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February 5, 2007Got Sex? ReduxA Little More Ado About NothingI SPEND ABOUT 0 HOURS A WEEKreading political chat rooms, but after posting my Got Sex? column before hearing anyone else’s opinion on the Newsom/Rippey-Tourk debacle, I looked at some of the links on Usual Suspects and ran across the C.W. Nevius column “Unforgiveable Breach of the Man Code” (“a set of rigid but unwritten boundaries over which no man may step.” Break the Man Code, and you’re toast.) BURNT TOAST, NO LESSSomeone by the name of Libby Copeland in The Washington Post of 2/4/07 even invented a new award, “You’re Toast,” given for “butter-side-down moments” by “politicians who’ve recently done something monumentally stupid.” Sorry, but Gavin loses First Prize to Joe Biden for his remarks about the exceptional hygiene of Barack Obama; Our Man comes in Second for “being so grateful for the hard work of campaign manager Alex Tourk that he decided to personally thank Tourk’s wife. Naked.” UNFORGIVABLE BREACHThe Nevius article reveals there’s a surprising split between male and female opinion. Looks like the episode may cost him more male than female votes as you might have thought. No, it’s the unwritten rule that you don’t fuck with your friends’ women that has men in a tizzy. Nevius quotes a couple of guys: “It’s a huge betrayal. It’s big. It’s mythical.” “When you talk about things that are as low as you can go, without being criminal, this is it.” THAT’S RIGHT, NONE OF OUR BUSINESSOne guy answered my contention that the affair is none of our business: “Hello? Newsom slept with his friend’s wife. What if he stole from a friend? Or tried to frame a friend? Would that also be nobody’s business?” No, but those are crimes. Newsom’s affair will become my business when Rippey-Tourk and/or Alex Tourk sue the City and win. In that case, I say Gavin should settle out of his own overstuffed pocket. I haven’t seen it spelled out that sex with a subordinate is against City policy. If there’s a Mayor’s Employee Manual or Ethics Commission guideline, I haven’t found one on the sf.gov site, though I did once see a manual for Supervisors. If Newsom has broken some express City code, I assume he’d already be seeing the consequences. But to assume because he betrayed the trust of his friend and/or his staff in this instance, that he can’t be trusted, period, including with the reins of the city, is hypothetical overstatement. I HAD TO ASK MYSELF,though, had I “forgiven” Gavin because I’m a woman? No. Because there is nothing for me to forgive Gavin. Why? I’LL SAY THIS AGAIN.Other people’s sex is none of our business. Because his sex life, and that of Ruby Rippey-Tourk, are none of my business. They made a mistake, and it is not for me to judge them. My opinion, however, is that the bigger mistake they made was not going to Alex Tourk together afterwards and telling him directly, We have done something we’re very ashamed of. We both screwed you over. We can’t regret it more than we do. Can you find a way to forgive us? If he was going to hear, he should have heard about it from both of them, wife and friend, and promptly. This delayed reaction thing was brutal. Maybe Gavin honored her decision not to tell him? But did they really think this thing could never rear its ugly head again? I’D RATHER NOT KNOW IF IT’S ALL THE SAME TO YOUA friend who has been in counseling told me that “making amends” or confessions doesn’t necessarily require that you hurt people. I guess it depends on the person and what they need to cleanse themselves of—but at risk of destroying your marriage and people’s careers? One gal married 25 years said, on a Chronicle podcast, if there’s one thing she has learned is that “you cannot tell your spouse everything…some things you’ve just got take to the grave,” “turn it over to God.” And regardless of therapeutic value, “Families have been ruined behind someone not keeping their mouth shut.” I have a feeling extramarital sex is common as dirt, and concealing it as common. YEAH RIGHTAnother gal on the podcast said this “gives hope to women all over, even married women, that we have a chance at Gavin Newsom.” Brother! As if! Hold your breath why don’t you. One thing that does not impress me about Newsom is that I see him only with the most conventionally beautiful women, never anyone ordinary looking. Of course as a handsome rich mayor he gets the pick of the pussy lot; he certainly doesn’t have to settle for brains alone when he can get brains and beauty (I’m only assuming he does require brains). (I have never subscribed to the gay rumor because the only time Gavin Newsom has ever looked at me, during and after a Town Hall meeting, it was not the look of a gay man.) Is it his charisma and dynamism that influence me? No. It’s that his sex life is none of my business. WHY ME? WHY NOT HIM?Now why was I so adamant about Ragone getting the boot and marginalizing what Newsom did? After all Ragone too made a mistake, said he learned his lesson etc. Partly because of the aura of general smarm that the guy carries with him. I have never liked him and he gives off a sleazy aura of always trying to put something over on people. A personal lapse of judgment with a sexual indiscretion is not on the same ball court as bald-faced lying and chicanery in your job as the liaison between the mayor and the city. I didn’t see an email address for Ragone on sfgov.org and I assumed it to be peter.ragone@sfgov.org; however, my message [“Please do the right thing and submit your resignation to Mayor Newsom. Or else as his right hand man, advise him to fire you.”] was returned the next day from postmaster@sfgov.org after the “delivery time expired.” I say straighten up and fly right—right out of town, bub. Centralia, USA, would be happy to have you. MY CODE VS. YOUR CODEDid Gavin betray the public trust, like Peter Ragone clearly did? Only if you want to foist your own morality on the Mayor. Only if the trespass of marital vows is unforgivable in your book. Only if you expect him to be superhuman and follow all the rules because “we expect more from our leaders” and what you expect from your leader is unimpeachable character (based again on your code of morality). ONLY IF YOU THINK THAT OTHER PEOPLE’S SEX IS YOUR BUSINESSPeople have been sticking their noses in other people’s sex since time, or religion, began. This practice has resulted in centuries of horrific damage to people’s lives. Look at how people throughout history have been ostracized, stoned, murdered because their sex life was judged by others. It’s really got to stop. Gay-bashing, for just one instance, wouldn’t exist, if people admitted other people’s sex is none of their business. But people are not only judgmental, they are voyeurs. They want to look, and probe, and talk, and scold. For instance, the gleeful high-fiving I’m told is going on at City Hall. How considerate, and mature! But Newsom is too easy a target—rich, glamorous, powerful—people want to bring him down a notch. What better fodder for the gossip feeding-frenzy that drives public life? WHO YOU CALLING HELPLESS?I called Newsom “helpless in the grip of passion.” That was pure speculation on my part, based on the assumption that both of them resisted betraying husband and friend and could not. My bottom line feeling though is that it’s the person who’s in the committed relationship that is the one whose responsibility it ultimately is to protect the relationship—not the usurper. But considering his position as a Mayor, as an employer, as a friend and colleague of the man he wronged, Gavin certainly would have had his own plenty good reasons to hold back. Unless he was helpless in the grip of passion! IF HE DOES THIS ALL THE TIME, WE’LL SOON HEAR ABOUT ITI tend to think that Newsom and Rippey-Tourk developed a workplace attachment, very easy when you see someone every day, and it got the better of them. Alternatively, it’s possible Newsom is a manipulative controlling exploitative (coke-snorting for good measure according to h brown) boss always looking to score with staffers who think it might advance their careers. Or that it was an entirely casual dalliance. Don’t know. ARE YOU EXEMPT FROM DESIRE?And who really knows what any of us would do in a given situation? Who knows just which of us for instance is capable of the classic crime passionelle? Not necessarily just criminals, or the people with the worst tempers. What if you walked in on your wife with your best friend and boss? And you kept a gun in the dresser drawer? Would one overwhelming moment of anger, shock, heartbreak and impulse mean that you could kill again? That you’re a born murderer? That you wouldn’t view it as the biggest mistake of your life? But you couldn’t undo it either. All you could do is regret it. WHAT I LIVE FOR, IF GIVEN THE CHANCEI do have a bias in this issue, though, and that is that true desire for someone and the fulfillment thereof is one of the things that most makes life worth living—and that one doesn’t experience such denouements all that often. I wouldn’t be all that surprised if I copped one at someone else’s expense (moral negotiations take place on a case-by-case basis). I don’t know anything about making marriage vows and having your spouse break them and your friend disrespect them; I can’t speak to that. But I do know something about passionate desire for someone, I know what it’s like to think you will die if you can’t slide your hand inside some guy’s open shirt collar and draw him near you, I know what it’s like to feel a spark with someone and think there’s nothing in the world more important than making that connection. Clearly there is, but it doesn’t feel like it at the time. I have never slept with a married person, nor attempted to, but here’s a San Francisco story for you. OK, NO NAMES,but while I was living in Portland, Oregon, as I did for 15 years, the National Slam Poetry Championships came to town. I attended various events (Gus van Sant shook my hand), and was captivated by one amusing San Francisco poet who won a coveted title. When I moved to the Bay Area some years later, I wasn’t surprised to see him in the crowd at the Roxie Theater waiting to see Chris Felver’s film “The Coney Island of Lawrence Ferlinghetti,” figuring there was a decent chance I’d run into the Bay Area poets in my travels. POINTS FOR PUDGYWhen I leaned back to the row behind me and told him, I saw you win the Grand Poobah Competition at the Portland Slam Festival, he without a word got up and changed his seat to be next to me. That aggressive move was thing one that I liked about him right off the bat. I love not having to do all the work, because usually I do. Superficially the guy wasn’t my type, kind of a roly-poly jolly sort, but he had an adventurous spirit and I enjoyed his company. We went out for a drink after, and whatever it is that I’ve got, he was gettin’ it. He was all a-twinkle on the bar stool and suggested a ride up to Filbert Stairs on his moped (more points for aggressive suggestion). I was all for it. Somewhat to my surprise, I found myself in his arms, a sexy love chant being whispered in my ear, and thoroughly enjoying kissing him on a bench beneath phallic Coit Tower and the full moon. I think the moon gave up some of its green cheese that night. YOU NO GOOD M’F'IN’ C’S'IN’ SCOUNDRELHe was on his way to Chicago and gave me his number. I wondered what I was going to do about this happenstance as I was so surprised by it, but when I called him a few days later and his answering machine said, “WE can’t come to the phone right now,” I got suspicious. The next time I talked to him I said, “You’re married, aren’t you?” “Yes,” he answered sheepishly. “You son of a bitch!” “I’m sorry.” “Apologize to your wife!” Slam! And that was that. Fun evening, though, the kind San Francisco is so good at providing. I enjoy remembering it. But if I’m going to kiss a married guy I’d at least like to know what I’m doing. KISSING AS THERAPYLike the time I got into a make-out session on N. Interstate Ave. outside the White Eagle with the married drummer of a band, and when I went up to my ride, my girlfriend was at the window wearing an utterly appalled expression of judgment, shock, and disgust I will never forget. I knew, at the time, however, that his marriage was soon to end and that kissing me was “keeping him going,” he told me. I don’t know if she knew that or not but the look on her face was priceless. I almost laughed. R.I.P., LONNIEPoor guy, Lonnie Broadway, later drank himself to death before age 60. Before he was married I loved to kiss and kiss and kiss him, but I was never tempted to sleep with him—every happen to you? That’s just how it was between us, so when his marriage blew up it was easy to fall back into. He gave me my favorite compliment of all my life. I asked him, I don’t know, if I was bothering him or something at the camp ground at Trout Lake, and he replied, gazing up from his lounge chair: “You ain’t nothin’ but fine, fine fine…” ONE MORE THING AND I’M DONE.My favorite reaction to The Newsom Affaire was an email from Jerome Christensen, an architect I used to work with: “Another way to look at it is in the tradition of the Greek tragedy where dirty laundry is what it’s all about. In that light it’s a bit of a boring play, I mean, it’s not like Gavin slept with his mother and then poked his eyes out.” Yeah, it was only a bit of boring adultery. REALLY, LET’S JUST PUT THIS IN PERSPECTIVEThis is a San Francisco sex scandal with a scandalous conclusion. This is an excerpt from http://www.coyotela.org/what_is.html#juvenile (Coyote LA, a group lobbying to decriminalize prostitution).
He pled guilty! Seven counts of statutory rape and he didn’t spend a day in jail! He was even running for Mayor at the time! Now he’s still running SF HONDA and his website proclaims “an active interest in forging strong and positive ties with their employees, customers and the local community.”—and underage prostitutes? If you’re driving a Honda, I hope you didn’t get it at 10 South Van Ness! Giving in to a morally questionable impulse, sleeping with a friend’s wife, however distasteful, is simply not on the same league, as sex scandals go. And if you really want to talk about abusing the office of Mayor, go back to Schmitz and Ruef in the Barbary Coast days. Gavin’s a lightweight. Having a shameful secret in his past doesn’t tarnish his image, in my book, it just humanizes him, reveals some of the vulnerability that lies beneath the Golden Boy façade. THE KEY TO HAVING SECRETS IS BEING ABLE TO KEEP THEMSecrecy can be very seductive, as was pointed out in “Notes from a Scandal.” Secrecy can get you into hot water, and it can keep you out of hot water. I suggest you think twice before you tell someone that secret that’s been preying on your mind. It’s in the past, and perhaps you should leave it there. Hm?
The author throws off her past. ------------------------------------------------------------ The past is ephemeral
Do you promise not to tell? copyright Alexandra Jones 2007 |
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