The Battle of the Handcuffs

The Dominique Strauss-Kahn case stirs very different reactions in France, the United States and Italy, revealing cultural differences of great interest regarding sex and power, justice and injustice and matters between America and Europe. For the French and for many Italians, the merciless view of Strauss-Kahn, escorted in handcuffs in front of the journalists, looks to them like a form of barbaric fierceness towards a defenseless man, treated like a criminal when, by law, he’s supposed to still be innocent. And they consider this particularly strict treatment as an affront to France. This presents a different aspect for the Americans. A friend wrote me the day after the arrest saying that she loves the fact that in the United States the rights of an African waitress are taken seriously. The Europeans have to better understand the American context. The so-called “perp walk” (the walk of the defendant in handcuffs in front of the journalists) is a cruel, barbaric, but democratic and bipartisan rite to which all defendants of all social categories — whether they be murderers, thieves or Wall Street big shots — are subjected. The justification is simple: An arrested person, for security reasons, has to be escorted to court in handcuffs, and there’s no reason to make any difference between the thief and the banker, making allowances to the powerful.

Americans have an ambivalent relationship with power and economical success. They tolerate insane levels of economical inequality. But, at the same time, they live in a very strongly democratic culture, and if the rich infringe the law, there’s a particular pleasure (or schadenfreude) in asking him to pay the full bill. The United States — unlike many European countries — believes that the punishment has a per se positive value: both as a compensation for the victim and as a deterrent for the others — and to satisfy the community’s sense of justice. The president of a firm which went bankrupt in 2001 is still in jail serving a 24-year sentence. How much time would he have spent in Italy? Thanks to the feminist movement and the massive placement of women in the job world, the United States takes the problem of “sexual harassment” very seriously, especially when it constitutes an abuse of power. There’s certainly an element of Puritanism in the American culture: Not too long ago, simple adultery was enough to ruin a political career. That was the case of Gary Hart, who had to abandon his electoral campaign when they published a picture of him with the young model Donna Rice sitting on his lap. That was the case with President Bill Clinton and his intern Monica Lewinsky. The United States, in a kind of naive way, expects the behavior of its politicians to be better than that of other men, ignoring the fact that, on the contrary, there’s a close relationship between sex and power. Henry Kissinger, a man who was more powerful than handsome, said that power was the greatest aphrodisiac, thereby explaining the curious fact that he was able to stir the attention of beautiful women.

Whether you like it or not, women (and men) are attracted by men of power. But the United States learned something from the Clinton-Lewinsky affair. Adultery is not enough to destroy a career: The powerful has to violate the law or abuse his power. Therefore Elliot Spitzer, the ex-governor of New York, had to resign for seeing prostitutes — a crime he had denounced during his career as a prosecutor.

In France, powerful people have for a long time showed off their power mostly in sex matters. Discretion and protection of the private have their perks but, in many cases, they’ve been utilized to grant impunity to the powerful. The French press kept silent about Francois Mitterrand’s second family, considering it a purely private fact, ignoring a detail of great public relevance: The French government helped to keep Mitterrand’s mistress and his daughter. If the Strauss-Kahn case had happened in France, it’s very likely that the affair would have ended in a very different way. Stephen Clerk, an American expert on French culture, wrote the other day that it wouldn’t have ever come out. The woman would have been asked: “Why on earth are you risking your job and work permit? After all, it’s your word against his. And who do you think they’ll believe, you, a nobody, or one of the most brilliant and famous men in the country?”

In Europe (or at least in France and Italy), the relationship between sex and power is often taken for a kind of droit de seigneur. Power is unfortunately an aphrodisiac for the powerful, too; he kids himself thinking he’s attractive to all women. An attitude kept alive by impunity.

Besides the Berlusconi-Ruby case, let’s think about the indulgence with which Cosimo Mele, the UDC deputy, was treated: He brought a prostitute (who overdosed on cocaine in his hotel room) to the hospital. Not only did he not resign, he congratulated himself for not escaping. There’s perhaps something archaic and patriarchal in Strauss-Kahn’s relationship with women; let’s remember that, for centuries and centuries, for an aristocrat it was considered almost a right to demand (even with force) waitresses. And this reflex remains to some extent in the subconscious of today’s power people. In Europe, sexual harassment is interpreted (wrongly) like the natural expression of desire and the joy of life; on the contrary, it’s very often a form of prepotency, the pleasure of the strong to subdue the weaker.