The lurid rape case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn appears to be collapsing like a big hard phallus suddenly gone flaccid when confronted with the all-too-deflating truth. The alleged victim, a housekeeper whose torrid tale of savage rape at the hands of the 62-year-old IMF chief in a luxurious Sofitel suite had so entranced police and pundits with its seductive “credibility,” has been linked to drug-dealing, money laundering and lying like a wet bathmat on the cum-stained bathroom floor. She was also recorded, within 24 hours of the alleged “rape,” having a telephone conversation with a prison inmate about the exciting and lucrative benefits of pursuing assault charges against the man with whom she’d just had what now appears to have been consensual oral sex.
Talk about the maid service blowjob from hell?. Don’t check into the Sofitel!
That’s the first moral of this torrid tale. Another might be look before you leap, or investigate before you speak. When Strauss-Kahn (aka DSK) was made to take the all-American “perp walk,” pundits on the Right and Left treated him as guilty until proven innocent, gnashing their pious teeth over his “womanizing” ways. Looks like now they’ll have to eat their accusations, though I’m sure they’ll season their humble pie with excuses.
Because really, whether or not you think DSK should be having sex with women other than his wife or staying in $3000-a-night hotel suites while allegedly attempting to reform the International Monetary Fund, you have to admit being plucked off your plane and tossed into Riker’s Island for a rape you didn’t commit is harsh. Yes, everyone seems to agree that this guy is an incorrigible womanizer, un “coureur de jupons” en fran?ais, literally a “racer after petticoats” or skirt-chaser, or un “chaud lapin” (a hot rabbit?). But #1) his wife Anne Sinclair seems to be ok with that, and #2) since when is that against the law in either of our countries?
Let’s get this straight. Womanizing is not rape. A man?or woman (some of the most incorrigible womanizers I know are horny lesbian women)–who pursues sex with many different women is not necessarily?or usually?a rapist.
In fact, god and goddess bless our womanizers?male and female?because without them, a lot of shy folks would never get laid. These “womanizers,” from King Solomon to Casanova to Clinton to Wikileaks’ Julian Assange, utilize Weapons of Mass Seduction (WMS) to feed their intense and very natural desire for sex with multiple partners. It can be irritating to those who bust our proverbial balls trying to follow the hard rules of monogamy or who just don’t have the erotic opportunities that wealth and power bring. But as long as they always operate consensually, as long as they understand that “no means no,” can we stop calling womanizers rapists? Or do we want to turn them all into Weiners?
Doubtless, the pious excuse-makers will point out that, historically, women have more often cried foul justly and had their legitimate pleas dismissed than they have accused others falsely. Actually, this is another reason why we should be so vigilant in distinguishing between criminal rapists, libidinous womanizers, and just plain careless revelers. No one should be more shocked and offended than feminists. Rape, a serious and often devastating crime, should not be watered down by greedy power grabbers, ready and willing to trivialize victims of real sexual crime for their own personal gain. The housekeeper seems to have bet on America’s puritanical hand at the expense of the dignity of real rape victims everywhere, and almost got away with it.
Speaking of which, where did this housekeeper come from? Conspiracy theorists and gossip mills are churning?Did Sarkozy set DSK up? Is there some international brothel of seemingly leftist, but secretly paid-by-the-right-wing hookers who honey-trap horny guys on the Left? Or is this just a case of the NYPD being a bunch of all-American gun-slingers who shoot first and ask questions later? We’ll never know for sure?
I’ve never met DSK and I’m not versed in his politics. But I feel I have to set off a firecracker, write a blog and raise a glass of French champagne to the impending freedom of this quintessential French dude on America’s freedom holiday weekend. Vive la France! Hopefully, he’ll be home in time for Bastille Day.
Of course, DSK is not just any French dude. No doubt, his multi-million euro legal team has given him a lot more time and loving attention than most dudes?French or American?who get falsely accused of similar sex crimes receive from their poorly paid public defenders. Many men and women are rotting and being beaten in jails and prisons all over America for “sex crimes” they didn’t commit, sometimes even after their false accusers have retracted their claims. Hopefully, DSK’s case will draw attention to this travesty of justice fostered by American erotophobia.
Full disclosure: I know just what DSK’s wife was going through when she worried about her husband being incarcerated unfairly on false sex crime charges.
But no, I’m not crying for DSK. He’ll be all right. His sex life may even improve. Freedom is the greatest aphrodisiac. And restraint is a close second. I’m sure DSK has fantastic stories to tell of life on Riker’s Island, another potent tool for his WMS arsenal that should keep his baguette well-basted in the saliva of female admirers for many years to come. It might even help him get back in the race for the French presidency. The French love their coureurs de jupons, and a few of them still know the difference between a law-abiding womanizer and a rapist, despite pressure from Puritanical America across the pond and those depressed, broken-condom-crazy Swedes to the north.
I am crying (a little) for America and our victims. Once again, we’ve shown the world, and specifically the French, that we are clueless about sex, that we are witch-hunting wolves in politically correct sheep’s clothing. All over the world, right now, people of different lands are pointing at America, Land of the Free, and laughing at how hypocritical we are with our porn industry and erotic ads for everything, yet we arrest people?our own citizens or yours?and immediately throw them into our worst jails over the flimsiest of sex crime accusations. And then our case collapses. The revelations about DSK’s “victim” didn’t even come from his defense, but from the prosecution’s own investigation. How humiliating for America, caught with our investigative pants down.
As a sex therapist, I know that sexual humiliation can be very traumatizing for individuals and nations. I hope and pray we won’t overreact to being considered the world’s biggest sexual buffoons and bomb some innocent people in some country with which we’re supposedly at “war” over this, but I know we will. We always do.
Benjamin Franklin, one of the great womanizers in history (especially on his trips to France where he promoted the friendship of our two countries), is probably turning over in his grave to see his beloved “free country” become a gun-slinging, erotophobic police state.
There is another way, the Bonobo Way of peace through pleasure, but that’s the subject of another bloggamy. In the meantime, Happy American Independence Day, Monsieur et Madame Strauss-Kahn. If you want us to give back the Statue of Liberty, I wouldn’t blame you.
Dr. Susan Block is an internationally renowned LA sex therapist and author of The 10 Commandments of Pleasure, occasionally seen on HBO and other channels. Commit Bloggamy with her at http://drsusanblock.com/blog/ Follow her on Twitter @DrSuzy. Email comments to her at liberties@blockbooks.com
