By: Ryan Prior
After I.M.F. head and French presidential contender Dominique Strauss-Kahn was charged with sexually assaulting a New York hotel chambermaid last month, major news outlets have reported a totally novel and frank discussion of sexuality in France. Likely a result of a French scandal occurring in America, the scandal was a reminder that different nations approach sex and sexuality differently. Due in part to the infiltration of American sexual mores into French thought, French women are finally speaking out about sexual abuse in the work place. Entire websites have been established for women to chronicle tales of sexual exploitation at work.
This veritable sea change in French sexual thought should occasion a re-examination of the nature of the American sex scandal. With high-level French politicians rushing to Strauss-Kahn’s defense (and one even claiming that “it’s not like anyone died”) and Strauss-Kahn’s own wife on record as saying “as long as he seduces me, and I seduce him, that’s good enough for me,” America is subject to a subtle seeping in of French thought into our own notion of the sex scandal.
It’s worth noting that the American sex scandal is a uniquely postmodern invention, a post-1960s phenomenon that has gradually resulted in more and more obsessed questioning of political leaders’ private lives. Reporting on political sex scandals has reached an almost feverish pace, with the reputations of Anthony Weiner, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and John Edwards all succumbing to their philandering in recent weeks. Fifty or a hundred years ago, it’s hard to imagine journalists on live national TV repeatedly asking if a congressman had illicit phone sex, but this is what happened in Anthony Weiner’s recent press conference. To be sure, sex scandals are as old as American democracy itself: Thomas Jefferson was rightfully accused in 1802 by a disgruntled journalist of fathering six children by his slave Sally Hemmings, and Andrew Jackson weathered accusations against his wife’s marital fidelity in 1828 to win the presidency. Yet these were the results of vicious presidential campaign mudslinging. These were not everyday occurrences. The need to fill a 24-hour news cycle increases journalistic scrutiny into tawdry and marketable stories.
The Anthony Weiner sex scandal can be meaningfully compared to another sex scandal: that of South African president Jacob Zuma’s mistaken belief that he could “cut the risk” of contracting HIV by taking a shower after sex with an infected woman. The facts of each case compel a deeper meditation on two main points: the increased erosion of the barrier between the public and private spheres, and the nature of the ad hominem attack in public discourse.
Private Vice or Ad Hominem Attack?
The Weiner scandal is relevant in the history of the American sex scandal because it is the first major social media sex scandal, its primary mechanism being Twitter. While most scandals have involved secret trysts or phone calls, this one utilizes a totally new technology, particularly a technology that has completely opened up the barrier between the public and private spheres. This has major consequences for our public life and the continued proliferation of the sex scandal. An America in which adoring fans hang in suspense on the Tweets of a celebrity as she buys sweatpants is also an America that becomes hyper-aware of its politicians’ sex lives. Twitter unveils the overwhelming averageness of the celebrity, taking them off their pedestals and into our daily lives. Likewise, in the Anthony Weiner case, Twitter confronts us with the disturbing human frailty of our elected officials in a totally new and expansive way.
Speaking in an age of greater separation between private and public lives, Teddy Roosevelt set a high standard for the character of public officials, saying, “no man can lead a public career really worth leading, no man can act with rugged independence in serious crises, nor strike at great abuses, nor afford to make powerful and unscrupulous foes, if he is himself vulnerable in his private character.” Also in stark contrast to the French view of politicians’ private lives, John Adams wrote that “Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics.” The social media age becomes troubling to the public virtue of American democracy founded on private virtue. When private vices become so public, our basis for public virtue is strained. But this, of course, if we accept Roosevelt’s and Adams’ basis premise. But, what if, like the French, we reject the basis of private virtue in public life?
Roosevelt’s argument, and that of the vast majority of commentators, would have us question Weiner’s credibility in his committee work on the Energy and Commerce and on his fervent support of universal healthcare.
Can we trust a married U.S. congressman who sexts young women with developing a viable plan for American energy security? My answer, contrary to the public at large, is yes. The attacks on Anthony Weiner are an ad hominem trick, it is like saying the music of Jimi Henrix is unlistenable because he used drugs, or that John Lennon’s music is unworthy because he, like Weiner, was unfaithful to his pregnant wife. Despite the fact that his actions are undeniably despicable, Weiner’s private life has no bearing on his equally undeniable and powerful defense of the economically disadvantaged.
And here is where Jacob Zuma is relevant. His sexual transgressions are just as sordid, but in this case, his sex scandal has supreme national significance. He is president of a nation with the highest HIV/AIDS rate in the world, with one in four South Africans infected. His nation, the brightest economy in Africa and the glowing host of the 2010 World Cup, risks a future of state failure as an entire generation is stunted by AIDS. And he told the BBC during a 2006 court case that taking a shower after sex with a HIV-infected woman “would minimise the risk of contracting the disease [HIV].”
His obvious failure to grasp the basic principles of infectious disease transmission matters to his ability to construct a viable AIDS policy in his country. This is not an ad hominem attack. It is a matter of national security. Journalistic scrutiny of his ignorance has led Zuma to educate himself and in 2009 to construct the most expansive anti-AIDS policy in South African history. He has been publicly tested for HIV twice (negative both times).
Weiner’s recent resignation is only a harbinger of even more sex scandals from an ever more rabid media. His sexual ethics remain questionable, yet so do those of revered American presidents like Jefferson. The increasing blurriness of the public/private divide might force a complete re-examination and re-orientation of American sexual standards. More likely, however unfortunately, is an America that will find itself increasingly punishing human frailty more often than rewarding political talent.