The DSK Affair Has Revealed a Very Sad Picture of America

A couple of years ago, we were on a family vacation at a beach in Florida. My daughter, who was two years old at the time, decided to take off her swimsuit, which was irritating her after bathing. Almost immediately, the other holiday-makers became somewhat agitated and stared at us with embarrassment. A few minutes later a robust sheriff, complete with an arsenal big enough to destroy a whole town, approached and sternly told us that we had to clothe our daughter or face a fine. The latter, thinking this was a game, started to run. We ran after her and the sheriff ran after us. We finally caught her, in a fit of laughter, but to the uniformed giant this was no laughing matter: In Uncle Sam’s country it is forbidden to be naked on the beach, even for infants.

North America obviously has a problem with sex, something that comes from its Protestant heritage, yet it wishes to preach to the whole world. Its outlook cannot simply be described as puritan. It is a warped kind of Puritanism which has changed with social attitudes, a Puritanism that is versed in the language of lovers’ freedom and co-exists with a thriving porn industry. In short, it is lascivious.

Indeed, what was the real purpose behind the Clinton and DSK investigations? In condemning eroticism they have provided an opportunity to talk about it more freely, an opportunity for Americans to spend weeks and months salivating over the juicy details: oral sex, semen, genitalia; all with a covetous, false indignation. This was affirmed by Kenneth Thompson’s vulgar glee in invoking the “assaulted” vagina of his client, Nafissatou Diallo. In Bill Clinton’s case, people say that he was penalized more for the lie than for his fling with the White House intern. This is most definitely untrue; George Bush lied about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, an infinitely more serious falsehood, over which he was never prosecuted. Had he slept with an assistant, he would have been hung, drawn and quartered. However, murder is apparently less heinous a crime than extramarital affairs.

It appears that the media on the other side of the Atlantic, so quick to condemn France on account of one of her representatives, has already forgotten the tortures committed at Abu Ghraib: human pyramids of naked men, or prisoners forced to masturbate, notably under the orders of Sgt. Lynndie England who kept some of them on a leash (women in a position of power are no better than men; this was proven in the Nazi era). Torture prevails across the world, even in democratic nations, but only a country with such a problematic sexuality could invent such abuse. Moreover, it was astonishing that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, suspected of corruption and inciting violent interrogation, were never pursued after 2008 by their country’s justice system that is forever ready to condemn the slightest impropriety.

To punish France for Iraq, for Roman Polanski, for laws against the veil and the niqab, to force this recalcitrant country that stubbornly persists with its dissolute morals to tow the line; these are the underlying motives behind the DSK case, at a time when America finds herself biting dust, searching for a fitting scapegoat for her decline. An article in the respected Newsweek magazine, from July 29 by Joan Buck, is one of the many examples of this. In it, she explains France’s archaic sexuality to her readers: In the land of the barbarian Gauls, female journalists sleep with every politician, not just for pleasure, but also to guarantee their sources; from gas stations to offices, men granting themselves all manner of liberties is an institution, secretaries have to give their bosses blow jobs to keep their position, every female is classed a “slut” and the country permanently wavers between the Marquis de Sade and Simone de Beauvoir. You may well pinch yourself, rub your eyes, yet this is not an edition of Pravda from the time of the Cold War. It is distressing that, in France, so much of the media, so many great minds have been stunned by what has happened and have urged us into a state of national repentance without having conducted even the most basic enquiries into the matter. We have created a monster in our midst, we need to renounce our inherent machismo.

In fact, the U.S. is home to a peculiar phenomenon not experienced in Europe: the alliance of feminism and the extremely conservative Republican right. These two have joined forces, in the name of different interests, to put a lid on the can of worms opened in the ‘60s and ‘70s. This is why so many feminist intellectuals, like Joan Scott, specialist in “French-bashing,” have quite simply become State Department propagandists, responsible for promoting the American way of life both at home and abroad. This explains the atmosphere of McCarthyist moralizing concerning everything related to love, something over which more lucid Americans have been alarmed about for some time now. Since the beginning of the ‘90s strict instructions have been issued to all foreign professors going over to universities to teach: Never receive a female student in a closed room without recording the conversation, never enter an elevator alone with one of them and as a matter of course, do not enter into a relationship with a female from the faculty, even if she is a consenting adult, or else face the penalty of immediate dismissal.

Working relationships in the office are also subjected to a number of rules: Avoid flattering outfits, suggestive remarks, do not engage in a relationship of an intimate nature with a colleague unless you intend to get married to each other. You may remember the Ohio university which, at the beginning of the ‘90s, under pressure from the then main feminist organization, tried to enact a charter regulating students becoming intimate with each other. All steps, in the greatest of detail, were to be written down in advance, for example, whether or not you would touch her breasts, lift her shirt, etc., and handed over to a person of authority. Fortunately, the proposal was abandoned. Such insane codification is the fate of a panicked society, devoid of a culture of love, which wants a desire squad to keep an eye on everyone.

What is this really all about? Fortifying the condemnation of pleasure by criminalizing the act of heterosexual sex: Every man, in terms of his strength, is potentially a rapist; every woman, a potential victim. A compliment becomes the first step toward harassment; flirting, on the road toward rape; chivalry, a euphemism to disguise a predatory nature. The flesh corrupts, desire is dangerous. Even if DSK was acquitted, he remains guilty. His fault lies in his status: a rich, European white male, which equates to decadence; he can be seen as nothing short of a compulsive aggressor. In the U.S., not only male politicians are pursued by the media’s indiscretion (the two most recent victims are the elected Democrat Anthony Weiner, guilty of having sent photos of his manly assets via Twitter to women that he met online, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who fathered an illegitimate child with his housekeeper). Any American can, at any time, be humiliated by this democratic inquisition.

Whereas in France, adultery is met with a tolerant disapproval, in America it is outrightly condemned. Over there, it is more than a sexual indiscretion, it is a civil wrong which merits judicial sanction and psychiatric rehabilitation. Some support groups for men and women who have been cheated on compare the trauma caused by such acts to that experienced after the attacks of 9/11. Extramarital affairs equate to national betrayal, a violation of the pact that holds society together. On the East Coast, there is a morning TV show which broadcasts cases of marital infidelity, exposing those who have been unfaithful to public condemnation, alongside the humiliation of those betrayed, brandishing, for example, DNA tests disproving their child’s paternity.

Let’s make one thing clear: On both sides of the Atlantic, rape is a crime, harassment an offense. We are making objective progress. Both here and over there, since emancipation, tensions between men and women remain and are, at times, exacerbated. However, while in the U.S., this coexistence seems to border on the brink of war, under the watchful eye of lawyers ready to line their pockets with the money of disunited couples, southern Europe seems better protected from this scourge with its antiquated culture of dialogue and tolerance toward human weakness. France’s answer is to take on board the ambivalence of love, to civilize desire, accepting it has impurities, whilst respecting intimacy. In the U.S., sexuality is the medium through which each citizen becomes the potential property of another. Private life disappears, the necessity of transparency leads to the triumph of hypocrisy and a “Big Brother” society of mass surveillance.

The disastrous consequence of the Strauss-Kahn case, should it be proven that the plaintiff was not telling the truth, lies in the future discrediting of real victims, suspecting them of lying and venality. Neither the media nor the justice system can emerge from this saga with their heads held high, even if District Attorney Cyrus Vance had the honesty to acknowledge the thinness of the case folder back in July. Let us hope that in the event of a dismissal, the major news groups of the East Coast, which were so quick to prematurely lynch the former director of the IMF, will offer their apologies. A word of warning to French tourists traveling to the U.S.: Keep your guard up! Should you ever have the urge to frolic with a native, arm yourself with an official discharge: Have your partner acknowledge, in writing, that they authorize you to enjoy their body. We have much to learn from our American friends, but certainly not when it comes to the art of love.