Dan Savage (with whom I was lucky enough to hang out with the other night, and who I probably creeped out just a tad with my obsessive fandom) takes on the topic of Eliot Spitzer’s sex life:

He was horny.

The end.

and criticizes those who have Theorized on Spitzer’s Real Motivation. Since I’m one of them, I was really interested in what Dan had to say:

In short, Spitzer was horny for something he wasn’t getting at home—perhaps he was refused, perhaps he never asked—and he did what most men (and women) do when they’re not getting something they desperately need at home. He went elsewhere. Which doesn’t excuse his hypocrisy—as NY’s attorney general Spitzer prosecuted people for running the kind of prostitution services he patronized himself—and, yeah, he was taking enormous risks… something the rich and powerful and the poor and penniless have been doing for tens of thousands of years. The big difference: we don’t hear about it when the poor and penniless get caught.

Hard to argue with it, so I won’t. Dan’s expansive wisdom about human sexuality can be boiled down to this, more or less: people are wired to want what they want, and they’d be better off figuring out ways to get it safely and honestly and without harming anyone else along the way (unless they want to be harmed, wocka wocka wocka) then they’d be by lying or repressing or denying or agonizing over Why They Want Such a Bad/Illicit/Fun thing. Certainly, I would say, as a practical matter, Dan’s right, and everybody would be better off if they took that attitude toward themselves and toward others: don’t judge, and as Sir Bob Geldof wisely told us, don’t look for reasons, “Cos there are no reasons/What reason do you need to be show-ow-ow-ow-own…”

But, on the other hand, c’mon. People’s heads are a swamp, a fascinating, dark place, and I refuse to just shrug, while peering into the darkness inside somebody else’s, and say, “Well, hell, it’s just like any other swamp, let’s go home.” Mary Roach (another favorite of mine) writes about the scientific study of sexuality in her great new book, “Bonk,” and she reports that the subject is practically unexplored, compared to say, kidney function, because for so long scientists and those who fund scientists have been so squeamish on the topic. The latest research is just fascinating… you might have read the recent New York Times Magazine article about some very surprising findings about female arousal. (Two words, ladies: Bonobo chimpanzees.)

So yes, let’s let Spitzer be, and let’s remember that where he went, many others have gone, and will go, and they are no more or less typically human than he is. But at the same time: don’t tell me I can’t be utterly fascinated with a straight-arrow overacheiving rich Jewish Harvard lawyer who threw away his entire career because he wanted to act out weird violent sexual scenarios whilst wearing his dress socks.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 at 9:34 am and is filed under Writing, Friends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.