Stand By Your Man?

The eyes of the world are on Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D-NY), but the eyes of my small corner of the universe (admittedly overpopulated with beautiful, smart and ambitious political feminists) are for obvious reasons on someone else. Immediately following the Governor's announcement, I got an email from a close friend. After expounding on her theory of balding self-consciousness and a tough first year in office getting to the Governor, she wrote: "The picture on the NYTimes website right now makes me sad. Silda's hair looks amazing but she looks sad. And tired. I hate how political wives always have to stand by their scummy political husbands when sh*t like this comes out. It is so wrong." It is. So wrong. But it is also so very complicated.

I admit that when the story first broke, I was one of those gawky political onlookers, pressing the refresh button on my browser until the NY Times site crashed because everyone in the tri-state area and the Beltway was letting out a collective "What the...?" First, the story read as though Spitzer actually ran the prostitution ring, which would have made an excellent premise for an HBO original series. But as the updates streamed in, I got a good look at how the story was shaping. Eliot Spitzer did something very wrong but fairly ordinary: he hired a prostitute. It's only so extraordinary because of who Eliot Spitzer is and what Eliot Spitzer purports to stand for. Once reporters had to live with the reality of a still scandalous but less shocking story, the peripheral characters came into focus. On first reload, the story updated to include a one-liner reminding the public that Spitzer is married, then that he is married with three children, then those three children were specified to be three daughters. Once the picture loaded, there was Silda: beautiful, loyal and sad. And if, like me, you value you the personal in politics, before you wanted to kick Eliot in the nuts, you wanted to reach out and embrace this woman.

There is clearly a much bigger conversation that needs to begin about sex and marriage, sexuality and marriage, and marriage itself, sex aside. In the last year we've seen this type of scandal manifest on the right side of the aisle, on the left side of the aisle, and in public restrooms. Infidelity knows no partisan boundaries. It's also wrong to think that it is confined to the rich and the powerful - they are simply the ones we watch get caught. On one side of this conversation there is a purely biological element to consider: the often out of sync rise and fall of male and female libidos, and the subsequent void in a sexual partnerships. Why risk it all -- a fabulous career, a good marriage -- unless the need for sexual intimacy was as primal as eating or sleeping? Is it possible that as with hunger and exhaustion, at some point the body caves and loses rational ability? When it comes to the mind-body connection, and carnal discipline, can we afford to hold onto this notion that the mind can conquer all? Then again, is that question a Pandora's box that we will never be prepared to open?

These questions, however, while primarily biological raise important secondary social questions. Is a one-size fits all approach to social values ruining our culture? Is the same public shame that doesn't allow a homosexual man to admit to others (to himself?) that he is gay not allow for the hard conversations inside a marriage that need to happen? How do things get to this point? It is hard not to rely here on the feminist free fall: to blame this entire series of events on a culture of male dominance and female oppression. As my friend wrote in her email:

"Maybe it's not so much the physical need for sexual intimacy, but an emotional need to be convincingly in control. Spitzer blundered in his first year in office by being too aggressive and arrogant - being too masculine got him emasculated...I think it's significant he didn't go the 'traditional' cheating route - having an affair with a younger woman - and instead went the prostitute route which is what makes me think it wasn't just about a need for intimacy. He went for control and dominance in the cheapest way (well not money cheap, given the fees)."

There is no way to invalidate this point - the realities of a male dominated culture, and the subordination of many wives and mothers across the world is as real as global climate change. But the question of the prostitute is additionally complicated, and I see how if a man still loves, or at least respects his wife, then he doesn't want real intimacy with someone - real intimacy with another woman would feel more like a betrayal than paying for sex. To boot, part of the monetary exchange for sex is actually much more egalitarian than an unequal exchange of emotion (maybe - the economic feminist in me sees the dangers in this type of commodification). I also think that when it comes down to it, he chose a prostitute because it guaranteed more discretion than a woman with whom feelings were involved. To offer an alternative - perhaps he was paying for the opportunity to be submissive, to have someone come in and take charge.

But this is where my emphasis on the biological fades and the social contract moves to the forefront: regardless of the many social and marital contract points Eliot Spitzer ignored, there was Silda, holding up her end of the bargain in the face of shame and betrayal. Yell at your TV to leave him or encourage her to stand by her man - it doesn't really matter. It's not your or mine decision to make. Instead, we are left with no answers, and only more questions. As my friend writes:

"So... what are we supposed to do? Viagra for women? Do I tell [my boyfriend] that if he ever wants to do something kinky or different in thirty years, I'll just do it because I'd rather not be Silda one day? I feel like (1) he would be really offended if I said that to him (2) that's still not the kind of equality I'm looking for and (3) it makes me a little sad that I really would be willing to do it even if I really was not comfortable doing it if it meant saving my marriage...What if the sixty-year old version of [my boyfriend] admits he wants me to get a vaginoplasty? Or just like a tummy tuck. I don't know how I could ever face my friends. Or my daughters. But does that become livable if the other option is to face a mistress or a prostitute? And what are men's reactions to the Spitzer thing - is there a collective shudder that he got caught? Or an affirmative that will never be me?"

While I am too young to have any good answers, I can say with complete certainty that try as we might to pretend our interest in this story is the political fallout, the irony of a corrupt corruption fighter, or the criminality of a public servant, what our oversexed, under- communicated culture is really interested in is the sexual aspect of this story. If Spitzer was a gambler an alcoholic or even if he was smoking dope in the statehouse, we wouldn't be quite as interested as we are now. And since my friends and I are too far from these realities to process them as our own, instead we will watch and learn as Silda makes her choice. If she leaves, she will break the mold, and prove to us the infinite independence of a woman's spirit. If she stays, we will be reminded, one more time, that the fairer sex is also the stronger sex. Regardless - if like women before her, she can not only survive, but thrive, we will have only more reason to wonder why we are not running the world. Silda for Governor 2014?