WASHINGTON – While political sex scandals can be disturbing, outrage at sex scandals can also be irritating.
When news of the Profumo affair broke in 1963, Lord Hailsham vented that his Tory colleague, Secretary of War John Profumo, had “lied and lied; lied to his family, lied to his friends, lied to his solicitor, lied to the House of Commons.”
Another member of Parliament, noting the accuser’s tendency toward the sin of gluttony, responded: “When self-indulgence has reduced a man to the shape of Lord Hailsham, sexual continence involves no more than a sense of the ridiculous.”
Most Americans these days are impatient with judgmentalism and self-righteousness when it comes to sex scandals. But mocking humor flows naturally. They find it easier to smirk than to censure. Politicians caught in money scandals look corrupt. Politicians caught in awkward sexual situations look weak and risible. And often they are forgiven.
This is consistent with broader social trends. The bourgeois virtues surrounding money have survived the last few decades in better shape than those surrounding sex. Middle-class standards now include the expectations of delayed marriage, of multiple sexual partners making responsible use of contraception, and of cohabitation before marriage. This is not regarded as relativism but as an updated version of bourgeois stability. And sex itself is often viewed as a fundamentally private matter.