When a congressman gets caught scrolling through sexualized images mid-flight, the response is predictable: embarrassment, denial, and the obligatory blaming of the algorithm.
That's what happened with California Representative Brad Sherman last week, who insisted he wasn't looking at pornography, just inappropriate pictures of women that happened to appear in his "For You" social media feed.
It was a perfect storm of cringe: 71-year-old man, mouth hanging open, iPad glowing with racy images, and a verbal defense that became an immediate punchline:
If I see a picture of a woman, might I look at it longer than a sunset? Yeah.
To call the whole thing uncomfortable is an insult to understatements.
But buried beneath the awkward snickering is a strange, telling moment of cultural clarity. For a split second, everyone - left, right, and center - seemed to agree that it is shameful for a grown man, in public, holding public office, to be looking at sexualized images.
Not just impolite or unwise. Not just "lacking discretion" or a little embarrassing.
Shameful.
Before we even had a chance to think about the whole story, we all instinctively recognized it.
Of course, the moment didn't last. As is our cultural custom, the conversation quickly became tribalized with debates about whether what he viewed qualifies as "porn," whether he "intended" to click it, whether the platform's algorithm is responsible, whether the images are "really that bad," and whether we're even allowed to object without sounding prudish.
Suddenly, Brad Sherman became a bystander in the sordid affair. After being shamed as an individual, the congressman watched a significant portion of those same voices circle the wagons to defend the industry. The commenters ridiculed the porn user, then fiercely protected the pipeline that produces and normalizes it.
I understand what I'm about to say is very unpopular, but we all know it regardless. If a congressman has to answer awkward questions because he was caught looking at sexualized images - and he does and should - it's because looking at sexualized images is shameful behavior. Not just for him.
For anyone. For everyone.
And maybe that moment of cultural honesty should tell us something.
Pornography doesn't just embarrass elected officials. It erodes relationships, hollows out marriages, fuels trafficking, rewires the brain, and leaves a trail of devastation so large that therapists now refer to its effects as "the silent epidemic."
None of this is new information. Studies have shouted it for years. Pastors have warned it. Counselors have documented it. Families have suffered through it.
So maybe the lesson that matters most in this moment isn't to shame a congressman as a dirty old man. Maybe it's to make the obvious connection:
If it's shameful for a congressman to look at in public, it's harmful for the rest of us to consume in private. If we know it's wrong for him, that's because we know it's wrong, period.
The scandal isn't only that a congressman got caught.
The scandal is that we keep pretending the thing he got caught doing isn't a problem for everyone else.
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Not the Bee or any of its affiliates.
