The XX Factor: What women really think.

The Broken-Window Theory of Sex

Ellen, you hit the nail on the head, like any good therapist ought to. Clearly, Spitzer liked hiring prostitutes, for whatever reason. Maybe it was that he couldn't find a sex partner who'd do what he wanted to do, or maybe it was that he liked the power dynamic of paying for sex. We won't really ever know. But this gets at the fundamental thing about sex that has been left out of a lot of the analysis of Spitzergate: Sex is basically irrational. What people need and want has nothing to do with what they think they should want or need. And how they behave in the bedroom has, for the most part, not all that much with how they would behave elsewhere in the world, if we're going to trust sex surveys. In other words, I don't buy that sex complies with any broken-window theory of moral probity: It seems to me sketchy behavior in the bedroom doesn't necessarily correlate to deeper corruption in the courtroom or the city hall.

Which raises a question about the idea that public servants should be held to a higher standard. That idea makes sense to me when it comes to things like paying nannies' Social Security tax or speeding. But isn't sex a different kind of realm? Spitzer's case is complicated by the hypocrisies inherent in his prosecution of a prostitute ring. But what if it weren't? Would that change how we feel? Is visiting a prostitute really so ethically wrong that he should never  be able to perform public service again? Like Judith, I tend to think no.

Meanwhile: Ihe ironist in me has been wondering if it was actually prosecuting the sex ring that made Spitzer want to visit high-end prostitutes in the first place ... I'm sure that's not the case, but it'd be a fun premise for a novel about political scandal.