Althouse: Jessica Valenti's breasts are scandalous, but Carrie Prejean's sex tape is next to godliness

Right-wing blogger Ann Althouse pitched a fit a couple-three years back over breasts. Specifically, she was upset over the fact that Feministing founder Jessica Valenti posed for a picture with Bill Clinton and a bunch of other bloggers with her breasts showing. Well, not showing, exactly, but... visible. Well, not visible, exactly, but... well... in existence.

Here's the picture.



Valenti is the dark-haired woman in the center of the photo wearing a short-sleeved gray top.

In a post titled "Let's take a closer look at those breasts," Althouse seethed:

Sooooo... apparently, Jessica writes one of those blogs that are all about using breasts for extra attention. Then, when she goes to meet Clinton, she wears a tight knit top that draws attention to her breasts and stands right in front of him and positions herself to make her breasts as obvious as possible?

[...]

Guys love breasts. I think Jessica knows that quite well. And I think for all her gasping outrage, she's thoroughly pleased to get this attention. And as for you chumps who spent the afternoon defending her... well, you're chumps. So am I for giving her the publicity.... but what the hell? It's Friday.

So, when a woman with a nice figure poses for a picture without first covering herself head to toe in a bedsheet, she is an attention whore. She might even be an actual whore. This is what Althouse believes.

So, young women, beware. If you ever appear in public in anything more revealing than a nun's habit, Ann Althouse will call you out.

Unless, that is, you happen to be opposite-marriage-defending former pageant queen Carrie Prejean. If you are Carrie Prejean, darling of the conservative movement, Ann Althouse has no problem with you and your breasts appearing in public together. In fact, she thinks it's perfectly lovely if you and your breasts make a sex tape together.

You know, what is even imperfect here? I don't see anything unChristian about displaying your breasts to a boyfriend that you love. It's just foolish to allow photographs to come into being. But it's not unChristian to be foolish. (Saint Paul said: "We are fools for Christ.")

Now, trying to destroy the young woman over political disagreement and tormenting her by threatening to invade the intimate space between her and her lost young love... I'll hazard to guess: That's not Christian.

I'm having trouble keeping up with the rules here. When a feminist blogger allows herself to be photographed fully clothed, she's the whore of Babylon.

But when a self-identified Christian poses half-naked in photographs and on national telvision and then reveals that she made a sex tape for a man to whom she was not married, she is still a candidate for Blessed Virgin and retains enough moral authority to judge the relationships of people she doesn't even know.

Okay, got it.

(I won't even get into the absurdity of the suggesting that being a "fool for Christ" could possibly include making a sex tape. I am confident enough in my understanding of 1 Corinthians to say that's not what the apostle Paul was talking about. Full stop. If any Biblical scholar thinks they can prove me wrong, I welcome the challenge.)