The “Ick-Factor”

Why American sex scandals, like the one involving New York Governor Spitzer, are different from similar incidents in Europe.

Alan Dershowitz, the American top lawyer who became famous with the defense of O.J. Simpson, says that “in Europe, Spitzer’s prostitute scandal wouldn’t even make the back pages of the newspaper”. As we all now, however, this is incorrect: On the very first day, Spitzer made it to the front pages in London, Frankfurt, and Madrid. But is there any truth to the old story that Europe handles sex scandals and sexuality in general more maturely and clemently?

The case of Spitzer extends far beyond a simple sex scandal: Spitzer was the Governor of a state who made important decisions about investments worth billions. He took office as a ‘clean’ politician and was accompanied by an ethics committee that he had founded himself. Even before he assumed office, he was recognized in the United States, as well as abroad, as a tough attorney who fought corruption. He, of all people, is helping himself to a prostitute (an act that is illegal in his own sate). And as if that wasn’t enough, he apparently also paid about $80,000 from unknown sources to an organization that the FBI had investigated for a while.

Now, who does not remember Monica Lewinsky? Back then, it was Bill Clinton, the president, who, after many other affairs, got caught having oral sex with an intern. Lewinsky seduced Clinton in the White House by showing her lingerie. Afterwards, she went to visit her friend Linda Tripp, and, at the suggestion of her friend Lucienne Goldberg, attached a tape recorder to her blouse and thus made the entire scandal public. The overexcited debate in America that followed the affair was proof enough for many Europeans that Americans are inhibited, immature, and puritanical.

Let us compare this to the old continent: Here, the French president was allowed to have two wives, the German Chancellor was married four times, and let’s not even talk about the British Royal House. The British are only bothered by an affair of a politician when the involved call-girl is spying for the KGB at the same time. Germany is even more tolerant. The coming-out of Berlin’s mayor Klaus Wowereit and Hamburg’s mayor Ole von Beust, Horst Seehofer’s mistress and their child, Christian Wulff’s divorce, Joschka Fischer’s fifth wife: all this is accepted with a simple shrug of the shoulders. Merely Gabriele Pauli tripped over a pair of black patent leather gloves.

In the past years, however, America has revolved around sex scandals that filled the newspaper columns and that brought record viewing rates to US-comedy shows. We met the Republican Senator Larry Craig, who got caught playing footsie in a men’s room; Senator David Vitter, one of the clients of the “DC Madam” who operated a prostitution ring in Washington; Jeff Guckert/Jim Gannon, the call boy who obtained a press card for the White House; Congressman Mark Foley, who send raunchy emails to male interns; the Evangelic leader Ted Haggard, who had a male prostitute give him a massage; and Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and failed presidential candidate, who passed the costs of personal security for his lover on to the tax payer.

Take notice, though, that Democrats do not have a clean record either. Here, we witnessed Congressman Barney Frank, whose girlfriend administrated a brothel in his apartment. Congressman Gary Condit had an affair with intern Chandra Levy whose dead body was later found in a Park, and New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey admitted to having had an affair with his security chief (who says that is wasn’t an affair but sexual harassment).

PART 2

And now Spitzer. Compared to the debate that arose from the Clinton and Lewinsky scandal, America behaves surprisingly reasonable and non-hysterical. The party politically motivated outrage is gone, in part probably because John McCain, the leading presidential candidate of the Republicans, might have had an affair himself. It is not proven, and most Americans are indifferent to it anyway. Late-night comedians prefer to consider it a rumor initiated by the McCain campaign, to show the public that the 71-year-old Senator is still young enough to become president.

Instead, America is now busy talking about prostitution and moral values: Wouldn’t it be better to legalize prostitution? When it comes to abolishing slavery, why are prostitutes criminalized, even minors? Are these laws still applicable? How far does the right for privacy extend? How would Europe handle it?

Now, here is the difference between American and German sex scandals. Almost all American scandals have what Carry Bradshaw from “Sex and the City” called the “Ick-Factor”. It is this uncomfortable/raunchy something that causes viewers to want to go wash their hands. The fact that Schroeder or Wulff are looking for a new, young wife, and that Seehofer is confronted with an unexpected paternity might not suit our grandparents’ moral standards, but it is nevertheless part of our everyday life. Nobody, however, wants to be associated with prostitutes in hotels or homosexual massages for cash.

There is also a correlation between the degree of Puritanism and the “Ick-Factor”. The more puritanical the society and the less homosexual partnerships, divorces, cohabitation, and everything else that deviates from traditional morals, are tolerated, the more secretive certain sexual urges are handled. But even these kinds of scandals will not make the headlines anymore once a society become more tolerant. As soon as America starts to find it acceptable that the president has been married four times and that the Governor lives with his boyfriend, the country will be able to get rid of the “Ick-Factor”. Only then will Alan Dershowitz understand that Europe tolerates the affair of the agricultural minister, but not the violation of laws, money laundering, or the exploitation of women.