Q: Dear Goddess, why is everyone so obsessed, still, over Mark Sanford’s affair in Argentina? Think of Clinton, or Kennedy, or the hundreds of other politicians who have slept around! –Michael
A. Dear Earth Boy: No one is obsessed, at this point, over Mark Sanford’s affair or affairs. Or even his insulting decision to attempt to re-fall in love with his wife. Or even his sanctimonious, holier-than-thou, family-values, I’d-never-do-that-and-anyone-else-who-does-should-be-shot position in the world.
People are obsessed with this buttoned up icon of virtue because he has completely lost it. And why wouldn’t he, with the kind of moral repression he insists on? A man who is against everything sexual and then, bursting out of his own cage says things like “God wants me to keep this office” even when the world is asking for him to step down, is deluded. Severe moral repression (“I’d never do anything bad. Oops. If I’ve done anything bad it must not be that bad “) can do nothing other than morph into lunacy.
Two little facts about humans to keep in mind, my darling lovers everywhere:
1. Teenage virginity pledges are rarely kept. In study after study, teens don’t live up to their abstinence ideals (no matter how religious they and their parents are) and, moreover, do develop sexually transmitted diseases at about the same rate as other teens, the ones who have not made such pledges.
2. The Very Very Religious commit adultery at exactly the same rate as those terrible people they call Heathens and Infidels. Truly.
It’s so easy to just be a flawed, frail human. Those who deny the evidence that we’re all vulnerable creatures and preach an impossible standard of moral virtue inevitably implode. And destroy. 