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The Nose: Weiner's Digital Infidelity and Why We Love to Boycott

http://cptv.vo.llnwd.net/o2/ypmwebcontent/Commodore%20Skahill/Colin%20McEnroe%20Show%2007-26-2013.mp3

I find it difficult to think about the mess currently embroiling Anthony Weiner without also thinking about Virginia Johnson, who died this week at 88. She was one half of Masters and Johnson, the research and writing duo who opened up sex as a discussable topic.

If you're too young to remember 1966 when their landmark book came out, it may be hard to imagine how little open talk of sex there was in America. The shift is not simply that we live in a sex-saturated world, but that nobody so much as looks over his shoulder before beginning a pretty graphic conversation about sex. The other shift is toward the normalization of what Masters and Johnson would have called a fetish.

Anthony Weiner is a strange guy, but is he that unusual? The number of people using various functions on their phones and iPads to "have sex" with people they never actually touch is a sexual voting bloc not imaginable in 1966.  

You can join the conversation. Email colin@wnpr.org or Tweet us @wnprcolin.

Colin McEnroe is a radio host, newspaper columnist, magazine writer, author, playwright, lecturer, moderator, college instructor and occasional singer. Colin can be reached at colin@ctpublic.org.

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