Oh boy. Yes, you read that headline correctly. According to a far-right conservative Christian politician, the Hill is not just for passing legislation. Allegedly, some of the worst people in the United States are regularly meeting up to explore each others’ bodies in their private abodes.
The claim hijacked the political news cycle this morning after Rep. Madison Cawthorn, a Republican from North Carolina, came on the right-wing YouTube show Warrior Poet Society. When asked about Netflix’s House of Cards and whether its “dirty” and “perverse” subject matter is true to life, Cawthorn volunteered that, yes, it kind of is. Politicians will hold and use secrets against each other all the time, and it’s not uncommon to see lawmakers simultaneously doing coke while pushing for drug use legislation, he said.
But coke and nasty secrets aside, Cawthorn’s biggest claim is that his fellow politicians have a knack for exploring their carnal desires together. And many of them are his role models.
“The sexual perversion that goes on in Washington,” he said during the show. “I mean, being kind of a young guy in Washington, where the average age is probably 60 or 70, and I look at all these people, a lot of them I’ve looked up to through my life, always paid attention to politics … then all of sudden you get invited to, like, ‘oh hey, we’re gonna have kind of a sexual get together at one of our homes, you should come.'”
“And I’m like, ‘what did you just ask me to come to?'” the 26-year-old lawmaker continued. “And then you realize they’re asking you to come to an orgy.”
To be clear, The Mary Sue is an orgy-positive space. Unlike Cawthorn, we are supportive of the orgy as a whole, from college dorms to nursing homes. Having a lot of fun, casual group sex, at any age, is not an indicator of immaturity nor moral decay, despite the Republican representative’s insistence otherwise.
But as HuffPost pinpointed earlier, Cawthorn doesn’t seem to keep close quarters with Democrats in D.C. He’s a pretty staunch pro-Trump politician, an anti-abortion and conservative Christian lawmaker gleefully posting transphobic content on Twitter.
In other words, we don’t expect Cawthorn is talking about his blue-state colleagues here. This is a man who has claimed that there’s a “spiritual battle” in Washington to “take our country back” from his Democratic opponents. If any politicians are inviting Cawthorn to explore their bodies together, it’s probably his allies in the fight: Republicans.
Or as Matthew Yglesias tweeted, “I’ve been here almost 20 years and have never been invited to an orgy by a sixty-something, but I guess I don’t hang out with as many Republicans as Cawthorn does.”
If true, it’s pretty hypocritical for Republicans to bemoan the loss of “family values” while going off and inviting a 20-something Congressman to a GOP orgy. Then again, hypocrisy is common in the party. Conservative politicians have historically supported whorephobic policies targeting sex workers and adult content creators, despite often seeing sex workers themselves. No better example exists than anti-trans politicians fearmongering over trans bathroom access while seeing trans workers.
Granted, we have no way to know for sure that Cawthorn is telling the truth. He may just be bolstering his own credentials as a God-fearing, red-blooded, small-town Christian boy doing the Lord’s work in the pervert cesspool that is the halls of Congress.
Or if these supposed orgies are true, they may be a bipartisan affair after all, complete with a reach around from the other side of the aisle, so to speak. Given Cawthorn seems to be implying that the orgy circuit isn’t his vibe, we don’t know if these “sexual get-togethers” are just as polarized as our contemporary political climate, or if party affiliation is left at the door.
Hell, it’s entirely possible that the Republican Party’s far-right, Trump-loving politicians are the epicenter of the Grand Old Party’s grand old orgies. As Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Il.) tweeted in response to Cawthorn’s claims, “Well I’ve never seen that, but I also don’t run in the far-right freedom caucus circles. So maybe?”
But if Cawthorn is telling the truth, that would make Republican politicians utter hypocrites. Doubly so if it’s the hardline, far-right side of the aisle that’s hosting all these supposed orgies. Then again, who’s truly surprised by now that Republicans say one thing and do another?
(Image: Gage Skidmore/Flickr (CC BY-SA))
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