In case you’ve missed it, Sean P. Aune, Steven Hodson (of the Inquisitr) and I do a daily podcast focusing in on one issue, theme or news item of the day called CobWEBs Daily Edition.  It’s a fun show, and we get to be as grumpy as we like, which suits our personalities quite well.

On Friday, Sean and Steven did a show that talked about the ever controversial Penelope Trunk and her abortion / miscarriage tweet, the uproar about Meghan McCain’s balloons, and Jeff Jarvis’s frank discussion of his penis, post-prostate cancer (Steven’s write-up here).

The way they framed the discussion was that while it was admirable that Jeff Jarvis had the courage to talk about his intimates in such a frank fashion, it was telling of the collective of the social media set that the uproar around Penelope Trunk’s miscarriage tweet wasn’t replayed when Jarvis overshared as well.

You can listen to the Friday episode below or download the MP3.

The discussion delved off onto other ongoing blogosphere topics of the weekend, including Meghan McCain and Jan Moir, but centered around the uneven and chilling effect of sexism towards women in response to controversial speech.

You know me – I never shy away from controversy, so you know I had to jump in and grab a piece of this discussion first chance I got, which was during the first part of Monday’s discussion on CobWEBs.

You can listen to the Monday episode below or download the MP3.

I’ll preface the summary with this disclaimer: I’m a man, and as such I have a somewhat skewed point of view. But as a man (and a married one at that), keep in mind the following: I don’t hate it when women show somewhat risqué pictures on the Web, so I don’t begrudge Meghan McCain the right to bare the tops of her breasts while wearing a tank top… and as a married man, I have (very!) easy access to the female opinion, which seemed to back up my instincts on these stories.

That said, I think Steven and Sean may have missed the fundamental difference between the McCain situation, the Trunk situation, and Jeff’s situation…

Meghan McCain and Penelope Trunk both have a political component. Many people, myself included (as well as many pro-abortion / pro-choice advocates) were very offended by Penelope’s seemingly cavalier attitude towards the life of the unborn child. Similarly, with McCain, she’s trying to position herself as a serious political pundit. Can you imagine the uproar if Ann Coulter, Rachel Maddow or Michelle Malkin (or Glenn Beck, Arnold Schwarzenegger or Rush Limbaugh) did something similar to what Meghan McCain did?

On the other hand, Jeff Jarvis wasn’t involved in political punditry, nor was he saying something that offended the moral sensibilities of a clearly polarizing issue (some would say that the ’04 election was won on the very polarizing issue of abortion, while the last time erectile dysfunction was politicized was when Bob Dole started doing Viagra ads).

When politics gets involved, people go to the ends of the spectrum, no negotiation. I think that’s where our outrage should be focused, not necessarily on sexism.

I do think there’s an interesting discussion to be had around why it is that online political discussion immediately pushes everyone to the fringes of the debate instead of seeking common ground, but from a purely analytical perspective, I think the more likely culprit to the differences in reaction to these incidents has less to do with sexism and more to do with polemics and politics.