Thank you for your cervix
We need to talk about Maegan
Mom and Dad, maybe don’t read this one—you’ll think it’s gross (and honestly, I do too).
Cheating scandals are decidedly in right now—YouTubers are doing it, news anchors are doing it, and now, there’s a cop cheating scandal involving six men and one woman, all current or former officers of the La Vergne Police Department in Tennessee.
At the center of the controversy is one Maegan Hall, whose face you’ve probably seen by now on a raunchy meme page or the Instagram story of your favorite quasi-libertarian guy from high school (hi Jeep!). To summarize the situation: Hall was fired earlier this month, along with Juan Lugo-Perez, Henry Ty McGowan, Lewis Powell, and Seneca Shields, after an internal sexual misconduct investigation revealed they engaged in sex acts, sometimes on city property and while on duty. Three other cops with the department, Larry Holladay, Patrick Magliocco, and Gavin Schoeberl, were suspended in the same investigation.
Photos and videos of Hall, especially ones of her smiling in uniform, standing next to her husband, or one really unfortunate clip where she rides a mechanical bull, have become the subject of countless memes and widespread mockery. Recurring jokes include the phrase “high-speed train” and formats like protect and service, fucking 12, etc, etc. I don’t really want to include a lot of them in this post, but if you Google “Maegan Hall,” scroll through the comments on La Vergene PD’s Facebook page, or pop her name into a Twitter search, you’ll find them—along with websites offering fake footage of the encounters.
I have to be honest: The whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth. (No pun intended I swear to God.) Obviously, I don’t think cops should be getting laid on the clock—what is this, Mad Men?—but I don’t think they should be making TikTok thirst traps in their squad cars, openly playing iPhone games, or bothering local businesses for free food while making taxpayer money either, and all of that is standard cop shit. I’ve been trying to pin down what, exactly, bothers me about the whole situation, and I’ve narrowed it down to a few points.
First of all, none of the jokes are funny. Most of them obviously have to do the way Hall looks—more like an elementary school teaching assistant or your weird cousin’s girlfriend than a department sexpot, à la Clementine Johnson in Reno 911! The other elements roughly boil down to “It’s funny that a woman would have sex with multiple men at once!” and “Haha, ew, her husband isn’t going to leave her!”
If you actually take the time to read any of the local news coverage, it becomes clear that the department shenanigans are more of a swinger situation, which is… so much funnier. According to a report from News Channel 5 Nashville:
Hall "engaged in a sexual relationship" with Magliocco, Powell, Holladay, Lugo, McGowan and Shields, which was not reported to leadership. Hall reportedly "engaged in a sexual relationship" with McGowan and Shields "while on duty and inside city owned property."
Hall also reportedly exchanged explicit photos with McGowan, Holladay, Magliocco, Shields and Shoeberl which were reciprocated.
Magliocco and Powell are accused of engaging in sexual conduct with Hall on multiple occasions, including oral sex both on LPD property and private property.
Hall, Magliocco and Powell are all stated as being married to other partners in the report and Magliocco's wife is identified in the report, claiming that she was seen kissing Hall during a party that multiple La Vergne officers had attended this past fall.
There is also, according to La Vergne’s mayor, a sexually charged “hot tub party” somewhere in the equation. Cop hot tub orgy? A fishbowl full of squad car keys and hideous Thin Blue Line wedding rings? Come on!
It’s also hard to think about cop sex scandals without thinking about the fact that weird swinger shit is, without a doubt, the mildest kind of sexual misconduct police officers can—and do—commit. That’s obvious from the wealth of anecdotal evidence we have on police sexual violence—both the endless individual horror stories and the historical record of cops using sexual assault as a means of maintaining power and enforcing order (which is legal, by the way!), especially against sex workers. Cops also sexually assault members of their own departments. Like all other police crimes, the data on exactly how often cops rape or commit acts of sexual violence is limited, but there’s more than enough evidence that it’s another core element of policing’s systemic rot. Again, I’m not in favor of nasty cop sex parties, but all things considered—could be worse!
And the last thing I dislike about this meme is that in my heart of hearts, I agree with the only thing I’ve seen anyone—mostly older white women on Facebook—say in defense of Hall herself; that “if Maegan was a man, nobody would be talking about this.” I don’t feel a lot for Hall personally, and I don’t think defending an ex-cop is productive terrain for the battle of women’s sexual empowerment… But it’s obviously true. The joke isn’t really that she’s a cop who had sex with a bunch of other cops. The joke is that she’s a mousy-looking woman who had sex with a bunch of men.
To all of that, I say—eh. Call me the humor police.
Questions, comments, corrections? (“You don’t know what it’s like to be a police officer” is not a correction.) Shoot me an email at k80way@protonmail.com, or DM me on Twitter.