I’m sitting in an Indian take-out place watching news coverage of former Presidential intern Mimi Alford’s allegations about her affair with President Kennedy. It reminds us that in the days before laptops, people unfolded their real laps eagerly. The show was preceded by a sitcom that portrayed (or, more accurately, parodied) the state of relationships between the sexes fifty years later. The sitcom episode’s plot strongly suggested a lesbian threesome. We’ve learned to consider such things blasé, while the concept of a President screwing his underlings continues to register shock and dismay. Despite our increased tolerance, the real comfort level with sexuality has, I believe, only diminished.
I’d argue that this results from utter confusion as to what gender and sexuality is or does—not to mention utter confusion about human nature. We’re perfectly OK, it would seem, with the fact that the marketplace slices and dices us into boys and girls to decide whether we prefer wings or yogurt for lunch. We’re not OK with the idea of a man getting as much sex as he can, or if we are, he’d better be that guy who breathes fire and spits fake blood on stage for a living. What we’d think of a woman who had the same appetite? We’d probably have her star in a reality show too—but most definitely would not be OK with it, as any fifteen-minute visit to Twitter or Facebook reveals.
Few, if any, other areas of life have such a power to set our mood. Discomfort and discontent in the romantic arena seeps into other areas of our lives; conversely, when all is well in our love lives, the rest of life takes on the same rosy glow. I guess I offer no value judgments right now other than to say we should spend more time contemplating that mystery and just kind of being in it, regardless of our current status or level of success. That’s a much better object of our attention than allegations about a long-dead President, who surely was a cad but who may well have saved our planet from going into the microwave on high.


