The Soap Box

Giving Bill a bad time!

I don't care if he did or he didn't. Well, I do - but let's get it in perspective.

From time immemorial men of power have usually been well sexually endowed. It seems to go with the job. Testosterone seems to be required for the active drive of leadership, and as a by-product it also affects that other drive - the S-drive.

It's also caused a lot of problems. No question. And people of religious convictions have been as prone to it as the irreligious ones. So how often do we hear pious Christians plead, "I'm sorry, I cannot read the Psalms - well David's psalms at least - because the writer was really such a beast about Bathsheba"? He not only fancied another man's wife and got her pregnant, but also conspired to have the husband killed. Oh yes, I know, he was sorry later so that made it alright? Apparently. Anyway, he kept his job as King of Israel - and went on to have quite a lot of other sexual diversity later. Solomon was worse by far - yet his name is a byword for Wisdom. Odd, isn't it, how easily we make excuses for those who lived in the past.

Now dig around in your knowledge of history and see how many names you can come up with of powerful leaders whose private sex lives were not also a tad colorful. Not hard is it? And, yes, I know it caused jealousy, hatred, murders and wars. So what's new? Not human nature. All I can conclude at the moment is that leaders who have varied sex lives are usually playing with fire. And while fire is under control it warms, but out of control it burns.

In those dim and distant days before we had such intrusive news hounds, and the means to make their discoveries known around the world in seconds, at least the potent leader might survive public prurience by virtue of relative privacy. Alas, not now. And the more apparently 'holy' the populace at large, the more they want to crawl over every seamy detail. If he is today's president, priest or preacher we will flay him alive with our righteous indignation.

So this much is clear to me, it is not very clever or wise to indulge varigated sexual activity if you are a Big Cheese. It causes no end of trouble. But, and this is the point, does it unfit you for your job? Should you be fired and forced to resign?

Well, it depends. It depends on the basic tenets of your job to start with. And it depends on whether the associated activities have lead to a situation where you have forfeited trust.

Take the first situation, the basic tenets of your job. Suppose you are committed to a position of sexual celibacy, or are on record as a matter of fundamental morality that you should never be sexually involved with anyone other than your wife (or husband if you want me to be even-handed about it). Then suppose you deny your publicly stated moral position. I think you should go. Perhaps one slip might merit some accommodation provided there is some suitable rehabilitation of the 'offender' according to the requirements of the moral community to which he belongs. But beyond that any person with any honesty should just go. If he does not have that honesty and they catch him, throw him out.

I know - this means that thousands of priests, preachers and pastors would be out of a living. But that's the rules for that community. Let them go and find something else to do.

But, if your personal morality is not integral to the requirement to do the job, different rules apply. Is that not fairly self evident? The real issue is then whether the man's general credibility is at stake? This depends on his job, his standing in society. If his sexual activity depends for its success on persistent deceit and dishonesty this may well severely prejudice the perceptions of his peers if he is found out. So he may have to quit his position since public trust is broken. And there will be a sliding scale for this. The common artisan may do no more than cause very localized family and social disruption, and he may shrug it off. The school teacher may be criticized for setting a bad example to children. The senator may have compounded his problems by threats and power to cover up his behavior. But when he is discovered he may find he loses the sympathy of his fellow-workers and electors. It will be no better for a king or president.

But this I believe, however great the folly of the leader who breaks the conventions and the expectations of those who rely on him, it makes almost no difference whatsoever to his ability to do the job. He may - apart from the sex thing - still be a truly good and caring man, even a wise man. The general may still wage his war, the scientist work on his invention and the artist paint his picture. True, he is damaged. Maybe fatally. But I maintain that it remains possible for that person still to maintain his integrity and to be worthy of trust being placed in him. But for some reason, if you are James Bond, a film star or rock singer it doesn't matter at all! Now why is that?

The issue remains whether we can be broad-minded enough to allow others to be fallible, to find space for recovery, and to have the basic honesty to admit that we ourselves are not one jot better?

MCB: 25th January, 1998