NOTE: Thanks to a reader for pointing out that I wrote “Adirondacks” instead of “Appalachian Trail.” The error has been corrected.
Ever since yesterday’s tearful confession by Governor Mark Sanford that no, actually he hadn’t run off without notice to go hiking alone on the Appalachian Trail but instead had gone to Argentina to end his affair, a panoply of experts in psychology, sex addiction, marriage counseling, and politics — on television, in the papers, and in the blogs — has been earnestly inquiring why a man who’s such a rising star in the galaxy of Republican governors, who is married to such “a lovely wife” and has “four wonderful kids,” would do such a thing.
What planet do these “experts” live on? As far as I can see, sex is barely controllable by society, no matter the strictness of the laws or customs in place. Plenty of people holding deeply held principles about the sanctity of marriage succumb to sex outside of marriage — sometimes with prostitutes, sometimes in one-night stands, and sometimes in long-term affairs. Even in places where adulterers are stoned to death, adultery exists.
Experts everywhere, consider the following proposition: Sex is one of the two great wild cards in life (the other being Fortuna). It’s a leering joker, always ready to upset even the best-laid plans. It has a terrible way of liking to show up precisely at moments when people think they’ve got their lives under control.
Lord Chesterfield was right, of course, when he said about sex that “the pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable.” But since when has truth ever stopped anyone? It’s irrelevant, except for philosophers. When sex joins with love, we enter the tragic terrain of Anna Karenina and Vronsky (if you like to think in terms of novels — which, by the way, remain the single best form for understanding how sex and love really work) or Julius Caesar and Cleopatra (if you prefer learning lessons about sex and love via history).
It was particularly interesting (actually, nauseating is a better word to use) to listen to talking therapy heads on Larry King Live last night while they pontificated about Governor Sanford’s affair. Their discussion was entirely in terms of psychology and politics, and not one of them considered, for a moment, that Governor Sanford might have fallen in love with the woman from Argentina. With no evidence whatsoever that Sanford is suffering from “sex addiction,” or that power had “gone to his head,” they talked about him as if he were a “sex addict” suffering from the problem of “narcissism.” And these “experts” presumed to diagnose Sanford’s “case” without knowing a thing about him, his wife, or the other woman in question.
Let me be clear that I am not advocating adultery, or forgetting that many people have been harmed by Governor Sanford’s affair. This is yet another sad and sorry story of a public official who has betrayed his wife. But any man who would disappear for a week in order to end an affair with a woman he’s been seeing for a year is probably not a “sex addict.”
As often happens, Jon Stewart offered the best commentary. “Oh,” he said. “Marital infidelity. You’re just another run-of-the-mill human being whose simple moralizing about the sanctity of marriage is only marred by the complexities of life.”
What if Governor Sanford had said at his press conference, “I am sorry, but I have simply fallen deeply in love with the most wonderful woman on the face of the earth. So I am leaving my wife and four children and hereby announcing my resignation from the office of the governor of South Carolina, and my intention is to move to Buenos Aires to be with the woman I love.” Then we’d be talking about a far more excruciating and agonizing human problem than “sex addiction” — the profound and disturbing disruption caused by passionate love.
