Cutting Off Our Collective Noses?

A very bright Washington lawyer of my acquaintance said to me, after Monica Lewinsky testified on-the-record regarding her affair with Bill Clinton, that, while the president might get impeached, he'd never be driven from office, and her logic was simple: Lewinsky's testimony proved that the affair really wasn't Bill Clinton's "fault." Hillary would ultimately take the "blame" if that became necessary to save his presidency.

Now be warned — this is going to be a column for "adults only." Please try to stow your juvenile giggles and propensity for fairy tale views of sex and marriage at the door. I'm already self-warned that the expressing of such views might cause me to bunking on the couch for a couple of nights if my wife happens to read them, but I'm willing to take that chance. I can only hope and pray that she is very busy this week with her new position at work.

What my Washington friend — a staunch feminist — pointed out to me was that Lewinsky, in sworn testimony, stated that the first time she preformed oral favors on Clinton, the president said, "Boy, it’s been a long, long time since I've had one of these!" Her logic was quite simple: No married man should ever have to utter those words. In essence, Hillary's "dereliction" drove Bill to seek out Monica. (I told you this was going to be a column for adults only).

Now some women (and perhaps a few men — but not many, I would venture to guess) will say that if the wife is not interested in that type of sex (or any other sex for that matter), the husband should just accept the fact and forego all interest in sex also. Uh, excuse me, but this notion can only be believed by people who have themselves lost all interest in sex. Only those who have lost their own sex drive can't imagine why others would be so interested in something they currently view as "unnecessary," or even "nasty and dirty."

Caveats, however, need to be firmly in place in the cases where husbands' tastes in sex run a tad too far in the direction of the kinky or exotic; and also where there is an imbalance in terms of frequency... which is the case in many marriages. These differences are all very subjective, and, in part, speak to what the Bible calls being "unevenly yoked." Wives certainly should not exist only to satisfy the "needs" of their spouses — that sort of thinking went out with high-button shoes.

A bit of Biology 101: Some women after having a child or children lose all interest in sex. They have done their "duty," they’ve procreated, and are no longer interested in the subject, thank you very much. However, many women so inclined reach a tacit understanding with their husbands: "Do what you want with who you want, but please have the decency as to not embarrass me or the children, and try not to cost us too much money in the process. Just don't try creeping into my bed (yes, some people do sleep in separate bedrooms) in the middle of the night."

Maybe Hillary told Bill this, who knows? But the fact is, it's none of our damn business if she did... only the media says it is, and we Americans, raised on soap operas and in love with salacious scandals, think that it is our right to know because they are public figures. But it's really not. Europeans (as well as much of the rest of the world) look upon our views in regards to sex and consenting adult behavior as asinine, juvenile or worse.

Supposedly, former presidential contender Gary Hart (remember him?) and his wife had such an adult understanding: "Don't ask, don't tell and I won't look." The part Hart evidently didn't understand was "and don’t get caught." He literally challenged the media to follow him around and inspect his private life when rumors of his affair with Donna Rice first surfaced. After he was outed he dropped out of the race, but the nation was really the big loser. Hart was an exceptionally bright and talented politician, and who knows how much better off the country would be had he been allowed to serve as president.

The media didn’t do the same thing to John F. Kennedy over his alleged affair(s). It knew of them, but viewed them as a private matter, and rightly so. They allegedly took the same attitude in regards to the rumors that swirled around Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We had it right back then, and the change in the rules of engagement has not been for the better.

Now, once again we (via the media) are peeking under bedroom doors. This time it's John Edwards, a man who perhaps knows more about how to solve the problems of the underclass in America than anyone else. But, due to the fact Obama has to distance himself from Edwards politically, the country will never benefit from his skills and knowledge should Obama win. We are quite literally erecting more and more barriers to keep bright and talented people out of government service. The question on everyone’s lips now is... "will we forgive him?" Here's a news flash ... his wife already did, and he isn't married to us, the public, is he? What "right of forgiveness" do we have in the matter? None.

The way things are going, we'll wind up with elected officials who are all as dumb as a box of rocks... but, hey, they're "loyal" to their wives... even though some of the wives are not demanding, expecting nor wanting such sexual fealty. They just want to be left alone to live their lives and work out their problems (if there happen to be any in their marriages) in private.

Are our lives so devoid of meaning that we need to live vicariously through others, and wallow in schadenfreude at the slightest hint of trouble in someone's life? We simply want to know too damn much about other people's business.

This is not to say that some the intense media scrutiny of politicians during the last half-century isn't self-invited; self-inflicted. When conservatives, evangelicals and right-wing, bible-thumping kooks attempt to legislate their own particular brand of morality by making laws that negatively impact the lives of citizens with other lifestyles ... and then get caught with their pants down in airport bathroom stalls... the feeling is — they deserve whatever negative publicity they get — and I tend to agree. Hypocrisy, is seems, knows no bounds in American politics, and there is that saying about glass houses and stones.

But we might be burning down the village we supposedly are trying to save. It may well be that marriage is falling by the wayside (and over half of those who do tie the knot end up in divorce) because we as a society are attempting to set an unrealistic and unnatural standard of conduct, demanding a complete loyalty and fidelity that is totally unknown in any other species on the face of the earth. In all other creatures, some relationships are monogamous, some are polygamous, and still others a polyandrous — it's the natural order of things. Some young people no doubt avoid marriage simply because they know they cannot live up to the outdated, outmoded and outlandish Victorian principles we foolishly attempt to foist onto the institution.

However much we try to enforce these often unattainable standards (with people from outside the union trying to tell wives what they should or shouldn't accept in terms of behavior on the part of their husbands), in our right minds we must know that what we are expecting is ridiculous.

Louisiana Senator David Vitter's wife Wendy, when news of his extra-curricula bedroom activities was first rumored, said, "I'm more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary. If he does something like that I'm walking away with one thing, and it's not alimony, trust me." Eight years later the couple is still together, and by all accounts his genitals are still very much intact.... but it's really none of our business, is it? Obviously Wendy Vitter liked being married to a powerful U.S. senator more than she liked the prospect of joining the ranks — the legions — of middle-aged divorcees, even with a "souvenir" of the relationship in hand. Smart woman... we should be so smart.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com
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