What's It All About?

by Eric Francis Coppolino, March 26, 2008

When I was living in Brussels, the seat of the European Commission (akin to the central government of Europe), I got to know some of the prostitutes there. Belgium is close to the Netherlands, and prostitution, though technically illegal, is practiced in the open. I learned that the best hookers work early in the morning, at around 7am or earlier, because that’s when the politicians can see them. The guys leave for work early, stop in the red light district, then head in to serve in various capacities of government officialdom.

Every hooker, every astrologer, and every therapist has at least one thing in common: Doing these particular jobs, you meet people in all capacities of life, at all levels of worldly power and economic status, from the destitute to those sitting on millions or billions. You learn quickly that people all have the same basic needs, the same fears, and the same basic problems.

So it should not really surprise us that Eliot Spitzer, the former crusading state attorney general and now former governor of New York, should want or need to consult a prostitute, or that he allegedly did so regularly. Must we act like he strangled a puppy for fun, or dined on human flesh?

Well, perhaps on forbidden fruit. There are few people in Western society more verboten than prostitutes; nobody, except maybe a convicted murderer, would you be less inclined to bring home to your parents and introduce by their proper profession.

Everyone loves a good sex scandal. Heck, I have even come back to work during a supposed week off to write about one.

Most people who take umbrage with the governor’s alleged choices claim do so on the basis of hypocrisy. As one sworn to uphold the law, he should not break it; it would seem that he did both. (He spent much of 2004 busting prostitution businesses in New York City.) However, as attorney general, he was obliged to enforce the law; as a human being, he needs to have sex. He was in a double bind; this is often the case where people are expected to prosecute on the basis of subjective morality. We might ask where the real problem resides.