A news story the other day said that researchers were surprised to learn that voters are not turned off by the more personal and seamier side of political news. It is too bad they never asked any politicos about it. Not that political apparatchiks are gossips, mind you, but they do dearly like to know which politicians are doing whom. What has changed over the past 30 years is the attitude of the news media. Whereas they used to suppress stories about the private aspect of politicians’ lives, today almost anything goes.
As little as 30 years ago, the media would spike anything that dealt with lascivious interest in politicians’ sex lives. Even stories coming off police blotters were obscured and you had to understand what was meant by making improper use of a public toilet to know why a certain politician was booked and embarrassed. You cannot suggest that the media did not know. Political activists might be a tight community but what is the point of being on the inside if you do not get to show off what you are hearing on the inside.
The key is trying to separate what is political gossip from facts. What media reporter, for example, is going to ask the Prime Minister about the rumours (supposedly spread by the Opposition) about his tiffs with wife Laureen? The reporter would be sent to Coventry by the Prime Minister’s Office and severely castigated by his or her editor or news director.
What some people do not realize about political life is that it can be a very fast-paced power trip. Living in that kind of pressure cooker environment is a turn-on, emotionally and sexually. And powerful political positions attract sexual opportunities. There are many men and women who get off on adding a person of presumed power as another notch on their list of sexual trysts.
As we used to say about political Ottawa, it is a place of lots of hot and heavy, meaningless sex. Not, we hasten to add, that there are not the straight arrows who, despite leaving a spouse behind to look after the family and family home, choose not wander the fleshpots of the Nation’s Capitol.
Maybe the biggest difference today is that few politicians are staying in the closet about their sexual orientation. While the political communities used to be aware of who was gay or lesbian, it was left unsaid in the media. Today, the politicians seem to think the public will be more interested if they lay bare their sexual preferences. It seems to work for all but the Conservative politicians or those who count on a strongly homophobic ethnic base of voters.
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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry
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