Sex, politics and morality

Former British cabinet minister John Profumo,followed by a fairly long list of British politicians who were caught with their pants down, former US presidential aspirants Ted Kennedy and Gary Hart, royal personages such as Princess Caroline of Monaco, Princess Fergie, Prince Charles, Princess Diana, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and even the revered aging French socialist Prime Minister Francois Mitterand and now President Bill Clinton, are some of the personalities whose sexual dalliances had mired their public image, threatened and in certain instances even ended their careers.

In comparison to this sexual athleticism of the post sixties generations-- apart from a few blemishes-- the nineteenth century and the first six decades of the twentieth century had public figures and political leaders whose standards of conduct both in private and public were supposed and said to be impeccable. Is it that the leaders and public personalities of recent generations have been over sexed by leaps and bounds over their predecessors and in private do not give a damn about standards of conduct expected of them and their commitments to religious codes where sex and morality are concerned ?

On the other hand, it can also be asked whether those supposedly staid and upright persons who observed impeccable standards of conduct were in fact paragons of virtue? Voyeuristic historians and biographers who have probed into the lives and times of these personalities have however come up with proof that they were indeed lecherous , salacious, unchaste, carnal, lascivious. licentious and promiscuous as modern day leaders are. The long list extends from the days of Queen Elizabeth 1, Queen Victoria to Napoleon and nineteenth century lords and ladies.Had there been a media that probed their public and private lives during their lifetimes as of today, history would have been different.

Present day public figures of the west are caught up in a cruel paradox of sexual liberalism of the late nineties and fundamentalist Christian morality of yore. The media-- press, films, TV and radio-- have steadily built up a culture where sex predominates practically over all aspects of life. Public figures and politicians are expected to be as sexually appealing as those of the Greek pantheon such as Apollo and Diana while possessing the wisdom of Plato and Socrates and the moral commitment of the inquisitors of the Middle Ages. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair are such typical handsome YUPPIE products of the media and soon staid old father figures such as German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl and French President Jacques Chirac will be fossils of the past. However, despite the overt sexualism, modern day political traditions demand that political leaders and public figures maintain the moral standards and sexual virtues of the by gone era. Very many of the attractive YUPPIE politicians fall by the wayside because of the invasion into their privacy by the media. Those who watched CNN in the past few months would have realised how deeply the media had probed into the private life of President Clinton. The American system itself had provided the media the required instrument, an inquisitorial probe possible into the private life of a president,with provision for the appointment of a Special Congressional Prosecutor, with unlimited powers.

The American lifestyle is visibly dominated with sex. Practically every aspect of it be it the media, clothes, restaurants, entertainment , literature etc. there is a dominant sex factor coming into play as in no other civilisation. But there is also the underlying Christian morality of the founding fathers which American leaders are expected to abide with. Why Ted Kennedy could not make it to White House or Gary Hart could not take off from the starting blocks in the presidential race is because of the dominance of this Christian morality in American politics.

The American public not reacting harshly and adversely to Bill Clinton's mea culpa may be an indication of a shift away from the fundamentalist Christian attitude. They want him to stay on as president. Bill Clinton's sex appeal on American women, it has been reported to be prodigious. American liberalism may also have reached a point where the public life of a president would not be considered a matter of public concern. But this attitude would be a quantum jump in American politics and only time and the Republican Party will tell whether President Clinton can survive this scandal.