File this one in the "Who'd have thunk it?" department: a history in gay porn can diminish your chances of being taken seriously as an intellectual and hurt your conservative politics street cred.
Shocking – I know.
Such lessons can be learned from the cautionary tale of Matt Sanchez, a Columbia University student and Marine Corps reservist who recently spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference. While at CPAC he posed for a picture with Ann Coulter – a picture that was put under scrutiny after her infamous speech at the same event. The liberal blogosphere delighted in the revelation that Sanchez had acted in gay porn, a work history seemingly in conflict with his conservative views and Coulter's hateful words.
Sanchez clearly doesn't relish his memories of life in porn, but he is unapologetic about his choices. He also criticizes the industry as being the impetus that drove him towards his current conservative stance:
Porn reduces the mind and flattens the soul. I don't like it. That's not hypocrisy talking; that's just experience. I sometimes think of myself, ironically, as a progressive: I started off as a liberal but I progressed to conservatism. Part of that transformation is due to my time in the industry. How does a conservative trace his roots to such distasteful beginnings? I didn't like porn's liberalism. In porn, everything taboo is trivialized and everything trivial is magnified.
While Sanchez's story is interesting and he makes a valid point about "those who complain about wire-tapping reserve the right to pry into my private life and my past for political brownie points", I am most concerned about his accusation about what porn does to its participants.
Folks – I have long been a proponent of sending our nation's best and hottest young women into Porno University, but not if the entire industry is really just a front for the Young Republicans. Who could have foreseen that the conservatives would attack one of the left's seemingly most secure flanks? And does this mean that we need to be on alert for a recruitment campaign at DNC headquarters?
I mean, they already snagged one of our senators…
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