On Sexual Predators, Real and Alleged (Exploiting the Power Differential)

“Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.” —Henry Kissinger (according to legend, said in explanation of the odd fact that a beautiful young starlet had the hots for him)

     Most celebrities and politicians publicly accused of being rapists, especially lately, haven’t actually forced a woman to have sex against her will. Only a very few really do overpower a woman (or more rarely another male) physically. (Bill Cosby allegedly drugged them and copulated with them while they were unconscious, so that they didn’t exercise any will at all in the matter, for or against, although in his case “rape” is a reasonable charge, assuming that the allegations are true—in such a case the action is not consensual.) But most celebrity “rapists” fall into one or both of two categories: those who commit statutory rape with a minor, and those who “exploit a power differential.”

     As I mentioned last time, statutory rape isn’t necessarily any worse morally than consensual sex with an adult of legal age. Once a person has reached puberty, that person is biologically prepared to start mating—that is, after all, the purpose of the changes of puberty. So molesting small children is much worse, in my opinion, than messing around with a 15-year-old girl, especially if she is no longer a virgin anyway. But calling a person a “rapist” or “pedophile” or “sexual predator” is a very convenient weapon to use, especially for political reasons. It produces a knee-jerk visceral reaction that can be effective in destroying a person’s career or reputation. Obviously, righteous indignation is usually not the actual motivation for such denunciations. Nevertheless, statutory rape, even of a girl the day before she reaches the legal age of consent, is illegal; and as the saying goes, don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.

     On the other hand, with regard to “exploiting a power differential,” I do not consider a powerful man capitalizing on the prestige or mystique of his position to attract women to be necessarily a sexual predator at all. This is one of the main reasons why men crave power in the first place! Throughout history men have risked death, risked everything, in their attempts to become chiefs, kings, sultans, emperors, and so on, with one of their primary motivations being the desire to bask in the glory of a harem of gorgeous females (and in some cases, another harem of hot, tight-assed boys). Closer to home, and less extreme, plenty of ordinary men still crave wealth and power largely for the sake of attracting attractive women. This is in conformity with human nature—not only for men, but for women too.

     As I’ve mentioned before, it is among the mating instincts of the human animal for men to be attracted to youth and beauty in females, and women to be attracted to power and social status in males. There are always exceptions to the rule, but this has been the general trend for hundreds of thousands of years. Consequently, a rich, famous, powerful man attracting any number of women is no more “exploiting a power differential” than is a fantastically gorgeous young woman wrapping any number of men around her little finger through their instinctive, hormone-conditioned addiction to her beauty. Seriously, a powerful man exploiting his power for sex and a beautiful woman exploiting her beauty for sex are moral equivalents. One is morally no better and no worse than the other, regardless of public opinion, PC hysteria, or journalistic hit pieces and political smear campaigns.

     Speaking of political smear campaigns, I don’t know many of the details of Bill Clinton’s escapades, as I was living in Asian forests without Internet at the time of his presidency, but I am skeptical of allegations that he was a “serial rapist,” as I have heard him called several times, unless it was statutory rape of teenage girls on Jeffrey Epstein’s “Lolita Express,” or some such. (Also there is the case of Juanita Broaddrick, who claimed to have been raped in the starkest sense by Clinton, back when he was still just a lowly state attorney general, although technically, one case is not “serial.”) I would guess that most or even all of the young women he dallied with after he gained power and prestige were probably starry-eyed, thrilled, and very willing to be pursued, and caught, by a governor, or better yet the president—the most powerful man in the world—and a charming and not bad-looking guy at that—just as most men would be overjoyed to be pursued by the reigning Miss America.

     It all represents just so much more public hysteria, with right-wingers conveniently taking advantage of it to attack philandering politicians and other celebrities on the other side (for example by calling Bill Clinton a serial rapist, or endeavoring to drive Establishment outsider Roy Moore out of the Alabama senatorial race). Such allegations are mostly hypocritical, since, again, one of the main reasons why men get rich in the first place is to attract women, especially nubile ones.

US senator Al Franken in a rather compromising photograph

     Clinton was a blamable president more because of his chronic lying (let alone NAFTA, giving nuclear technology to North Korea, and turning a blind eye toward the first wave of PC hysteria on university campuses) than because of his wanton adultery; adultery made him a shitty husband—although considering what Hillary turned into, maybe it was justified.

     Bill Clinton obviously wasn’t the only wantonly oversexed political leader the world has ever seen. Julius Caesar was called “every woman’s husband and every man’s wife,” and scandalized Rome (no doubt due to a political smear campaign) by allegedly having a homosexual fling with a Greek king in Asia Minor. Both Catherines of Russia, including “the Great,” were allegedly nymphomaniacs, more or less, with the first one (not “the Great”) allegedly dying from a disastrous attempt to have sex with a horse. Benjamin Franklin was also such a rascal in sexual matters, being the member of a notorious sex club in Paris, for example, that puritanical John Adams could hardly stand being near him. Even crippled old Franklin D. Roosevelt indulged in a little White House adultery. And of course John F. Kennedy, if the stories about him are true, went way beyond the likes of Bill Clinton with regard to presidential sexual conquests. Not to mention all those emperors, kings, and sultans with harems so large that it would take them a year just to work their way through the whole roster. So it seems that men (and women) of exceptional energy and even genius are often rampantly oversexed. I’m not exactly sure why that is, unless it’s a matter of exceptional energy.

     Anyway, to recapitulate the main point of this rambling discussion, if this whole thing were summarized down to one sentence, it would be this: Since men are instinctively attracted to youth and beauty, and women are instinctively attracted to power and social status, for a man to use his power and social status to attract several women is no more reprehensible or wrong or an “exploitation of a power differential” than for a woman to use her youth and beauty to attract several men—they are morally equivalent. If you remember only one thing from reading this, let it be that. And to hell with political correctness.

     In addition to exploiting power differentials and messing around with jailbait, a major form of “sexual predation,” or unscrupulous rascality, is the form of the Hollywood casting couch, which I mentioned last time, and which I mention again in conclusion, as it has been in the news plenty recently. A similar phenomenon is any boss requiring sexual favors from a prospective employee; and to some degree even a police officer accepting sexual favors in exchange for not ticketing or arresting a young woman would qualify as a general example. The casting couch, and a young woman preferring to fellate a police officer rather than receive a ticket or be arrested, can hardly be called rape in any sense other than a politically correct hysterical one, as discussed last time; in the latter case the police officer is culpable for other reasons, such as not doing his duty, and taking sexual favors as a bribe. To the extent that certain conduct is illegal, of course, it is a crime, and punishable as one. But it seems to me that the Hollywood casting couch should not necessarily be illegal in a free society, although any director or producer who resorts to such hiring tactics should certainly be called out on it. The thing is, the woman has a choice, and always has the right to refuse. If a young woman values fame and money more than she values her own moral integrity, well that’s her own choice, isn’t it, and her own fault; she’s a whore regardless of the sleaziness of the man involved. Many women have become famous and successful because of the casting couch, not in spite of it. Women prostituting themselves for the sake of fame and money is par for the course in the entertainment industry, regardless of all the virtue signaling coming from that direction nowadays. Let the truth be known, and let public opinion and the free market regulate such things, with no need for government legislation to get involved…but that’s a subject for another time.

why oh why didn't they just stay harmless hippies?