“I’m never gonna dance again/Guilty feet have got no rhythm/…I should’ve known better than to cheat a friend/And waste the chance that I’d been given/…Time can never mend/The careless whispers of a good friend/…There’s no comfort in the truth, pain is all that you find.” – Lyrics from Careless Whisper by George Michael.
Political sex scandals titillate our minds. We enjoy powerful figures squirm in embarrassment and be humbled before our eyes. It is called Schadenfreude, meaning, “to experience pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another.”
But when John Tory, the mayor of Toronto, resigned because of a relationship with a 31-year old former staffer, most were rather shocked. Because he was favourably perceived as an honest, moral person, the news about his sexual adventure at age 68 just didn’t fit the man. No way would he do that was the first reaction. But as the story sank in, there was a feeling of sadness that permeated in the air. Some were ready to forgive him and clamored for Tory not to resign. In the end, he did the honourable thing that befitted his personality.
Another sexual imbroglio comes to mind that muddles our perception of morality. When Ken Starr, an Independent Counsel for the US House Judiciary Committee, released his report in September 1998, it included details of a sexual relationship between then-President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern. The Republican Party took advantage of the scandal and launched impeachment proceedings against Clinton. There were not enough votes to convict Clinton in both houses of Congress and only left office when he completed his second term as president. Also his wife, Hilary, forgave him and remained married to him.
The big age-gap in a relationship can summon disdain from the public at large but not entirely tabooed. In so many ways, it invites interest for the writing of a book. One was from a South African-Australian novelist and a recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature. The other was from an American novelist and a 1997 Pulitzer Prize winner.
In J. M. Coetzee’s 1999 novel Disgrace, David Lurie, a 52-year old professor became enthralled to one of his students, Melanie Isaacs, in Romantics course. “You’re very lovely,” he said, “I’m going to invite you to do something reckless. Stay. Spend the night with me.” Melanie asked why. “Because a woman’s beauty,” David said, “does not belong to her alone. It is part of the bounty she brings into the world. She has a duty to share it.” Melanie responded, “And what if I already share it?” David, as always, had a ready answer: “Then you should share it more widely.” With such smooth words, Melanie was hooked. But the affair was soon revealed in the school. Even Lurie’s ex-wife knew: “People talk, David. Everyone knows about this latest affair of yours, in the juiciest detail. It’s no one’s interest to hush it up, no one’s but your own. Am I allowed to tell you how stupid it looks?” Melanie lodged a complaint. A committee was formed to investigate. It recommended to Laurie to issue a statement acknowledging his abuse of authority, apologize and accept the penalty of leave of absence. Laurie refused: “Before that secular tribunal I pleaded guilty, a secular plea. That plea should suffice. Repentance is neither here nor there. Repentance belongs to another world, to another universe of discourse.”
In the Human Stain by Philip Roth, Coleman Silk, also a classics professor in New England, got into trouble by using the word “spooks” to refer to his two absentee-students. Unbeknownst to him, these two students were blacks and charged Coleman as being racist. An investigation was ordered that rocked the 40-year relationship of the Silks which resulted in the death of Coleman’s wife, Iris. “They meant to kill me and they got her instead,” Coleman said. But instead of fighting the accusation, he tendered his resignation and left the academic world completely. Later in his lonely life, he bumped into thirty-four year old Faunia Farley, an illiterate, cleaning woman, whom Coleman described as “An ignitable woman. She’s turned sex into a vice again.” When Coleman asked Faunia what to like in an old man like him, she answered: “It’s perfect with somebody seventy-one. He’s set in his ways and he can’t change. You know what he is. No surprises.” But Coleman wanted more explanation. So Faunia gave him a straight-forward response: “Maybe some knowledge. Sex. Pleasure. Don’t worry. That’s it.” But with his advanced age Coleman needed help to function well in bed. “I owe all of this turbulence to Viagra,” Coleman said. “Without Viagra none of this would be happening. Without Viagra I would have a picture of the world appropriate to my age and wholly different aims. Without Viagra I would have the dignity of an elderly gentleman free from desire who behaves correctly. I would not be doing something that makes no sense. I would not be doing something unseemly, rash, ill considered, and potentially disastrous for all involved. Without Viagra, I could continue, in my declining years, to develop the broad impersonal perspective of an experienced and educated honorably discharged man who has long ago given up the sensual enjoyment of life. I could continue to draw profound philosophical conclusions and have a steadying moral influence on the young, instead of having put myself back into the perpetual state of emergency that is sexual intoxication.” Well, instead of blaming Viagra, my wife Nancy has a more sensible advice: “When it is itchy, just scratch it!”
We are told that God allows sex for the sole purpose of procreation: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it (Genesis 1:28)” but it must be within the confines of marriage: “At the beginning the Creator made them male and female…For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate (Matthew 19:4-6).” Outside of marriage, sex is a major sin: “Do you know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders…will inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).” And in Hebrews 13:4: “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.”
Yet, in spite of God’s prohibitions and the impending punishments to the sinners, the thrill of sex is worth-risking it all. It was a problem then at the beginning of time when marriage was not yet legally instituted; and it is more of a problem now with lots of divorces and separations going on that make marriage increasingly moot. Perhaps we need to view sex differently, with more open minds than the puritanical perspective of the past.
From here on I will be relying on the wisdom of Jared Diamond, a 1997 recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for his book, Guns, Germs and Steel. He wrote a book entitled Why is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality.
“Most of us don’t realize,” Diamond started off, “how unusual human sexual practices are, compared to those of all other living animals…Our standards of sexual conduct are essentially warped, species-ist, and human-centric because human sexuality is so abnormal by the standards of the world’s thirty million other animal species.” To understand his assertion, let’s briefly go over his book chapter by chapter.
In Chapter 1, The Animal with the Weirdest Sex Life, he makes the following points about the uniqueness of human sexuality:
- Most men and women enter into a long-term marital relationship which allows them to have sex often with each other;
- The marital union obliges both parents to take care of the babies;
- Human couples reside in a community and cooperate with others economically;
- Married couples have sex privately;
- Women’s fertility period is not advertised, hence human copulations oftentimes occur during a time not perfect for conception which makes human sex recreational; and
- All women who reach the age of forty or fifty experience menopause which completely shuts down fertility.
The reproductive interests of the human couples do not necessarily aligned. While both want children, the winning decision comes down to three factors, as argued by Diamond in Chapter 2, The Battle of the Sexes:
- Parental Investment: Women are fully invested and take more risk in child-bearing and child-rearing;
- Foreclosed Opportunity: Women require a long period before they can get pregnant again. Men, meanwhile, have no such restriction and can either decide to help out in the caring of the offspring or continue spreading their genes to someone else; and
- Confidence in Parenthood: Women know for sure that they are the parent of their child. Men, on the other hand, can only be certain if their DNA match the babies through testing.
Chapter 3 asks the question: Why Don’t Men Breastfeed Their Babies? Obviously, the answer is that men lack the hormones required for lactation. But Diamond still argues that men have most of the physiological traits that make lactation possible. He is hopeful that evolution will correct the imbalance.
In Chapter 4, Wrong Time For Love (The Evolution of Recreational Sex), Diamond has two theories which explain the recreational aspect of sex. The first is the “Many-fathers” theory which allows women to have sex with several men because of concealed ovulation, thus creating a paternity confusion which then reduces infanticide. The second is the “Daddy-at-home” theory where women have regular partners at home to have sex with more often. Nowadays, women prefer their monogamous relationships with their reliable cave-men.
What are Men Good For? Chapter 5 asks. To answer the question, Diamond studies the tribes of New Guinea and Ache. The first argument of men’s contributions to child-caring is protection. But the author finds that other men of the same or different tribe are more reliable in providing protection for children not of their own making. Another argument is men’s ability to get food and resources to the family. Again, Diamond’s research shows a contradictory result. Because large-animal hunting takes time, the fruits and vegetables that women bring home satisfy the food requirements of the family. Men, therefore, are classified into two categories, Diamond contends: the “providers” who fulfill their obligations of bringing in food supply to the family, and the “show-offs” who go after the big animals and come home empty handed most of the time. No doubt, women will be better off marrying the “providers”, although with the “show-offs”, a higher social status awaits.
Diamond tackles the evolution of female menopause in Chapter 6, Making More by Making Less. Except for human females, most wild animals remain capable of conceiving until death. So the menopause problem does not make sense from the perspective of evolution. Why this is so, the author has a theory. Diamond thinks there’s a trade-off going on. Raising a child is better and less risky at an early age rather than later. Furthermore, grandchildren will be around to bring joy to older people which makes child-bearing unnecessary. Also, in traditional societies, the elders are respected for their knowledge and wisdom.
Apparently, we exude body signals relating to sex. Chapter 7 (the final chapter), The Truth in Advertising, explores the theories behind them. First, the Fisher’s Runaway Selection Model explains the attraction of women to men with particular trait that enhances survival, for example, male muscles. As that trait grows in size from generation to generation, it becomes counter-productive which would stop the evolutionary runaway process. Second, the Zahavi’s Handicap Theory notes of some body signals that are handicapping the survival of the species, for example, the peacock’s tail. A male who survives a difficult and costly handicap is advertising to the female that he must have superior genes in other respects. Third, the Truth-In-Advertising Theory, formulated by Astrid Kodric-Brown and James Brown, is similar to the Zahavi’s Handicap Theory but views the signals as an evolutionary advantage rather than a difficulty. To conclude this chapter, the author touches slightly on the much debated question of the penis’s size. “Most men would assume,” Diamond wrote, “that the ones who are impressed are women. However, women tend to report that they are more turned on by other features of a man, and that sight of a penis is, if anything, unattractive. Instead, the ones really fascinated by the penis and its dimensions are men. In the showers in men’s locker rooms, men routinely size up each other’s endowment.”
23 March 2023