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It's been specifically cited in most of the attacks I've seen against her, and I assume it happened because (as demonstrated below) it's the default. There might be a root story underneath where Brown mentioned it specifically, I don't know, but mostly it's just been the attacks I've seen.
I just found this which suggests the source of this specific attack might be a deceptively edited video where her answer to a question about drinking straws is made to sound as if she's talking about oral:
https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-kamala-harris-explicit-get-ahead-cnn-interview-real-1734378
I'm a little lost here. Why would we need a specific source for it? If she was dating anybody in 1994 she probably gave that guy a blowjob. If anything we'd need a source to show that for years a heterosexual woman stated specially that she did not give head.
As for why it's been specifically seized on? It's an act viewed as more submissive, while still being likely to have occurred.
It makes me think people couching it in those terms are mainly fixated on what they see as a degrading act, rather than actually being concerned with her supposedly transactional approach to life. I mean, like you say, oral is more common than not. If there's not a specific story of her trading BJs for appointments, it seems like it'd be fairer to characterise her as having once been in a relationship with political benefits. Are wives in general trading BJs for financial security? On some level you can put it like that but it's reductive and says more about the attitudes of the person choosing that phrasing than it does about the wives.
Very nice!
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Definitely, and honestly I'm not sure the Willie Brown story is going to end up getting anywhere as a result. They're not threading the needle so far, at least online, and if the misogynistic or anti-sex "tee hee blowjobs" version of the insult gets around the world before the vaguely me-too and corruption tinged "trading sex for career advancement" version, then it might inoculate a lot of people against it.
That being said...
It's become standard ethical practice to avoid any and all workplace romance. It's widely considered wrong to sleep with a subordinate, and if a supervisor sleeps with a subordinate and then promotes them, the presumption is quid pro quo. It seems obvious to me that there is a moral hazard involved in electing a woman who used such a quid pro quo to kickstart her career to the presidency. It sets an example for young girls. I can think of worse and less qualified presidents and presidential candidates, but not since LBJ have we had a president whose entire career was built on early acts of low moral character.
Where your comparison to wives falls apart is that my wife isn't just trading me blowjobs for financial security. We are also mutually exchanging love, care, companionship, mutual support, being nice to each other's parents, faking interest in each other's dumb hobbies. But if Willie Brown appointed Kamala to various political sinecures in exchange for love, care, companionship, mutual support et al; that would also be corrupt. Reducing it the gross, bodily aspect is obvious, it's a political attack not patticake. But "Blowjobs for political jobs" seems like a fair if slanted interpretation of "casually dated a politically powerful man 30 years her senior who appointed her to various sinecures which boosted her political profile." Because none of the relational aspects, wholesome or pornographic, should have anything to do with who Willie Brown appoints to those positions.
I agree there's moral hazard there and the attack isn't nothing. But it was a long, long time ago. And a lot of people make it to the LA insurance commission or whatever, not so many continue to VP. For the argument to really work you need the DEI plank of the argument too, which in my opinion also doesn't land very hard. Everyone is a DEI hire at that level. Harris will probably DEI-hire a white guy to balance her ticket, for example. It's just one factor in the hundreds that have to come together to someone to make it to the highest levels of politics.
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So basically the entire specific claim that "Kamala Harris is a whore who sucks dicks to get a job" is based only on her having been in a relationship with Willie Brown around the time when she got her first notable job, without a clear quid pro quo of any sort being established even in that case (even though it might be considered generally sus)? And people wonder why this might, in fact, just be considered general misogyny?
Yes? If it might be considered generally sus, it's bizarre for anyone's first thought to be "must be misogyny".
The dick sucking imagery seems picked purely for misogynistic reasons and also because it suggests a more transactional trading of sexual favours for appointments than actually appears to have happened (it was a years-long relationship).
You're leaving out the pretty important detail that he was twice her age at the time, 30 years her senior.
Yeah and I'm not saying it's a great look. But it was a long long time ago and I would look more askance at her critics who are going on about dick sucking. The candidates in any election have done a lot of shitting and masturbating as well most probably, but it's better left unmentioned.
I think that the shitting and masturbating should be mentioned and brought up if the context around it is meaningful. I agree that "This politician sucked a dick" isn't really interesting at all by itself, but "This politician got a leg up in their career by sucking a dick" is meaningfully different.
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I'm not going to say the crass blowjob imagery is how I'd go about it if I didn't prefer her to win over the alternative, but I object to claims that it appeared to be much more than transactional when someone younger than I am now is sleeping with someone older than my father and getting political appointments out of it. That's wild and I'm not sexist for finding it distasteful.
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Willie said in interviews that there was an element of qpq, and he was generally known as that kind of pol, so it's not a crazy assertion.
ETA, the Brown quote
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