There is something different about these latest examples of sexual hypocrisy. We are used to sexual shenanigans, and we are used to people lying to cover them up. We are also used to the double standard — if a Republican congressman were to do to a fetching staffer what a Democratic congressman does to a fetching staffer, as he routinely does, the sky falls in — abuse of power, sexual harassment, and all the rest of it. But if the Democratic congressman does to an alluring staffer what the Republican congressman does to an alluring staffer, then it is an office romance, America needs to get over its puritanical past, and haven’t we grown up yet?
But the latest go-rounds on this particular piece of playground equipment are just creepy. Letterman has announced that he had a series of sexual relationships with staffers, folks whose jobs were dependent on his continued good graces. Okay, that kind of thing is as old as dirt. But he announced it as though he expected the sympathies of the public, using the old brazen it out move. And he has gotten at least some of that sympathy.
And the Roman Polanski affair is beyond creepy. All of Hollywood — including Woody Allen, who should have thought about it some more before lending his support — has come out in support of the talented perv.
The problem in these situations is not the individual hypocrisy or the individual capacity for sin and deception. I mean, as far as that is concerned, welcome to earth. The problem is the full-throated and open support for these men from a sub-culture that had previously raised moralistic posturing and ethical preening in front of the mirror to an art form.
In short, our entertainment culture is openly and unabashedly . . . greasy.