FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Stuff

TITS FOR VOTES

Don't know if you've heard, but Maria Fernanda Valencia, Colombia's former Vice-minister of tourism, has agreed to pose nude for Soho magazine, basically the Colombian version of Maxim, if she is elected for the house of representatives. How's that for working your agenda? As much as I like to advocate the expansion of Colombian nudity to encompass more than teenage girls and drunk guys a couple things bother me about this whole mess.

Advertisement

First off, she's a decent-looking telenovella star whose previously held office and she can't even raise funds for her own campaign. I think I speak for all of us in asking a simple Wadup wit dat? Second the whole of her platform consists of women's rights and the environment. Actually, that's being a bit fair. A strong women's rights and environmentalist candidate would probably be pretty great for Colombia--they could promote legislation to curb industrial waste from our coastal factories or create programs to help rehabilitate women rescued from sex slavery.

Maria's platform actually just boils down to punishing rapists and building more parks in the capital. What kind of beauty-pageant campaign promise is that? Does she also have a stance on whether or not Colombian children "are the future"? (I also like the idea of a woman who traded nude photos of herself for votes speaking about the exploitation of females' bodies before parliament and the UN and the like.)

I hate making comparisons like this, but I really can't help seeing her as the Sarah Palin of Colombia--just banking on sensationalism and prefab controversy to buoy her entire run. Why would someone like that even stand a chance at an election? Because we all get to see her naked at the end, right.

So when some poor woman gets beaten up by her drunken husband (again) in what should have been a park but is now an empty dirt lot, she can always look back at her son's copy of Soho magazine and say thanks, Maria Fernanda Valencia, you really were the best woman for the job and look at those knockers!! Good thing all the men voted for you. Oh, BTW thanks for teaching my daughter that this is the best way to get ahead in life. Hurray for women's rights! And the environment!

Advertisement

All that being said, I guess you have to admit she knows what she's doing. A quick look at Colombia's political history brings up a couple of interesting examples that show we will vote for anyone, and I mean anyone who makes it onto the post-soap-opera news.

The most notorious examples is Regina 11, also known as the most powerful witch in Colombia. Yes, Regina 11 is a professional witch and founder of the Metapolitical Unitarian Movement (movimiento unitario metapolitico). She figured out that being a politician would not only score her some new followers but a pretty cushy salary as well as she promoted her Metapolitical agenda. She wasn't going to do much, but she was still our witch and we voted for her. Then she ran for president and beat the majority of candidates--all of whom were actual and well-known politicians with decades of experience, by the way--finishing third just behind the country's main liberal and conservative party representatives. Not only did she put up quite a fight, she finished 3rd to the two strongest representatives of the liberal and conservative parties. Not bad for a witch.

Now don't get me wrong on all this, I am completely for crazy people in office, and even more so if there is the added chance of exposed nipple in a state of the nation address. Take La Cicciolina for example; she was one of the most famous and controversial porn stars in the world and she was still able to get elected to the Italian parliament without resorting to tawdry bargains with the electorate. While in office she campaigned against nuclear energy and NATO membership all while still making time to shoot hardcore porn. To this day Cicciolina is a strong advocate for human and animal rights and the "sexual freedom" movement. She even volunteered to sleep with Sadam Hussein if he released the foreign hostages during the Gulf War and then again more recently if he cut it out with the nuclear boondoggle. Just think how much of the last two decades' misery could have been averted if he'd only been straight!

I would actually vote for Ciciolina. She was a porn star trying to get elected AS a porn star and was actually smart enough to pull it off--plus she offered to take one for the team in order to stanch the threat of nuclear annihilation, which is pretty magnanimous. She was a tits-out maverick who figured out how to do politics her own way, which is world's better than a washed-up politician who figured taking her tits out would be a maverick way of dealing with the fact that no one wants her in office otherwise.

VERONICA VELASQUEZ