Crossposted from The Gaggle

Most of the attention on the Massachusetts Senate race so far has focused on the growing pool of Democratic candidates, which makes sense given that Democrats virtually own the seat. So you'd be forgiven for missing GOP state Sen. Scott Brown's announcement Saturday that he's entering the race. Brown's been a fixture in Massachusetts conservative politics since the early 1990s, and he's served in the Massachusetts Senate since winning a special election in 2004. Some Gaggle readers may remember the fiscal conservative as the father of American Idol contestant Ayla Brown. But others may remember him from his 1982 nude centerfold in Cosmopolitan, dug up by Wonkette back in 2007.

Brown was just 22 when he won Cosmo's "America's Sexiest Man" competition. Cosmo wrote that "adorably sexy" Brown likes "slinky girls" and that he wasn't shy about taking his clothes off. "I'm not ashamed of my body," Brown told Cosmo. "I work hard enough to keep it in shape. When you go to the beach, you automatically seek out the best bodies, female and male. Why should it be different in a magazine?" Upon reading the full spread, girls will discover that Brown, a self-described patriot, is someone they should want to "snuggle over the longer haul." (I'm thinking campaign slogans here─"Brown: A Senator You Can Snuggle.") A law student at Boston College at the time, Brown said he intended to put his $1,000 prize toward his tuition.

Jokes aside, that this racy pic has been circulating for years and hasn't hampered Brown's career perhaps isn't that surprising. "It's a pretty tame photo compared to what you might see at an NFL halftime show," says campaign spokesperson Eric Fehrnstrom. "The fact is, when Scott was 22 years old, he was footloose and carefree."  That may be so, but how would he be treated if he were a woman?

Although a nude centerfold might not kill a female politician's career, it would most certainly prompt questions about her character. Was she unacceptably promiscuous? Did she have a wild, compromising youth? While we scoff at the exploits of young men─they're allowed to be "footloose and carefree"─women are rarely afforded that luxury. For Brown, who just turned 50, it's a case of "boys will be boys." We can giggle at Brown's treasure trail and not think twice about how the sight of it affects his political career. But when Sarah Palin's head was Photoshopped on the body of a gun-totin', bikini-clad babe, it served as evidence for many of her unsuitability for office. Even when the photo was proved to be fake, it continued to haunt her. Palin's sexuality was at once titillating and  threatening─for as many fans as she gained for being attractive, there were as many who used it in building the case against her. If Barbara Boxer had posed nude in her youth and declared her love for "buff boys," I predict her voters would be collectively horrified, and she'd probably never shake the crass jokes that would follow. As a culture, we simply don't like our female representatives to be publicly sexual.

In the end, there are many reasons why this photo won't matter much in this campaign─not least of which being that Brown's chances of winning Kennedy's seat are minuscule. But it probably won't matter much to the rest of his career, either. It's just one of the advantages of being a dude.