| http://www.nationalreview.com OCTOBER 30 , 2017needy, always feeling the obligation to
prove himself and to be bathed in admi-
ration. Winning an election or getting a
new girl into bed served the same pur-
pose in Bill Clinton’s unhappy interior
life: personal affirmation. And while
Clinton’s sexuality was not entirelysemi-
otic, he was, if we are to believe Monica
Lewinsky, averse to intercourse. Like
Weinstein masturbating in a darkened
restaurant, Clinton desired an audience
as much as he desired sexual release. In
that regard, it is notable that the current
president has had cameos in two porno-
graphic films: His instincts are porno-
graphicin the sense that his great desire
is not to win the attention of beautiful
women but to be observed with them, to
be understood, socially, as the kind of
man—“an alpha male,” his admirers
would say—who attracts what he likes tocall “top women.” He is, whether he
knows it or not, a follower of Bishop
Berkeley, in that he believes that “to be is
to be perceived,” especially when it
comes to sexual matters. That isn’t a
love life: That’s conspicuous consump-
tion, like his gold-plated toilets. He is
amusingly plain about this, describing
Melania’s purpose in his life as inspiring
erotic awe in others, using her to “watch
grown men weep,” as he put it.
Trump and his imaginary paramours,
Weiner and his tweets, Weinstein and his
lonely (but not lonely enough) mastur-
bation. All men have their appetites and
their insecurities, and one might expect
men living epic lives to have similarly
epic sexual careers. But, as anyone who
has ever visited Washington or run into
a movie star on the street knows, in real
life everything is a little smaller than
you expect, and a little sadder. We all
had a good laugh at Anthony Weiner, at
first, but his compulsions are on a con-
tinuum that leads to a very dark and vio-
lent place. Harvey Weinstein is accused
of rape. Bill Clinton was, too. So was
Donald Trump, though Ivana later recant-
ed that accusation. What is it with these
masters of the universe?
Perhaps the feminists had it right that
what’s going on here isn’t about sex
after all.tweeting semi-nude photos of himself,
adopting the Internet persona “Carlos
Danger,” and, in the end, sending graph-
ic communications to a minor. He is
going to do 21 months in a federal lock-
up and spend the rest of his life as a reg-
istered sex offender for a series of
events that—horrible as they were—
involved no more than words and
images and communiqués.
Bill O’Reilly was accused of sharing
lurid fantasies with producer Andrea
Mackris while masturbating during a
telephone call with her, telling her that
he wanted to work her over with a
loofah, a word he hilariously conflated
with “falafel.” O’Reilly paid Mackris
$9 million to settle the case, which, as
with Weiner, involved no actual sex and
no real evidence of anything more than
the most half-hearted of efforts to gether into bed for real. Nine millionbucks:
surely the world’s most expensive
phone sex.
Harvey Weinstein probably has had a
lot of sex over the course of his career as
a Hollywood mogul, but there wasn’t a lot
of sex in the charges that led to his ouster
from the company that bears his name.
Later allegations, published in The New
Yorker, included crimes well beyond
harassment—including rape. But for
years, the open secret of Harvey Wein -
stein’s abuses included a lot of gross and
horrible behavior, but not much sex as
such. A few subordinates complained that
they were being used to arrange assigna-
tions for Weinstein, which surely is a
demeaning use of the valuable time of
cinema professionals or Arkansas state
troopers. According to Lauren Sivan’s
now-infamous account, Weinstein at -
tempted once to kiss her and, when she
rebuffed him, asked her, “Can you just
stand there and shut up?” and then pro-
ceeded to masturbate into a nearby potted
plant. This happened at a Cuba-themed
Manhattan club called “Socialista.”
Weinstein’s other abuses (tales of
which were shared by many women
unknown to one another but offering
remarkably similar accounts) were main-
ly things such as asking for massages
or giving them uninvited and askingAshley Judd whether she wanted to
watch him shower. Again, no sex. A
man with Harvey Weinstein’s resources
and standing could, if he so desired,
spend all of his days and nights engaged
in the most rococo acts of sexual theater
the human imagination could dream up.
Watching someone shower is the stuff
of schoolboys.
President Donald Trump, who was a
largely obscure New York City real-
estate developer before a tabloid sex
scandal (his affair with Marla Maples,
precipitating his divorce from Ivana),
has been trying for years to get himself
into another good sex scandal. His imag-
inary friend, John Barron, would call
New York reporters with updates on
Trump’s sexual adventures, at least
some of which were as fictitious as John
Barron. Carla Bruni, who would laterbecome France’s first lady, was obliged
to make a public denial that she had
been sexually involved with Trump.
Trump pursued Brooke Shields,
Candice Bergen, Salma Hayek, Emma
Thompson—and failed in each case.
Consider his own account, in his vulgar
boasting to Billy Bush, of how he tried
to seduce—that’s not quite the word—
Nancy O’Dell of Entertainment Tonight.I moved on her, actually. You know, she
was down on Palm Beach. I moved on
her, and I failed. I’ll admit it.... I did
try and f*** her. She was married. I
moved on her very heavily. In fact, I
took her out furniture-shopping. She
wanted to get some furniture. I said,
“I’ll show you where they have some
nice furniture.” I moved on her like a
bitch. But I couldn’t get there. And she
was married.No sex: furniture-shopping. Presu -
mably there are beds and sofas and
things in furniture stores, but one won-
ders what his plan was there. One also
must wonder what “moved on her like a
bitch” actually entails.
It is an irony probably not lost on
sometime Trump chum Hillary Rodham
Clinton that the recent president he most
resembles, at least in this respect, is Bill
Clinton. Bill Clinton was famously28Perhaps the feminists had it right that what’s going on here
isn’t about sex after all.
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