By now nearly everyone on the planet is aware of New York State Governor Elliot Spitzer’s ignominy, in the aftermath of his affair with a call girl that has recently come (no pun intended) out into the painfully bright glare of public scrutiny.

As in all cases such as this, where a formerly respected public figure of seemingly irreproachable  principal and high standards of ethical purity has been exposed as a moral hypocrite, nearly everyone has an opinion to share on the subject. Almost without exception, most are quick to condemn Spitzer for having cheated on his ‘loyal’ and supportive wife, who has been frequently pointed to as one of his strongest, most faithful proponents and an unfailing advocate of his public service career accomplishments.

Although none of us who are not directly associated with Spitzer and his occupational concerns (say, as a personal friend) likely have no truly sagacious insights into his affairs worth commenting at length upon (in all likelihood), this has not kept the matter from being one of the ‘hot’ topics of public discussion. It has also, as you will shortly note, not kept me from tossing in my two cents worth of opinion on the subject, either.

Following that pattern, public discussion of the rights and wrongs of sexual affairs on the part of high-profile public figures seems to be at an all time high at the moment, in view of several other similar incidents having been brought to light. Nothing, it would seem, is as vastly engaging or entertaining to the average person as the sordid details of a highly placed person suddenly having been brought low, in yet another validation of that ancient aphorism, ‘the bigger they are, the harder they fall’.

In the past few weeks, the subject of Governor Spitzer’s fall (to paraphrase Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima’s classic novel title ‘...from grace with a she’) has hit all the media gossip programs, including ‘Oprah’, that ultimate women’s experiential program ‘The View’, and NBC’s ‘Today Show’. During a discussion of Governor Spitzer’s marital grand faux pas, Today Show host Meredith Viera prompted television personality Dr. Laura Schlessinger with a leading question, asking her guests if Spitzer’s wife had anything to do with his being unfaithful.

Schlessinger, who holds a PhD in physiology and NOT in psychiatry or psychology (despite her years of television and radio work as a personal advisor to average people), stated in so many words that Silda Spitzer did indeed have a substantial role in bringing about her husband’s marital disloyalties by not catering to his needs (presumably the inference here is ‘sexual needs’), thereby failing to simultaneously ‘validate’ his sense of masculine self-worth and assuage his male hunger for sexual intimacy. This helped induce a condition wherein he turned elsewhere for that fulfillment.

Predictably, this response brought about an instantaneous tsunami of highly emotional criticism from other women, who made it clear that they felt Schlessinger was forsaking her ‘sisters’ by daring to levy partial blame for Spitzer’s affair on his poor, long-suffering wife of many years. That, at least, was the PC wisdom that her response seemed to call for, with female unanimity. After all, everyone knows that man is the sexual predator and woman is ALWAYS the innocent victim of deceit and duplicitousness in such situations…don’t they?

Laura Schlessinger, the TV and radio talk-show host cum personal advisor of the ‘Dr. Laura’ show, may not always be squarely on the final flight path GCA approach to life’s many complexities, but in this particular case she actually stated an important, if politically incorrect and gender treasonous, truth. The fact that women everywhere were so hasty to be critical of her remarks served to prevent any truly rational and logical analysis of what she was actually saying or implying. The following analysis hopes to do just that.

In essence, what Dr. Laura was saying was that in a marriage, whether a high profile public one or an average, everyday one, the ennui of daily pressures, tedium, responsibilities, and interactive stimuli faced by both parties in a marriage can very easily result in a sort of hum-drum routine that fosters taking the other person for granted. This condition has often been characterised as the ‘old married couple’ syndrome, wherein both partners are so used to each other, so perfectly familiar with each other, that they have long since ceased making any effort to gratify or please their partner in any way (let alone sexually).

This is, of course, a terrible mistake, for once that contemptuous (and devastating) familiarity has come about, all sorts of possibilities (many of them potentially catastrophic to successful perpetuity of a marriage) present themselves.  And yet, it seems to be a pattern of marital disregard and disinterest that has repeated itself time and time again since the very first years of recorded history. It often seems to me to be an almost basic no-brainer of an awareness that a man and woman must accommodate each other’s needs (including emotional, sexual, and material), or why even maintain the pretense of being married?

Again, due to the various pressures arrayed against men and women in today’s pressure-cooker Western culture, with its accelerated demands, complex responsibilities, and logarithmically truncated available time, this status of mutual disregard can occur at any point in a relationship. It most often affects older couples who have been married for some years, but it can just as easily tear apart marriages that are reasonably new and still fresh—if the ’shear’ pressures are proportionately increased.

All one needs to do to understand how common a theme marital obliviousness is in our society is take note of all the cartoons that appear in papers, magazines, and similar media depicting a husband literally begging for sex and his wife declining out of disinterest. This is a recurring theme on many media sitcoms (such as ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’, with actress Patricia Heaton playing the forever put-upon wife trying to dampen husband Ray’s always intense ardor). Somewhat lost amidst all the laugh-track cacophony in the background is the fact that men seem to be biologically programmed to seek out sexual intimacy first and emotional intimacy second, whereas women appear to be programmed in the opposite order. This makes for a potentially serious divergence in gender specific needs over a period of time in any marriage, when men give up trying to cultivate emotional intimacy in order to gain sex and women abnegate any effort to cultivate sexual intimacy in order to obtain emotional fulfillment. After that rather unhappy state of affairs becomes a status quo situation, the odds are great that married partners will look elsewhere for those important affirmations of self worth.

Let one of those marital partners actually cultivate a secret liaison outside the bounds of their marriage, regardless of the needs or the motivations, and all hell predictably breaks loose. At least such is the resulting consequence in America. In Europe, and in many other (read: older, less Puritanistic, and less religiously inhibited) cultures that have for centuries recognised these forces at work in marriages, turning to an extramarital source for sexual fulfillment has almost become a moral standard of no special consequence. In fact, in those cultures, such marital perfidy and extramarital dalliance is almost regarded as a norm. Only when a participant has the lack of class and sophistication to inadvertantly allow the affair to be brought to the unavoidable attention of the ‘cheated’ spouse, is it considered a reasonable breech of normative spousal conduct warranting serious attention. Throughout the last several hundred years, mistresses and lovers outside of marriage were virtually a concomitant aspect of European culture, as a consequence, and it is only in America, with its Protestant Christian heritage of puritanical conservatism that le affaire sexuelle is censured so totally and completely.

One of the truisms of modern life (whether American or otherwise) is that those who are high-profile public figures or celebrities will always be subject to an extraordinarily high level of intense scrutiny. This is particularly true for individuals like Elliot Spitzer, who have forged their entire political career on successfully bringing violators of existing ethical and moral norms to justice for wrongdoing. Therefore, it is particularly ironic when such squeaky-clean knights in spotless armor are caught with their codpieces down in broad daylight.

In passing, it is interesting to note that Laura Schlessinger, that unjustly criticized speaker of truth in her commentary on Spitzer’s wife sharing the blame for his transgressions, was herself caught up in some rather embarrassing publicity involving a series of nude photographs of herself that were taken when she was 28. These pictures, which may be viewed on the internet, show her in flagrante delicto, and were taken by a mentor of hers whom she also had an affair with after her marriage failed and she underwent a messy divorce. Understandably upset over the later emergence of these rather explicit images of her in the nude, she sued to have the photos removed from the public domain (unsuccessfully). But, regardless of the right or wrongness of anyone’s conduct in either taking the photos or allowing them to be taken, this serves as an example of the fact that anyone can be caught in this sort of uncomfortable situation, no matter how bright, how aware, or how well educated one may be. Such failings are, in fact, basic human nature being acted-out for the umpteen trillionth time. A PhD or other high level verification of one’s IQ means nothing when things are viewed within the context of normal, everyday human sexual môres and/or behavior.

Returning to Schlessinger’s inference that Elliot Spitzer’s wife Silda shares responsibility for failing to keep the Guv’s sexual needs fulfilled, instances of this sort are a common occurrence in America wherein a couple are caustically damned if they seek sexual fulfillment outside of the institution of marriage, but are not criticized for intrapersonal failure to gratify each other’s most basic marital needs.

Given the polar nature of male and female sexual responses (that is, males are visually keyed to sexual excitement and seek sexual gratification without excessive need for a concomitant emotional component, whereas females are emotionally keyed to seek physical gratification only after being excited emotionally), it is only logical that both men and women must exercise their intelligence and creative imaginations in keeping a sexual relationship alive and healthy. This requirement never ceases to exert its mandate, if a couple is to be expected to remain sexually compatible and stimulating to their partners over the long term. It means a constantly dynamic challenge on the part of both individuals to create a sexual excitement that is both compelling, invigorating, and inviting, despite the daily pressures that conspire to dampen prolonged mutual attraction.

Men are famously noted for complaining about a lack of variety or sexual innovation on the part of their wives, while a common complaint of married women about their husbands is a single minded need in their partner to ejaculate as quickly and as simply as possible (that is, without any requisite foreplay or emotional build-up). Both complaints are equally valid and there needs to be accommodation by both to the needs of the other in both cases. It will never be an even 50/50 proposition, certainly, but the salient point that emerges is that constant effort must be maintained by both, if sexual relations are to remain fulfilling, exciting, and ‘fresh’.

A writer on Author’s Den very recently wrote a very amusing piece about a couple of women friends who visit a women’s lingerie store to buy some exotic under-garments (for the purpose of stimulating male interest from their partners). While amusingly set forth and a most worthwhile and humorous read, the piece highlights some very important nuances of sexual relationships (whether between married couples or unmarried individuals) that lie within the above context. One of the women selects several thongs from the rack and a small amount of slightly embarrassed conversation ensues, highlighting the fact that the individual buying the items doesn’t normally wear exotic items like that and feels slightly uncomfortable about it.

The overall point that again emerges is that since men are visually keyed to sexual desire, things like thongs and other types of revealing female lingerie are quite important to any effort made by a woman to stimulate male interest. It is surprising how many women are either unmindful of this basic fact of gender physiology, or somehow lose sight of it as the years pass in a marriage. Comfy old pajamas, hair curlers, and lop-eared ‘bunny slippers’ just don’t elicit the sort of response productive of lustful mating responses, but it might be equally surprising to learn just how skillfully many women actively and consciously employ those intense turn-off mechanisms to deter or avoid sexual interest by their mates.

I have made the point before (I often feel like I’m preaching to a geriatric choir that have their hearing aids turned off) that women must make an ongoing and active effort to accommodate fresh sexual interest by their husbands later in life, when the hormonal responses start to diminish considerably on both sides of the gender equation. Any refusal to recognise the importance of this fact of normal human biology is a sure incitement to provoke a husband into looking elsewhere for gratification. If the fact that as wives age men are instinctually drawn to younger, more fecund women is added to the equation, all the more urgency is added to recognition of the process.

I have no doubt that a great number of women who read this will instinctively draw back and initially experience intense disagreement with these expressed sentiments, but the fact is that what we are discussing here are basic biological ‘known dynamics’ of marriage that must be acknowledged and dealt with, if a modern marital relationship is to stand any chance of continued success in mainstream American society.

The incidence of children simply piles on more complications and creates added interference that make this task far more difficult to deal with, of course, since the demands of raising a family today are ever more intense and impactful—both emotionally and physically—than they have ever been before. When the logistics of having children complicate the lives of a couple, moments of privacy and intimacy become qualities that seem almost endangered by extinction, but all the more effort is required to please and fulfill one’s partner in all parameters of a relationship. Neither high IQs nor economic successes are of as much help in keeping a sexual relationship alive and well as plain old vanilla-flavored awareness, basic effort, sensitivity, and elbow-grease (although perhaps a generous dollop of judiciously applied KY-jelly might also help).

In view of the above, Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s seemingly antithetical remarks (at least to many women) can be seen as having more merit than a first impression would indicate. Spitzer’s wife Silda cannot be dismissed as being unattractive in a physical sense, any more than can any other woman who has striven to remain physically healthy and appealing as the years pass. My own opinion, based upon the above considerations, is that she very likely could have made the difference in their relationship that would have kept good old Elliot home, instead of hopping off regularly to liaise with his 22 year old call-girl. It would have taken effort above and beyond the normal call of womanly duty, perhaps, but if your marriage means more to you than a formality, no effort to ‘do what it takes’ is beyond meaningful recourse.

One of the chief deterrents acting to prevent awareness and acceptance of these simple facts is that sense of codified moral ‘purity’ that is often the legacy of American Christian evangelical ‘standards’ of behavior. The best example I can think of off hand is that of the Morman Church, with its rigidly prescribed behavioral constraints, peculiar ‘dress codes’, and prohibitions on certain types of coital behavior, although many other conservative religions come close in levying their heavily censured codifications of proprietary behavior on their followers.  If one manages to throw off the yoke of ‘divine moral guidance’ that these ultra-conservative religions presuppose for a moment, a far purer, much less cluttered awareness of the need to maintain sexual allure among couples may perhaps obtain.

Mindful of this, one of the most predominate characteristics of American society is the continuing clash between popular conceptions of ‘right and wrong’ that pass for ethical norms in the United States. For the most part all are characterised by a massive taint of hypocrisy, since it seems only in America do we profess to reject certain attitudes, behaviors, and practices openly and in full public view, while covertly violating most of the same conventions in private. In other parts of the world, people don’t make a great big deal out of human failings, since they are wise enough to understand that to be human is to be inherently prone to failure—both personal and public. In the United States we Americans seem to feel a compulsion to maintain the widespread popular fiction that we (as a nation and a people) are completely ethical, morally bombproof, and above stooping to any acts that may be deemed morally or ethically repugnant. The reality of our daily lives and actions on both a national and international level very thoroughly belie the truth of this popular and grossly misguided fallaciousness. Thus, when someone like Elliot Spitzer is revealed to be a moral and ethical hypocrite according to these impossibly stringent standards of decorum, the whole nation comes unglued at the hinges in spasms of self-recrimination and public breast-beating.

Someone recently referred to the United States as a system of capitalistic hypocrisy, rather than a nation of capitalistic democracy, given our interminable indignation over violations of our assumed ethical standards, arrayed against a backdrop of stringent denial of defective realities too obvious to explain away or hide from view. I rather liked that, since it very adequately characterises the sort of ‘head-in-the-sand’ behavior and moral turpitude we WASPish Norte Americanos are so noted for maintaining. One of the best current examples of this national characteristic of hypocrisy on a national scale is the fact that our elected leaders chose to conduct our national affairs without any apparent regard for what the people of the nation actually want. Those in the highest offices of the land have adequately demonstrated (with the Iraq War that is now bleeding our economy to death) the fact that that they are so totally detached from popular sentiment that they might as well be living in a bizarro parallel universe.

Regrettably, this lack of contextual national awareness demonstrated by the president is to be found within a more localized, interpersonal model, specifically in regard to the failure (already noted) of married couples to recognise the obvious need to accommodate each other’s sexual and emotional needs so as to keep their marriage healthy and intact. Instead of seeing things clearly and taking the required action, we seem doomed to repetitive public moments such as the Spitzers have visited upon us: “I have sinned and I seek forgiveness”, etc., etc. My feeling with regard to this and all other instances similar to it is, spare me the emotionally dramatic public declamations, face reality, and get on with life.

It really isn’t that hard to keep your partner’s interest alive and well. If a few sex toys and some imagination thrown into the coital mix don’t help, perhaps it’s time to bring the marriage to a conclusion and simply be done with it. Sadly, whenever there are children to think about, such a denoument is invariably and inevitably going to have tragic consequences for them. In the long run, however, it is probably better to either face the music or simply…stop…dancing.

Kudos to Dr, Laura Schlessinger, regardless of her own youthful indiscretions, and irrespective of her background in human physiology (rather than in psychology). In this one instance, she certainly got it right and she deserves credit for courageously stating what so many women find unthinkable and unacceptable: ya gotta put out if ya wanna keep up the interest. That may be a politically incorrect sentiment and an inconvenient proposition to articulate with any believable mendacity, but in the final accounting, you simply can’t argue effectively or believably against mother nature’s biological master plan for bringing men and women together. And that’s what it ALL boils down to.

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Postscript: It has been stated in various media reports that Spitzer has a highly competitive, aggressive personality. One analyst remarked that even his craggy, jaw-jutting facial physiognomy alone would tend to attest to his having a very strong male drive to excel that subsists on a pattern of keen competitiveness (that has been documented from his early years onward). A recent Newsweek analyst also commented on the fact that the high-class call-girl service who provided the object of his affair noted that he '...had a tendency to ask for things from her that might be deemed unsafe'. That is a polite way of saying he possibly preferred sexual favors that a proprietary wife and mother of three might feel were not in her 'conjugal job description'.  If these surmises are factual, they might suggest that given his high levels of testosterone-driven expectations, Spitzer's wife might not have been able to keep him satisfied. There are, after all, limits to what the average woman will do to accommodate her busband's sexual demands in the privacy of one's bedroom. Some things that come under that category are very likely best performed in the company of a 'pay-for-service' professional escort, whose job descriptions usually do include 'risky sex'.

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For a peek at 61 year old Dr. Laura’s website, dial up the following URL:

http://www.drlaura.com/main/ .

You may see a video of Schlessinger's comment at the following URL:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/11/dr-laura-blames-spitzer_n_90994.html

[Please keep in mind that I am neither a keen appreciator nor advocate of any self-proclaimed ‘personal lifestyle advisor’ (such as Dr. Phil, Dr. Laura, or Dr. Bozo the Clown). I simply include these website URLs here for you in case you are curious, in follow-up to the subject of this piece. For a 61 year old gal, she’s not such a bad looker, actually, but I still prefer brunettes, heh-heh, recidivist sexist pig that I am.]