Miss Buffalo Chip isn't a beauty contest in the traditional sense  it's a relatively debauched topless (and sometimes bottomless) multiday contest where women dance, jiggle and reportedly even perform blow jobs on bananas for the titillation of the spectators. And John McCain offered up his 54-year-old wife as a contestant.

And, let be frank, he didn't do it just because she's pretty or has an enviable body for a 54-year-old woman or because he's proud of his wife's brand of socialite beauty. He did it to pander to the crowd's idea of appropriate masculinity, and that apparently includes over-sexualizing your wife and the mother of your children for the amusement of a few people in a crowd. McCain offered up the thought of his wife objectifying herself for the sexual gratification of others (at his suggestion) in order to get a couple of chuckles, inspire some male fantasy and make a few "friends." Fun!

And you might say that John McCain didn't think of it as an objectification ritual, or that he didn't know that it involved nudity and displays of stimulated sex acts or whatever. Well, then, why wasn't he offering to get his very pretty daughter Meghan up on stage? Suggesting a 24-year-old woman participate in a just-a-beauty pageant wouldn't be so outside the the norm, if he thought it would be just a beauty pageant. But he knew that it wasn't, and he doesn't think of his daughter in that way and wouldn't in a million years as a father suggest or even intimate that his daughter should get on stage and flash her breasts, ass and (potentially) her external genitalia at a group of strange men for admiration, money or votes.

But what does it say that he would suggest it of his wife? I think it's another piece of gravel in a growing mountain of evidence that John McCain doesn't think a lot about women, their place as equals in society or their rights in that society. But he does seem to think a lot about us as sexual beings  or, at least, sexual objects.

McCain Makes The Rounds At A Biker Rally [CNN]
Obama, in New Stand, Proposes Use of Oil Reserve [NY Times]
Tax Plans And The Single Girl [Glamocracy]
McCain, 2013 and the End of the War on Terror [AC360]
Topless in Sturgis [Politico]
Getting An Eyeful In Biker Heaven [ESPN]
Sexist McCain Moment of the Day [Feministing]
What John McCain's Jokes Say About His View Of Women [Glamocracy]

The blonde is depicted as nothing more than a body; she is fully nude except a pair of blood red pumps.The photo is the epitome of the male gaze. We, the viewer, stare at her, an object, displayed in front of us for our viewing pleasure. Can you say "woman as commodity?"

Adding insult to injury, this faceless woman isn't even given the dignity of a name. In the photo credits all she gets is a tag that mentions she is "a friend" of Tony's.

Are we bad feminists? We were actually impressed by this cover, if only because it portrayed a woman who actually has thighs and an ass. But Jennifer Mattson seems to have been so hell-bent on making a feminist case over the image that she didn't bother to actually look at it. For starters, the blonde is not "fully nude"; she's got a high-cut bodysuit on. Secondly, the essence of Tony Soprano's character is that he has a hard time seeing women as anything other than controlling harpies (his mother, his sister, and, to some degree, his wife) or objects on which to take out his frustrations and desires (the girls of Bada Bing, Dr. Melfi). Hate the playa, not the game, Jennifer.

Vanity Fair, Shame On You! [WIMNOnline]
Related: Topless Bodies Found In Brainless Magazine [Salon]