Will Americans ever get enough of famous people’s sex lives? I doubt it, but it sure would be nice. Instead, if this week’s media-meltdown reaction to New York governor Eliot Spitzer is any indication, we’re apparently stuck with the same schizophrenic national response we always show in situations like Spitzer’s: “SHAME! SHAME! Tee-hee, giggle. What an asshole! Giggle. What does the prostitute look like? How about the guy’s wife, what’s she like? Give me more details! Oh, but SHAME! SHAME!”
Everyone condemns Spitzer, feels bad for his wife’s humiliation, and sniggers in self-righteous glee when he resigns, but no one wants to miss seeing the photos of the prostitute in question, as reporters camp outside her door in order to get more images for their websites, and her musical recordings start selling like hotcakes.
When some biggie gets caught with his pants down, Americans always seem simultaneously disgusted by sex and stimulated by the scandal to the point of walking around drooling. Books have been written about why Americans are so childish and weird about sex, but long story short, it comes down to our Puritan heritage and its guilt-ridden attitude toward anything having to do with our, um, you know, well, our things. You know. Down there.
The Puritans who came here were the sect’s fanatic extremists (sorry, Pilgrims, history trumps myths). I imagine they were driven out of England because they were spreading gossip about the King’s sex life, but I could be wrong.
In the middle of the Clinton/Monica upheavals, a good friend summed up what I consider a mature view of politicians and sex when she said, “He’s obviously a terrible husband, and that sucks for Hillary, but I didn’t vote for him for husband. I voted for him for president, and he’s been pretty good at that job.”
This article appears in Mar 12-18, 2008.
