Good-bye, Governor

Eliot Spitzer has resigned.  He needed to. He has shown poor judgment, immaturity, dishonesty, and selfishness.  His wife and three daughters are publicly humiliated and have some hard decisions to make. New York’s state government is at least temporarily paralyzed. The governor doesn’t understand, or does but is above it all, what makes a society cohesive, why character matters, and that the law has its roots in morality, or that morality has its roots in humanity and its highest good.

For what?

Alan Dershowitz has said that the governor’s involvement with “The Emporer’s Club”  — you’ve got to love euphemism — wouldn’t even make the back pages of anything in Europe, that this is a uniquely American situation. We’re, alas, backward. Bunch of Neanderthals.  Others are querying, what’s the big deal? One anchor said that men think with other than their brains sometimes, the Poor Dears, and so it was a mistake, but more or less a fact of life.

What’s wrong with prostitution? Why do most(?) Americans still think of paying for sex as immoral? It isn’t hard to figure, and it’s not a victimless crime. The erring man inflicts torturous emotional pain, worse than the physical kind, in his wife. By his act, he has told the world, “You, Dear, are inadequate. I need more, better, different.” No victim? His daughters will forever see good old Dad in a new light — or rather dark.

What about the prostitutes?

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
 ”I want to have sex with men who will pay me.”

These women were once somebody’s little girl. No victim? How many of them get marriage proposals from their patrons? A home? Kids? Where will they be when they’re 50 and the calls aren’t there? Reformed prostitutes testify that it’s
an extremely hard life physically and emotionally. They sometimes meet a man they really like. Too bad. He’s not here for love and may pick somebody else next time. How many women who are intelligent, fluent, well-educated, and
strong in character choose this line of work? How many men who visit prostitutes could keep up with a bright woman? How duped we are by a sick media that would glamorize something like prostitution and cheapen women and girls.

What about the multifarious social ills associated with illicit sex? Imagine the clean-up work the hooker has to go through — or not. Disease, pain, degradation, abortion, psychological damage, embarrassment. No victim? This goes much deeper than just a culture holding onto “Victorian,” antiquated values.

Now. What about the men? Men who need to visit a prostitute, to pay for sex, have failed to mature. They lack an understanding of what a woman is. A woman is an object in costume. A puppet, a vessel, a tool, an ego-enhancer
(men forget that she gets paid to flatter and please — they think she means it. “Oh Baby, you’re so  . . . whatever.”) A prostitute is a man’s leftover image from boyhood, a picture from the back of a magazine.  They are sexist in the most nauseatingly obvious way. What a double standard! How do these “high-level” men feel about married women paying men for sex — The Queen’s Club. Will the governor be fine “no big deal” if his three daughters join? Don’t worry, they can afford the pricey, high-end guys. Will we wink at our girls and congratulate ourselves for being progressive?

And legalizing something doesn’t fix the emotional pain. This is how we know we’re dealing with a truly moral issue, something that goes to the core of what separates us from the animals.

In another next-day kind of thought, I had commented on the despair of the wife and family. That is pretty presumptuous. The Missus reportedly encouraged the Governor to stay in office. It is possible that this relationship is one with broad boundaries.
BTW, as I updated this post to include the Governor’s resignation, I deleted it, but retrieved it from an email I had sent. The comments, however, were lost.  Please submit them again.