Silda, Kristen and Camille

The Elliot Spitzer thing really did shock me. When we played "dream cabinet" (I can't be the only one starting to think about cabinet and judicial appointments, now, can I?), he was my pick for AG. I genuinely liked him. And I wonder: what the hell?

Evidently he adores his wife, Silda. Absolutely adores her. Enough that she had the final say over whether he resigned or not. This is a woman who, according to the The Times, "gave up a high-powered career as a corporate lawyer to raise three daughters and support her husband as he sought elective office." And Spitzer supposedly absolutely cherished her:

The only person whose approval he values so much that she has even, at times, been
able to take the edge off his abrasive style. They cite her willingness to quit her job...as
something for which he has always felt especially grateful.... "The fact that she believed
in me enough to put her very promising legal career on hold was a great source of
inspiration," Mr. Spitzer said.

So why would the man risk not only the governorship, but also the woman he loved? I think it comes back to the virgin/whore dichotomy. (I'm totally making this up--I base it on nothing other than my gut feeling and Peter Segal of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me and The Big Book of Vices, had some terrific theories on Talk of the Nation.) We know some part of Spitzer wanted "unsafe" and "dangerous" things. And I'm guessing, he viewed his wife as a truly wonderful and amazing being. She gave up her career. She's the mother of his children! How could her ask her to do that, to go to the dark places of his eroticism that his soul craved? He could never ask that of her, and so he went elsewhere.

Kristen, meanwhile, is 22. And, it seems to me, a rather ditzy 22. There is no way this woman could be a partner, a confidante, a respected equal. She is pretty and sexy in a cold, antiseptic sort of way. Perfect, but generic.

But that seems to be what so many men want. A generic girl with a cute butt and a flat stomach.

And that is the difference between eroticism and sex. Just imagine, for a moment, if Spitzer had had the courage to tell his wife what he wanted, back when she was his girlfriend? And if she had had similar areas she wanted to explore? But how the hell do we have that conversation? You never see a chick flick where the couple discusses what nourishes their erotic lives. It is completely unspoken in our culture. Scary. Dark. Bad. Wrong.

I'm not really a fan of Camille Paglia--in fact, for no reason at all, I've actively disliked her without knowing enough to justify that dislike. However, she raised a really interesting comment yesterday:

I am very concerned by a degeneration of erotic images in American media. It isn't
their mammoth proliferation that disturbs me (as it does many other feminists); it's
their antiseptic quality in this era of Botox and plasticized Barbie boobs. American sex is
all flash and no sizzle.

I think her analysis doesn't go far enough, and her examples, I don't think, do justice to her argument, but she raises something I've been trying to articulate, which I would label the difference between 'sexiness' and 'eroticism.'

Our popular culture has denigrated eroticism to a shocking degree. It is, I believe, a force too scary to be harnessed and impossible to be marketed. Contrary to popular view, advertisements don't sell sex as much as they sell dissatisfaction with your current sex life. If they just sold sex, we'd go have sex and we wouldn't buy their products. But they are feeding us this insiduous idea that our current sex lives aren't good enough (which they often aren't because we, as a culture, are so damn scared to actually talk about what we want and go to those dark places), so we need this product to be fulfilled. Meanwhile, while they are busy trying to sell us products we don't need based on insecurities they've invented.

Meanwhile, in order to sell us products they have to tell the women they aren't pretty enough the way they are, so they will obsess about the fact that their stomachs aren't concave. It is no wonder that Hollywood starlets are discarded by the time they are 40. It is no wonder that Susan Sarandon is an exception to this rule--that woman has eroticism in her bones.

Meanwhile, the men are told they aren't virile enough without a sports car, or a blackberry, or whatever the gadget du jour is. And the woman at his side isn't a partner; she is yet another gadget to show the world his power. She is an item on his list of acquisitions.

And eroticism falls by the wayside. Too dangerous.