As amusing and ironic as the Sarah Palin family circus may seem to gleeful liberals, there is something sad about it too. How many lives have been ruined by the kind of high-minded, impractical approach to sex that Sarah Palin's party pushed on the country, an approach that failed her own family?
The Internet is buzzing over Levi Johnston's appearance on Tyra yesterday to "break his silence," and providing us all with a reminder that patriarchal policies like abstinence-only education hurt young men, too. Bill Maher jokingly tried to hawk "Free Levi" paraphernalia on his show during the original Bristol-Levi news cycle. It was silly, but it has rung increasingly true. Both Bristol and Levi were victims. Neither Bristol nor Levi had much in the way of agency: they were paraded on the floor of the Republican National Convention like the crown prince and princess of promiscuous teenagers taking their lumps.
Now both of their renegade media appearances seem like an attempt to wrest back some control over their own lives. Levi's woeful, confused face throughout the entire Tyra show, combined with Bristol's media appearances, in which she's said she wished this had all happened ten years down the road and that "abstinence isn't realistic" have revealed that their relationship was hardly the paragon of keeping-the-baby "family values" that the Palin campaign pretended. First of all, the two of them didn't make one momentary mistake. They were having sex on the regular, a fact of which Sarah Palin may have been aware: "I'm pretty sure she probably knew," Levi told Banks. They were also using protection "most of the time" in Levi's words, after being pressed repeatedly by Banks.
Now that the baby is born and the rosy glow of their teenage love affair has faded, there's a rift between the families and everyone looks miserable and accusatory. According to Levi's family, it partially stems from a frost between Bristol and Levi's sister Mercede. Mercede, it would seem, still hangs around with Levi's exes, a fact which Bristol does not appreciate. This has made it harder for Levi to spend time with his son. In fact, the Johnstons, feeling shut out of baby Tripp's life, might sue for joint custody! Add in Levi's regret over his engagement-ring tattoo and you can cue up the obligatory Jerry Springer joke.
Except this isn't even a Springer-worthy tale. Instead, is a fairly typical small-time drama that's simply been exploited several times over and made worse - first by a culture that didn't arm the teens with the information they needed, then by the Republican party, then by a maelstrom of TV and news attention.
Bristol, a politician's daughter, seems to have a burgeoning pose and knowledge of the impact of her words. But Levi seems most interested in making sure people don't spread rumors about his family and he gets to see his child more often. Politics seem to hold little sway over his life. Levi described to Banks how intensely overwhelmed he was during his appearance at the Republican National Convention and seemed puzzled when Banks asked him about Sarah Palin's championing of abstinence-only policies. He didn't seem to know much of what she was talking about. For Levi, the lofty rhetoric of politicians urging purity and abstinence and old-school values clearly means far less than the day-to-day realities of his life, which at the moment consist of his sister and ex-girlfriend sparring with each other, his relationship with his son in the crossfires.
It shouldn't be shocking that teenagers - parents or not - are acting cliquey and telling tales about each other. It shouldn't be shocking that they are having sex either. It's all fairly natural behavior for the age, whether the 18 year olds are freshmen at an Ivy League campus or living in a small town in Alaska.
It's natural for teenagers to get tattoos that they'll erase, swear to love their partners forever and then break up with them, and do things before they're ready. That's why the more information we give them, the better, why things like emergency contraception, counseling, and comprehensive education are so vital.
But Palin's party and Palin's rhetoric whitewash this reality. It's not natural that teenagers should be held up - forced - to appear to be something they're not, models of sexual self-control without sexual information, example of marriage as a face-saving necessity rather than a choice made out of love. But that's what happened to these two.
Sarah Palin has been complaining bitterly in public statements about Johnston's appearance on Tyra being exploitative. But she exploited both him and her own daughter first. And we shouldn't put the blame squarely on Palin's feet, either: her husband, her family, and the entire Republican party joyfully assented to using these teenagers as poster-children for a failed movement and joyfully assented to using them despite their clear ignorance and inexperience. They've created a monster in this story, and now they will have to live with the destruction it wreaks, doubtless leaving a trail of havoc through more daytime talk shows and possibly even a courtroom drama. It's funny, but it's also terribly sad.
