Grow up.
Still not as embarrassing as the 1987 spoken word recordings…
It was lib media who broke the story. Read the article!
Looks like a piece on male/female roles in 1972. What’s stupid is that people think this is anything other than an article about the roles each gender used to be pushed into, or that anyone things this piece says anything more. Does it use some colorful imagery to pull you into the piece? Yep. Is it even worth the read? Probably not, unless your name is Bernie Sanders and you want to look back at how you started writing about equality for women 40 years ago, and how much or little gender has changed since you first penned this article.
short-attention-span morons can’t even read more than a few paragraphs and they’re already passing judgment… what a pathetic country.
he makes it crystal clear (in the 4th paragraph, so “tl:dr” i guess!) that he is referencing “stag,” “man,” “hero,” “tough,” obviously the kind of pornographic and sexist magazines that still sell like hotcakes today.
it’s painfully obvious that he’s talking about stuff that is produced EVERY SINGLE DAY by the Sexual Exploitation Industry that the politicians bend over backwards to protect in the name of “free speech”… but our fascist news press and brainwashed masses barely know how to read or write… education turns them out just literate enough to have their minds scrambled by advertising so they buy pharmaceuticals as shown on TV and parrot politicians’ idiotic ranting about jobs jobs jobs, no matter how polluting, carcinogenic, and life-crushing
yes, as this non-event makes clear, “pigness and slavishness” remain the dominant characteristics even today, particularly among american “news pundits”
Unlike his devoted worshippers, Ol’ Uncle Grumpy himself, Vermont’s carpetbagger extraordinaire, Senator Ben & Jerry’s, has given up on trying to pretend that his 1972 essay was some deep sociological or literary think-piece. Now he admits it was just a poorly-written attempt at Fifty Shades of Grey.
http://www.wcax.com/story/29201591/sanders…
http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/vide…
http://www.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/arch…
Yep, I guess all of us brainwashed, illiterate, pathetic, short-attention-span morons who “didn’t get it,” actually got it after all.