A2
NEWS
WEEK OF NOVEMBER 14-20, 2012
www.FloridaWeekly.com
FLORIDA WEEKLY
COMMENTARY Sex rogerWILLIAMS
[email protected]
Sex. Sex, sex, sex, sex. More sex. Delicious, nourishing, replenishing sex. Bell-ringing, heart-twanging, cross-youreyes-and-fall-down-senseless sex. Is there anything else in the world so powerfully appealing, so utterly beautiful and so richly corporeal — at once so earthy and so ethereal — as sex? Besides hunger and thirst, is there any other urge or any need so profoundly and soakingly compelling as sex? No, of course not. Deny it or even try to, and you mark yourself as a patient in need of a therapist. Either that or you’re a dead man or a dead woman. In which case call 9-1-1 and hope they can revive you with an emergency sex pump, or something. Merely thinking about sex makes me want to go have it right now, in the same way that merely thinking about a bottle of Krug 1996 makes me want to go have a case of champagne right now. That would only set me back a few thousand dollars. Of course, I’m no model for high-falutin’ desire: Merely thinking about Pabst Blue Ribbon sucked like love from the pear-shaped orifice of an ice-sweating can somewhere in the humid summer bosom of a woodsswamped meadow at dusk to the lap-slide, finger-picking fire of a Kelly Joe Phelps gui-
t makes me want to go have that, too. tar, Followed by sex. Which would set me back a about 95 cents, if the sex were free. But no sex is ever free. If your sex comes f freely and warmly given, the price is your h heart. It’s called love, and it costs everything y have — 100 percent, all the time and all you the way, every night and every day. Even if it doesn’t, it will still cost you something. Some part of yourself, along with whatever other costs may arise. Although that’s the way of human beings, I don’t care. When I look at the crisp formality, at the presumption of moral authority, at the easy assumption of command adopted by such men as David Petraeus, whose adulterous sex cost him the directorship of the CIA last week and who knows what else — or at the mantle of leadership accepted by any president, political leader, senior public official or high-ranking, oath-taking military or civilian commander — I expect them never to have sex. Not only that, but I expect them never to go to the bathroom, never to appear with dirty fingernails or bad breath, and never to look foolish, in or out of the public eye. In other words, I expect them not to be human. At first glance. But on second thought, I’m willing to let them have a little sex. Only for about 10 minutes between the hours of 1 a.m. and 3 a.m., however, when they aren’t working to protect or promote me, my family and my friends. And then they can have sex only with their spouses or with one significant partner, if they aren’t married. Not two significant partners.
Not a significant partner, and an almost as significant partner. Not a spouse along with someone who would have been a spouse if she or he hadn’t gotten to the party of life too late. I’m still not willing to let them go to the bathroom or have any other needs, however. If they do, I don’t want to know about it. Even the CIA and the FBI probably don’t want to know about it. By the way, I don’t want the CIA or the FBI to have any sex, either — with anybody, ever, anywhere. And I have no second thoughts about that decision, whatsoever. For the most part, I think our leaders live up to my expectations. Clearly, they aren’t humans — you can tell by the way they act. They’re aliens. Have you ever seen such a bunch of goofballs as political leaders or appointees dressed to the nines, trying to look like they know something the rest of us don’t? Often they do know something we don’t, of course. But not about sex. You and I know as much or more about sex as the world’s most powerful leaders have ever known. Kings, queens, presidents, emperors, prime ministers, chiefs, generals, directors of this or that — doesn’t matter. They may have had more sex, but they sure don’t know any more about it. Too often they screw it up completely, so to speak. Just look at our presidents. Thomas Jefferson. Warren Harding. Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Bill Clinton — God a’mighty. Brilliant in their fields, some of them (not Harding), but sex slaves all, apparently.
Come down through the ranks of senators, representatives, governors, mayors and the like, and you have, just recently, Newt Gingrich, Jim McGreevey, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatick, John Edwards, Mark Sanford, John Ensign, Elliot Spitzer, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gary Condit and Vito Fossella, to name only some. What I don’t understand is how anyone would want to have sex with these guys — all guys, because men have been the ones for whom the door to power has always opened most readily, and so their numbers are largest. For the most part, they’re so physically ugly. Petraeus, for example, looks like a worn handbag with blue eyes, seconded to a thrift shop. Newt Gingrich looks like a fat frog who just licked a fat fly off a lily pad on a farm pond in south Georgia. Elliot Spitzer looked like a cross between a prune and a potato, with facial features. So the desire to sleep with them must spring, in part, from an attraction to power — not simply to the man, or the simple man, or the man who is quite simply ugly. And that’s not about sex, exclusively. Instead, it’s about power and wealth. It’s about status and conquest. And it’s about lying. Therein lies the problem, I’ve decided. It’s not the sex, whether I like the notion of these ambitious careerists having sex or not. It’s the lying. If they lie to their spouses, they’ll lie to us at the drop of a hat, any time they feel like it. And that’s something we can’t tolerate, even if it has occurred frequently in the once upon a time. ■
Choosing a community bank with conservative management is critical in times like these. As the oldest community bank in Lee County, we are unwavering in our commitment and service to our customers and our community. See us for a small business loan or fixed rate residential loan to purchase or refinance. We have competitive interest rates and now is the time to borrow while rates are historically low!
We make banking about YOU!
From left: Robbie Roepstorff, President; Rob Lisenbee, Vice President; Andy Davis, Consumer Banking; Kim Nyberg, Vice President, Professional & Executive Banking; Pam Edwards, Senior Vice President, Business Banking; Geoff Roepstorff, CEO
13000 S. Cleveland Ave. Fort Myers, FL 33907 239.466.1800
2105 First St. Fort Myers, FL 33901 239.334.4668
www.edisonnationalbank.com
1699 Periwinkle Way Sanibel Island, FL 33957 239.472.7211
www.bankoftheislands.com
14812 Captiva Drive Captiva Island, FL 33924 239.395.0248 An Equal Housing Lender/Member FDIC Bank of the Islands is an office of Edison National Bank.
