While married men, and some women, having affairs is nothing new and the reasons, like for marriage and divorce, is always more complex and diverse than what the press reports and the public assumes, one has to ask, “How does power, economic and political, affect sexual relationships”?
Women traditionally, even in marriage, have served men physically, emotionally, socially and sexually. In return for protection, support and some opportunity women were expected to “put out” - voluntarily, willingly, dutifully or reluctantly.
Rape in marriage itself was not identified as a social problem until recently. Even today in many Middle Eastern communities , and other patriarchal societies, men believe husbands cannot rape their wives. They believe men demanding or aggressively seeking sex from their wives is “acceptable, normal and natural”. Some men may even assume that a wife should be flattered when her husband is demanding sex from her, or is aggressively pursuing her sexually...and not some other woman!
Some cultures, as we often see or read in old movies and books, even romanticized rape of wives and girl friends. In these belief systems marital rape is presented as “passion of men that desires a woman so completely that men aggressively pursue their woman and penetrate her forcefully” - as a form of male love which is expected to flatter or fulfill their woman!
Such patriarchal beliefs or myths have never made the distinction between aggressive passionate sex (with intimacy, trust and some negotiations) and rape – which is unwanted, resisted and hurtful.
There is no question that traditionally young women, naïve women, innocent women, attractive women, poor women, minority women, powerless women and women from communities that are marginalized have been sought, pursued, seduced, deceived, intimidated, or threatened into submission, sexual obligation and servitude by men in general, and powerful men in particular.
But today we cannot assume that all women, who get caught up in sex scandals, are sexual victims entirely.
Feminist arguments, if not applied carefully, on matters such as “women's sexual liberation, power of seduction, and sex as a tool for equality, pleasure or breaking-the-ice” can be a double edged sword.
Some women, let us admit, may use “sex” in some contexts, and with some men, to seduce, manipulate, negotiate, bargain and control them or the relationship. If one adds class, race and ethnicity to this complex sexual mix the concoction gets complicated, crazy and more complex.
Some men with power control their wives and their female maids – physically, economically and sexually. Many traditional women or women in traditional societies have put up with infidel husbands, some of whom have cheated openly without shame, fear or regret, because they have had few options. These women have found it difficult, even impossible sometimes, to leave insensitive, hurtful, deceitful and abusive marriages - especially if they have no money, job, education or support, and are socially expected by their families, religions and cultures to remain loyal to their husbands no matter what.
Female workers, employees and maids (sometimes derogatorily labeled as servants) have also in the past have had few options. Many, for the sake of work, a pay-check, survival and even their reputation, have put up with sexual pressures, harassments, exploitation and abuse in the work place - especially from male bosses and employers - without the ability or the protection to complain, leave, seek justice or stop the perpetrator. Some of these women have also been falsely or unfairly accused of “seducing their masters or using them” by family members and friends who support or side with the male perpetrator.
But with so much improvement in male-female relationship: with women becoming more expressive, assertive and demanding (of their individuality, options and rights), and men becoming better at communicating their emotional needs, listening to women more, negotiating with women better (as friends, peers, colleagues and equals), and dealing with differences and difficulties through respectful conversations, negotiations and compromises....modern affairs, or sexual scandals, cannot all be strictly defined by a simple perpetrator-victim dichotomy. The so-called sex-scandals that have recently erupted are more complex than what the press reports and people assume.
Having said this, when an uneven power relationship exists between a man and a woman, who are not married, living together or in a romantic relationship, one must always entertain the possibility that some kind of “abuse of power”, “deception” or “manipulation” might have been involved - though direct exploitation and abuse might not have occurred. This would be called a subtle or muted form of victimization.
On the other hand, with people like John Edwards, an ex-Presidential candidate who currently faces financial-ethics violation charges, there is no exploitation or abuse of the “other woman”. Investigation and prosecution (if found guilty) of his use of public money for personal purposes is a separate matter. But his lover/mistress faced no deception, harassment or abuse. This woman chose to have an affair with a married man and then chose to have his baby when she got pregnant.
It has become a lucrative financial strategy, even a form of business, in some circles for women to use pregnancy and motherhood as a way to claim money from the State or from a rich baby-daddy! Poor single or married mothers who depend on aid from the government for basic security and survival are a separate matter.
If women like “Octomom” (a Los Angeles woman who gave birth to eight children) use fertility programs to have a brood of babies that they cannot provide for, and to attract attention, sympathy, fame and later money, there are women who willingly have sex with married men, most of them famous or rich, and sometimes have their children to further their economic or social status. These women are no innocent or naive victims!
In a country like America where making boat loads of money and getting famous is the “mantra of the century” some men and women play the sex game to their advantage, and for financial profit. Sometimes there is cunning, sleaze, selfishness, manipulation and shortsightedness on both sides of the gender aisle - even in some homosexual relationships.
What is also forgotten in all these “sex scandal discussions and debates”, with lots of pseudo-psycho babble floating around in the media, is that “anyone who is tired, tipsy, vulnerable, lonely, confused, conflicted, depressed, sad, hurt, distracted, distraught, excited, exuberant and hormonal..could become vulnerable to a sexual moment outside their stable relationship”. That makes a lot of you! If you are rich and famous you get on TV for it...but thousands of ordinary people deal with it all over the world all the time.
Some restrain themselves well on such matters (no matter how tempted), some do not. Some are honest and genuinely repentent about their affairs, some are honest but have no regrets (nothing wrong with that either), some lie about it and some even resort to sly or sleazy cover-up.
I say thank goodness for “divorce, respectable singlehood, separation, contraception, abortion, sex toys, healthy pornography, women's assertiveness and paid-clean-prostitution”. While we legalize certain drugs let us also legalize prostitution. I'll explain why.
Many ordinary decent men with sexual needs, or emotional needs that require some sexual comfort, do not bother women on the street, in the work place or in their homes (including wives with lots of headaches)...if they can have pure pleasurable unadulterated uncomplicated sex with a mistress or a prostitute. (This does not include those men who are pathological to the point where "sexual mind-games, stalking, harassment, abuse and rape" are what turns them on).
Many lonely men, obese men, disabled men, unemployed men, poor men and ugly men also do not bother women on the street, young girls, housewives or vulnerable women because they can access pornography or affordable prostitutes for sexual release or relief.
If these options were available to women, who can have male lovers for a fee (without any social, health or relationship risks), then we'd all be even.
In stead we complicate sex - between two adults not related to each other - with all kinds of “religious, cultural, social, political and patriarchal drivel”, that neither captures the complexity of the context in which intimacy occured, nor the actual state of the mind of the people involved.
There are three kinds of men who protect and pursue monogamy ardently – though they may never practice it.
1) Men who are insecure, unattractive, of low status and have petty needs attached to petty egos. These men can, by keeping women down and dependent (through cultural commands, religious obedience, familial piety or fear), ensure themselves attention and service that smart strong women might not otherwise provide them.
2) Men who are lazy, overly-indulged, insensitive, arrogant, have an attitude of entitlement and have big egos with a bigger sense of self - without self-awareness. Such men want compliant congenial women who please, placate and accommodate them - doing whatever they want or demand - without any challenge to their wishes, priorities, privilege and power.
3) Men who enjoy, like many sociopaths and narcissists, using or abusing people around them – particularly those who work for them, under them and are dependent on them. For these men sex is just another "power game". These men are no different than certain kinds of domestic abusers and rapists who find pleasure in torturing, hurting and inflicting pain on others. They enjoy using power to their advantage, and enjoy the power of seduction, deception, fear-creation and control.
Yet many men who insist on female loyalty, piety and devotion (from their mothers, wives, daughters and workers) rarely make the same demands on themselves – even when their religion, culture, family or community expects monogamy, faithfulness and fidelity from both men and women.
Sometimes, for some of these men there is no difference between going to a prostitute for paid sexual services and buying a woman dinner to get her to put out.
In highly classist and elitist countries many middle class and upper class men do seduce, manipulate, exploit or harass maids, domestic workers, employees and poor women for sexual favors and services. Many poor women, dependent women, desperate women and trapped women have few choices...so they “oblige, give in or submit”.
Also, in many patriarchal societies, including the United States of America (which is not as liberated or as liberal as people think), where feminism is just penetrating clueless, insular, self-absorbed, classist and racist middle aged middle class women, these issues of class-based sexual exploitation of women, that I have been aware of as a social worker and a social scientist for a long time, are just emerging.
This is why to some these angry or outraged women and men, who are coming out of the woodwork to suddenly claim the role of upholders-of-justice, activists-for-poor-women and spokespersons-for-immigrant-rights, suddenly seem a bit “suspect”. Where were these men and women, now presenting themselves as bold pro-active advocates for victims' rights, five, ten, twenty or thirty years ago? Have they gone from self serving self absorbed capitalists to self serving selective socialists - or are they just convenient saboteurs of real change?
There is some other political issue underlying this sudden spurt of sex scandals, or so-called-scandals, emerging or erupting all over the United States (particularly in 2011). One has to wonder why men are setting-up other men, and even some women, in what appears to be a media-driven sensationalistic and dramatic series of sexapades that distract, preoccupy, titillate and scintillate the public...while financial crimes, war crimes, and unnecessary and unauthorized military interventions continue unabated without public scrutiny, objection or intervention.
Capitalists, corporatist and culturally myopic people love to capitalize on the vulnerabilities, naivete, shallowness, cluelessness, ignorance and even pathology around them to pursue, protect and promote their economic and political agenda. Sometimes rich men wash their own dirty linen in public, or are set-up by their rich peers and bosses to do so, so as to keep the system going...and prevent real revolution and change.
Sometimes immigrants, minorities and poor men and women, who have drunk the Kool-Aid and have co-opted , co-operate with these scandals – willingly, unwillingly, knowingly or unknowingly.
As the voices of social disagreement, economic difficulties and political dissent grows, the desperation of the elites, who sometimes use "sex" as a weapon to keep the system and the status quo going, becomes more extreme, pathological and pathetic.
Women traditionally, even in marriage, have served men physically, emotionally, socially and sexually. In return for protection, support and some opportunity women were expected to “put out” - voluntarily, willingly, dutifully or reluctantly.
Rape in marriage itself was not identified as a social problem until recently. Even today in many Middle Eastern communities , and other patriarchal societies, men believe husbands cannot rape their wives. They believe men demanding or aggressively seeking sex from their wives is “acceptable, normal and natural”. Some men may even assume that a wife should be flattered when her husband is demanding sex from her, or is aggressively pursuing her sexually...and not some other woman!
Some cultures, as we often see or read in old movies and books, even romanticized rape of wives and girl friends. In these belief systems marital rape is presented as “passion of men that desires a woman so completely that men aggressively pursue their woman and penetrate her forcefully” - as a form of male love which is expected to flatter or fulfill their woman!
Such patriarchal beliefs or myths have never made the distinction between aggressive passionate sex (with intimacy, trust and some negotiations) and rape – which is unwanted, resisted and hurtful.
There is no question that traditionally young women, naïve women, innocent women, attractive women, poor women, minority women, powerless women and women from communities that are marginalized have been sought, pursued, seduced, deceived, intimidated, or threatened into submission, sexual obligation and servitude by men in general, and powerful men in particular.
But today we cannot assume that all women, who get caught up in sex scandals, are sexual victims entirely.
Feminist arguments, if not applied carefully, on matters such as “women's sexual liberation, power of seduction, and sex as a tool for equality, pleasure or breaking-the-ice” can be a double edged sword.
Some women, let us admit, may use “sex” in some contexts, and with some men, to seduce, manipulate, negotiate, bargain and control them or the relationship. If one adds class, race and ethnicity to this complex sexual mix the concoction gets complicated, crazy and more complex.
Some men with power control their wives and their female maids – physically, economically and sexually. Many traditional women or women in traditional societies have put up with infidel husbands, some of whom have cheated openly without shame, fear or regret, because they have had few options. These women have found it difficult, even impossible sometimes, to leave insensitive, hurtful, deceitful and abusive marriages - especially if they have no money, job, education or support, and are socially expected by their families, religions and cultures to remain loyal to their husbands no matter what.
Female workers, employees and maids (sometimes derogatorily labeled as servants) have also in the past have had few options. Many, for the sake of work, a pay-check, survival and even their reputation, have put up with sexual pressures, harassments, exploitation and abuse in the work place - especially from male bosses and employers - without the ability or the protection to complain, leave, seek justice or stop the perpetrator. Some of these women have also been falsely or unfairly accused of “seducing their masters or using them” by family members and friends who support or side with the male perpetrator.
But with so much improvement in male-female relationship: with women becoming more expressive, assertive and demanding (of their individuality, options and rights), and men becoming better at communicating their emotional needs, listening to women more, negotiating with women better (as friends, peers, colleagues and equals), and dealing with differences and difficulties through respectful conversations, negotiations and compromises....modern affairs, or sexual scandals, cannot all be strictly defined by a simple perpetrator-victim dichotomy. The so-called sex-scandals that have recently erupted are more complex than what the press reports and people assume.
Having said this, when an uneven power relationship exists between a man and a woman, who are not married, living together or in a romantic relationship, one must always entertain the possibility that some kind of “abuse of power”, “deception” or “manipulation” might have been involved - though direct exploitation and abuse might not have occurred. This would be called a subtle or muted form of victimization.
On the other hand, with people like John Edwards, an ex-Presidential candidate who currently faces financial-ethics violation charges, there is no exploitation or abuse of the “other woman”. Investigation and prosecution (if found guilty) of his use of public money for personal purposes is a separate matter. But his lover/mistress faced no deception, harassment or abuse. This woman chose to have an affair with a married man and then chose to have his baby when she got pregnant.
It has become a lucrative financial strategy, even a form of business, in some circles for women to use pregnancy and motherhood as a way to claim money from the State or from a rich baby-daddy! Poor single or married mothers who depend on aid from the government for basic security and survival are a separate matter.
If women like “Octomom” (a Los Angeles woman who gave birth to eight children) use fertility programs to have a brood of babies that they cannot provide for, and to attract attention, sympathy, fame and later money, there are women who willingly have sex with married men, most of them famous or rich, and sometimes have their children to further their economic or social status. These women are no innocent or naive victims!
In a country like America where making boat loads of money and getting famous is the “mantra of the century” some men and women play the sex game to their advantage, and for financial profit. Sometimes there is cunning, sleaze, selfishness, manipulation and shortsightedness on both sides of the gender aisle - even in some homosexual relationships.
What is also forgotten in all these “sex scandal discussions and debates”, with lots of pseudo-psycho babble floating around in the media, is that “anyone who is tired, tipsy, vulnerable, lonely, confused, conflicted, depressed, sad, hurt, distracted, distraught, excited, exuberant and hormonal..could become vulnerable to a sexual moment outside their stable relationship”. That makes a lot of you! If you are rich and famous you get on TV for it...but thousands of ordinary people deal with it all over the world all the time.
Some restrain themselves well on such matters (no matter how tempted), some do not. Some are honest and genuinely repentent about their affairs, some are honest but have no regrets (nothing wrong with that either), some lie about it and some even resort to sly or sleazy cover-up.
I say thank goodness for “divorce, respectable singlehood, separation, contraception, abortion, sex toys, healthy pornography, women's assertiveness and paid-clean-prostitution”. While we legalize certain drugs let us also legalize prostitution. I'll explain why.
Many ordinary decent men with sexual needs, or emotional needs that require some sexual comfort, do not bother women on the street, in the work place or in their homes (including wives with lots of headaches)...if they can have pure pleasurable unadulterated uncomplicated sex with a mistress or a prostitute. (This does not include those men who are pathological to the point where "sexual mind-games, stalking, harassment, abuse and rape" are what turns them on).
Many lonely men, obese men, disabled men, unemployed men, poor men and ugly men also do not bother women on the street, young girls, housewives or vulnerable women because they can access pornography or affordable prostitutes for sexual release or relief.
If these options were available to women, who can have male lovers for a fee (without any social, health or relationship risks), then we'd all be even.
In stead we complicate sex - between two adults not related to each other - with all kinds of “religious, cultural, social, political and patriarchal drivel”, that neither captures the complexity of the context in which intimacy occured, nor the actual state of the mind of the people involved.
There are three kinds of men who protect and pursue monogamy ardently – though they may never practice it.
1) Men who are insecure, unattractive, of low status and have petty needs attached to petty egos. These men can, by keeping women down and dependent (through cultural commands, religious obedience, familial piety or fear), ensure themselves attention and service that smart strong women might not otherwise provide them.
2) Men who are lazy, overly-indulged, insensitive, arrogant, have an attitude of entitlement and have big egos with a bigger sense of self - without self-awareness. Such men want compliant congenial women who please, placate and accommodate them - doing whatever they want or demand - without any challenge to their wishes, priorities, privilege and power.
3) Men who enjoy, like many sociopaths and narcissists, using or abusing people around them – particularly those who work for them, under them and are dependent on them. For these men sex is just another "power game". These men are no different than certain kinds of domestic abusers and rapists who find pleasure in torturing, hurting and inflicting pain on others. They enjoy using power to their advantage, and enjoy the power of seduction, deception, fear-creation and control.
Yet many men who insist on female loyalty, piety and devotion (from their mothers, wives, daughters and workers) rarely make the same demands on themselves – even when their religion, culture, family or community expects monogamy, faithfulness and fidelity from both men and women.
Sometimes, for some of these men there is no difference between going to a prostitute for paid sexual services and buying a woman dinner to get her to put out.
In highly classist and elitist countries many middle class and upper class men do seduce, manipulate, exploit or harass maids, domestic workers, employees and poor women for sexual favors and services. Many poor women, dependent women, desperate women and trapped women have few choices...so they “oblige, give in or submit”.
Also, in many patriarchal societies, including the United States of America (which is not as liberated or as liberal as people think), where feminism is just penetrating clueless, insular, self-absorbed, classist and racist middle aged middle class women, these issues of class-based sexual exploitation of women, that I have been aware of as a social worker and a social scientist for a long time, are just emerging.
This is why to some these angry or outraged women and men, who are coming out of the woodwork to suddenly claim the role of upholders-of-justice, activists-for-poor-women and spokespersons-for-immigrant-rights, suddenly seem a bit “suspect”. Where were these men and women, now presenting themselves as bold pro-active advocates for victims' rights, five, ten, twenty or thirty years ago? Have they gone from self serving self absorbed capitalists to self serving selective socialists - or are they just convenient saboteurs of real change?
There is some other political issue underlying this sudden spurt of sex scandals, or so-called-scandals, emerging or erupting all over the United States (particularly in 2011). One has to wonder why men are setting-up other men, and even some women, in what appears to be a media-driven sensationalistic and dramatic series of sexapades that distract, preoccupy, titillate and scintillate the public...while financial crimes, war crimes, and unnecessary and unauthorized military interventions continue unabated without public scrutiny, objection or intervention.
Capitalists, corporatist and culturally myopic people love to capitalize on the vulnerabilities, naivete, shallowness, cluelessness, ignorance and even pathology around them to pursue, protect and promote their economic and political agenda. Sometimes rich men wash their own dirty linen in public, or are set-up by their rich peers and bosses to do so, so as to keep the system going...and prevent real revolution and change.
Sometimes immigrants, minorities and poor men and women, who have drunk the Kool-Aid and have co-opted , co-operate with these scandals – willingly, unwillingly, knowingly or unknowingly.
As the voices of social disagreement, economic difficulties and political dissent grows, the desperation of the elites, who sometimes use "sex" as a weapon to keep the system and the status quo going, becomes more extreme, pathological and pathetic.
