The Sexual Chemistry of Power !

One of the dumbest things that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former IMF Chief, did was to forcibly drag a female hotel staff to the bathroom and sexually assault her when she came into his suite in New York for cleaning the room. When the hapless widow of African origin raised an alarm, he tried to flee the country. This is no ordinary crime and DSK is no ordinary man: He was hailed as the saviour of the global economy who revived the IMF and made it relevant and was almost certain to become the next president of France. Now that hope lays dazed. Almost on the heels of it, news came that Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governator of California, had bedded a maid, fathered a love child with her and kept it as a secret for 13 years to save his political career! Elsewhere Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, is embroiled in legal proceedings in which he is charged of running a prostitution ring and sleeping with minors. Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal seems so lame in hindsight. Closer home, actor Shiney Ahujah raped a house maid and almost ruined his career in Bollywood. What’s wrong with these guys? Are they nuts staking their lives over so ephemeral an experience that lasts just moments?  

I am so sure that powerful men, especially politicians and industrialists, in India are as lecherous as their counterparts in the west as passion knows no race or colour of the skin. The reason why so few sleazy indiscretions of the Indians hit the newspaper headlines may be due to the self censorship of the Indian media which rarely touches the private lives of the powerful men even with a barge pole. The Indian media compartmentalises the public and private lives of famous people and this has almost become an article of faith among the Indian journalists.

The Big O question is: Why do powerful men indulge in these silly acts, may I add self-destructive ones, risking their reputation, position and status in the society for 2-minutes of testosterone surge? The answer may lie in the fact that, as the saying goes, power corrupts and turns even the sanest person into an ego-head with a sense of entitlement and invincibility abetted by the coterie of YES men surrounding him. This is a trap most men in powerful positions fall into. And when confronted, the attitude of the powerful men leans towards this expression of disdain: “Don’t they know who we are?”

Psychologists term the gradual transformation of hitherto polite, honest and outgoing men into impulsive, reckless and rude prigs as the Paradox of Power. The qualities that made one a leader such as compassion, empathy and sensitivity seem to evaporate when a person attains a position of authority. A powerful person often degenerates into a heartless, cold and materialistic hedonist who tends to judge other people based on stereotypes and generalisations. In electoral political parlance, this is called the anti-incumbency factor which has dislodged many ruling parties out of power because of their hubris and complacency that end up alienating the common people.

But I am intrigued why we hear so few powerful women caught with their petticoats down. Doesn’t power affect women’s behaviour the same way it does powerful men? Why are there so less rumours of female public figures having lurid affairs with their underlings and male secretaries? This is worth asking since we have universally associated power with bad and risky behaviour that makes for tabloid stories.  

In the same breathe, what goes in the mind of guys when they see a powerful woman? Fear, hatred, trepidation or resentment: Yes. What about attraction? Hardly. Monica Lewinsky was clearly besotted with the charm of Bill Clinton and was willing to do Bill’s bidding and how; and such attraction to powerful men is not uncommon among women anywhere. The point of stark difference is: male interns do not fall at the feet of the Hilary Clinton hoping for a steamy romp and we do not hear of any cute guy stalking Mayawati? This is because the likeability of women decreases as they climb up the power ladder. While women find powerful men sexy and desirable, men are turned off by powerful women as if they are some kind of neutered species that have lost its femininity and turned senile. 

Or are we wrong about this assumption that women in command are beyond reproach in their personal lives? It may be that women are as adventurous as the powerful male bellypots but because women are much more discrete and smarter at keeping their escapades under the white sheets that they stir little controversy and do not raise people’s eyebrows!  

Or it may be that countless men that female Jane Bonds have used and discarded are just suffering in silence lest they be laughed at if words leak out revealing their servility to the fairer sex in matters of what’s believed to be predominantly a male game. A male victim at the hands of a woman is more likely to keep his loins at peace then to cry from the rooftop about his deflowered modesty. Since very few men come forward to spill the beans and lodge sexual harassment complaints, we may never be able to fully discover the real extent of philandering by the high powered women.

Unfortunately or fortunately for men, there are not too many powerful women in government, industry or in society. In India, not even a quarter of the members of the Parliament are women. Likewise, even in advanced countries, women are still lagging behind men in occupying positions of power and significance. This representation gap in the sphere of power skews the data and leads to the false assumption that women have much cleaner records in terms of their involvement in scandals of passion, which is a simplistic notion.  

Also consider the society’s differential attitudes towards sexuality of the two genders. Women are meant to be the epitome of propriety and are frowned upon if they cross the line of acceptable behaviour, but the same society takes a very lenient, if not permissive, view of men’s roving ways with the justification that ‘boys are boys”. Media reflects this gender bias and by default shines a harsher light on female public leaders and subjects them to sharper scrutiny of their private peccadilloes, a fact which may have deterred many women from letting her hair down.   

Then we can’t miss the Darwinian explanation. Women are more concerned about stability and finding the best mate who can look after her and her children, then in sowing wild seeds like men to enhance the chances of their genes being carried forward through generations. Blame evolutionary instincts for all the misdeeds of men! 

Now blame biology. The fear of unwanted pregnancy too is a great deterrent to the hedonistic drive of women albeit the existence of over-the-counter birth control/emergency pills that are seen as one of the weapons in the handbag of Second Wave feminism.   

All said and done, at the end of the day, power makes a man almost irresistible and definitely attractive, even if he is an octogenarian who can’t stand up properly. Power in men is emblematic of competence, intelligence and bank balance. Powerful women, on the other hand, are not considered amiable and interesting; at best they are nice, but not desirable. Male chauvinists even resent them as intruders in the Boy’s Club because, whether we like it or not, we still live in a patriarchal society though there are signs of this falling apart at the seams. For most men, it’s the looks that appeals to them—and not money or power that women have. For most women, it’s the other way round: no woman of stature will want to marry an exact replica of John Abraham from Lilong who pulls a rickshaw! Shsssss!

But what separates a good man from the man of straw is his ability to resist the temptations dangling before him and be truthful to the relationships he has with his dear and near ones. Powerful men should keep in mind that the more they wander away from society’s norms of behaviour, they seem less fit for holding powerful positions in the public eye, and their attractiveness slowly turns into one of scorn. It’s a game of diminishing returns. 

Yet, power in men is so insanely intoxicating and charming in the short run that Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister had the temerity to say this to a crowd of women: 

“Did you hear the latest poll? They asked women between twenty and thirty years old if they want to make love to Berlusconi. Thirty-three per cent said yes! Sixty-seven per cent said ‘Again?’ ”

And he got away with it!

5-Jun-2011 / 12:37 AM / Ranjan Yumnam / 0 Comments