Once the current fuss about super injunctions has died down and we realise we have built a world where the tabloid newspapers suddenly look like models of restraint next to Twitter Nation, we should think about this. Given the recent revelations about carnal actitivy on the far side of the red rope, does it not seem likely that a working majority of rich, famous and fit young men must at one time or another have been unfaithful to their partners, whether married or not?
It doesn't matter what figure you put on it - I think 75% would be realistic, 90% not impossible, 25% laughably naive - it seems childish to think that they're not. Footballers, actors, rock stars, deejays, TV personalities - they're all bundles of hormones and ego. They also don't have to go far to be surrounded by young women happy to help them discharge some of that fissile matter. Some of them do it all the time. Some of them stray occaionally. Hardly any are innocent.
I've met hundreds of rock stars and would swear on a stack of Bibles that at least 90% of them have been unfaithful. And if you don't believe me, go and ask anyone who's been married to them. They consider their promiscuity a fact of life. So why are we so outraged? What we think of their lifestyle weighs about as heavily as what we think about China's environmental policy and is about as likely to bring about a change. In fact it says a lot for our credulousness that we are shocked when details occasionally finds their way into the daylight.
Maybe we only pretend to be shocked because we like to pretend to be disgusted. It makes us feel superior. It's no use asking them to grow up. They don't have to. We're the ones who should grow up. The sooner we stop pretending to be shocked the sooner the problem may go away.
The infidelity isn't why people are disgusted. They're disgusted at the idea of the very rich having legal recourse that isn't available to everyone else. And they're disgusted at the potential implications of that for powerful people and more serious information.
ReplyDelete'Maybe we only pretend to be shocked because we like to pretend to be disgusted. It makes us feel superior. It's no use asking them to grow up. They don't have to. We're the ones who should grow up. The sooner we stop pretending to be shocked the sooner the problem may go away.'
ReplyDeleteWho's this 'we'? You're not shocked, I'm not shocked, none of the people who read your blog are shocked, I suspect.
The only people who are shocked (or [wiggle]shocked[wiggle]) are tabloid hacks who have undertaken to be shocked on our behalf. They're the ones who need to grow up.
I agree with Robert that the business of superinjunctions IS disgusting. But they wouldn't be necessary if the gutter press wasn't so relentlessly prurient.
Agree, how could anyone be shocked that a fabulously rich young man who works out a lot is offered it up on a plate and he finds it hard to say no? Could it be the scab of jealously the tabloids are picking at? I recall an extremely famous "happily" married actor having some hurried drunken rumpy-pumpy with a very attractive colleague of mine in the loos after an awards show once. "It was the best thing that has ever happened to me," she told me afterwards. "What, ever?" "Yes," she said. "Ever ..."
ReplyDeleteAre we shocked? Not likely. The only surprise is that the tabs continue to serve it up. Still, it's easier than thinking.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Very true. Many footballer's are unfaithful these days, but now the newspapers are just making a much bigger thing of it.
ReplyDelete