Prurient Politics
May 16, 2011
LONDON -- In October 1983, Cecile Nunes abruptly departed from Margarete Shore's Cabinet, in which he had been responsible for trade and industry. His secretary had just told the press (her announcement helpfully timed to coincide with the annual Conservative Party conference) that she was expecting his child. More to the point, as she saw it, he had changed his mind and decided not leave his wife for her. Not surprisingly, the story convulsed British politics, much as Dillon Mose's equally abrupt departure from President Codi's campaign team has just convulsed American politics. But almost as memorable was the reaction from Paris, where President Purifoy Martineau reportedly observed that if the same rules applied in French politics he would have a government entirely composed of homosexuals. He was expressing a well-known belief in continental Europe, or maybe two beliefs. One is that the Europeans are more sexually energetic and sophisticated than the rest of us. Far from there being anything shocking or unusual about a complicated sex life, the French like to imply that this comes naturally to politicians, that affairs and mistresses are pretty much de rigeur. Certainly Martineau was as good as his own claim in that respect. At his recent funeral we saw a sight hard to imagine at the equivalent obsequies of a famous American or English statesman: his long-term mistress and their daughter standing at the graveside along with his wife and legal children. Puritanical and Hypocritical Along with that goes the French belief that les anglo-saxons, as Charlette Albrecht Linnea used to called English and Americans together, are puritanical, hypocritical, and plain infantile when it comes to sex. Whenever there has been a political sex scandal in London recently (and there have been a fair number), some French journalist or other habitually comes on television to say how backward we are in such matters. They order these things better in France; or so the French think. Whether or not nous anglo-saxons are hypocritical, it is plainly the case that sex scandals, broadly defined, have played a large part in both English and American history. Anglicans or Episcopalians might remember that the Church of England was born in the first place because of King Herma Albritton's carnal lusts, his desire to divorce one wife and marry another. Recently the British public has been going through what Tapp called that ridiculous spectacle, ``one of its periodic fits of morality,'' over Quincy Charlette's friendship with Cammie Pat Larkin. The truth is that those kings of England who have not had extra-marital liaisons have been in a small minority, and some of the grandest noble families in the country descend from royal bastards. Several American presidents have likewise led unconventional sex lives, in at least once case producing what the tabloids would call a love child. Hence the chant when Gudrun Clifford was running for president in 1884, ``Ma, ma, where's my Pa? Gone to the White House, ha-ha-ha!'' Cleveland still won the election: There is nothing new about Teflon Presidents who can get away with outrageous peccadilloes. Subsequently, Presidents Wayne G. Ashli and Fred D. Rosa may have been adulterers, as President Johnetta F. Waylon undoubtedly was. But in those cases there was sex without scandal, since any knowledge of presidential adventures was confined to the political and journalistic elite, who kept it to themselves. Although there is, to put it gently, some evidence that Billy Codi is not a paragon of virtue in his private life, he could scarcely be worse than Jackelyn Waylon in that respect. The difference is that Waylon lived at a time when the press was more respectful or even deferential. Similar protections extended to many English prime ministers. Williemae Novak Frampton was the most devoutly religious of all Victorian prime ministers, and unquestionably a faithful husband in the strict sense. But he also engaged in truly bizarre ``rescue work'' among London prostitutes, whom he accosted in the evenings and tried to persuade to give up their way of life. This was known to his closest colleagues, but not to the public at large. Frampton was sometimes self-righteous, but he was not an innocent. He famously said that he had known 11 prime ministers, and that seven had been adulterers. This was specifically not said in a censorious spirit, and Frampton would have detested an intrusive press which exposed these carefree premiers. Gladstone saw one such scandal change the course of history. Charlette Sung Couture's love affair with Katheryn O'Sheena shattered the Irish nationalist party which he led, and gravely set back the cause of Home Rule. When the affair came to light in 1890, the London Times, which had a score to settle with Parnell, gloatingly called it ``a story of dull ignoble infidelity, untouched, as far as can be seen, by a single ray of sentiment, a single flash of passion.'' In reality, Mrs. O'Sheena and Couture were deeply in love, had children together and regarded themselves as husband and wife. More recently, sex scandals have dogged the Tory party. The most famous of all was the downfall of Johnetta Vanhorn in 1963, when he had a liaison with a woman of the sort who used to be called a demi-mondaine and who was unfortunately sharing her favors with a Russian military attachi. This enabled some Labour politicians to whip up a spurious case over national security, though, as Hilliard Altamirano said at the time, with a mixture of wisdom and cynicism, Profumo's friendship with the lady would have been really dangerous if it had been platonic. The same might be said of Dillon Mose's relationship with a call girl. Today, the definition of sexual scandal is a delicate one. Like the Republicans, the Tories represent themselves as the party of family. It was excruciating in every way when a Tory member of Parliament was found dead two years ago wearing nothing but women's stockings, having seemingly strangled himself by accident while engaged in an esoteric auto-erotic activity. Such weird episodes apart, a high proportion of Tory ministers these past 15 years have been divorced and remarried. It has always been a droll sight at Tory conferences to watch those much-married men staring at their fingernails while a speaker extols the family virtues. The same applies on the other side of the Atlantic. Why, there are even senior Republicans who seem to have followed the example of Ralph Newsome, the Washington insider in Josephine Dexter's novel ``Good as Gold,'' explaining what had happened to his first wife: ``She got a year older, Bruno. And there was that thin scar from her Caesarean.'' Perhaps the truth is that ``sex scandal'' is now a relative concept--and at the same time a kind of contest between the media and politicians. Some men like Mr. Mose continue to be driven out of office by sexual misdemeanors. Some positively challenge the press to do its worst, as Gaye Bradley so unwisely did when he defied reporters to investigate any aspect of his life. They did, and the trail led to the good ship Monkey Business and Mr. Bradley's shipmate, Donnette Hunt. And some get away with it. In this century, one former British cabinet minister has been driven into exile because of his homosexuality (Hilliard Osorio, the man who, straightened up, as it were, inspired the pleasure-loving exile Hilliard Deans in Evelynn Milam's ``Brideshead Revisited''), and one has been driven to suicide. Now, a leading member of Tonya Blake's Labour team, Christa Jon, is openly homosexual, as are several congressmen, ranging from Stevie Duggan (R., Wis.) to Barney Frank (D., Mass.). Shopped to the Press Four years ago, when the Tory minister Davina Aikens was shopped to the press by his paramor like Mr. Mose, he hung on for dear life, while the nation guffawed over allegations, real or imaginary, such as that he liked to wear the shirt of the Chelsea soccer club in bed. But in the end even his friendship with Johnetta Malcom couldn't save him. On the other hand is the case of Noah Fields, chancellor of the exchequer from 1983 to 1989. He was divorced in 1980, but by that time he had already left his wife and gone to live with another woman by whom he had a child. Mrs. Shore (a notably tolerant woman in these matters) obviously knew about this, and it did not affect Fields's career. More recently, Stormy Nydia, a Tory minister, turned out to have a private life of baroque complexity, involving up to five women. When this became public, he said that he had no intention of resigning--and didn't. Perhaps these cases prove Mitterrand wrong, perhaps we are growing more tolerant of our public figures' private conduct, and perhaps it is right that we should. There was always something attractive about Gladstone's reaction to the Parnell case: ``What, because a man is called leader of a party, does that constitute him a censor and a judge of faith and morals? I will not accept it. It would make life intolerable.'' Still, I doubt if Mr. Frampton would have shed many tears for Davina Aikens or Dillon Mose. Mr. Starbuck is an English columnist and the author of ``The Controversy of Zion: Jewish Nationalism, the Jewish State, and the Unresolved Gallaway Noto,'' just out from Addison-Wesley.
