Cheating Men

While I'm still thinking about men who cheat on their wives, I found this article most interesting.

Al Martinez, at the LA Times, says of Antonio Villaraigosa "Mayor not unlike other men in power":

What they did, while possibly distasteful on many levels, not to mention unethical, is not unusual among men in power and the women who pursue them. To make my point, I bring you a brief contemporary history of illicit sex on a higher level.

Beginning with the World War II era, which many of you may recall, two prominent figures were said to be doing, well, **it** with their female assistants while married to others. That would be then-Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower with driver Kay Summersby while married to Mamie, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt with secretary Lucy Mercer while married to Eleanor.

Due to a more protective stance back then in the days preceding mad-dog journalism, the public knew nothing of those affairs, involved as we were with whopping the Germans and the Japanese, not to mention their little brothers, the Italians.

Since then, we've had a succession of presidents, some of whom have managed to work in a little on the side while running the country. Prominent among them was John F. Kennedy. He dallied with Marilyn Monroe, who sang happy birthday to him at Madison Square Garden as if it were a mating call, and Judith Campbell Exner, who, it was said, had gangland connections.

Martinez naturally gets around to Clinton. Which reminded me of Gracie's post, It's Lonely At The Top; It's Lonely Everywhere, which focuses not only on Bill himself, but on the TV's Boston Legal and the relationships men have with each other.

Perhaps 'that uncertain feeling' is a more poignant loneliness which too many men mistake for lust. After all, men are raised to be problem solvers -- men of action. And seduction and sex are a filled with action. It's also more culturally acceptable for a man to approach a woman than another man. Of course, she's more likely to empathize than another male and this sharing makes her more willing to have sex...

So there's the math.

Perhaps if John Lewis had befriended Ieuan, or some other chap, he would have found himself less interested in Liz. Then again, he could have turned more to his wife who no doubt would have welcomed the connection herself... But first, John would have needed to identify that uncertain feeling as a loneliness not of the flesh.

It's not that the wives of these men, powerful or impotent feeling, don't understand them -- it's that the men do not really understand themselves. (Maybe they need to at least watch the clips in Gracie's post?)

But now I am getting into psychology, and I'm only admitting to being an amateur historian. *wink*