Are All Men Like Weiner? -- Jack Engelhard

Before that it was Tiger, then came Arnold, and now it’s Weiner caught flagrante delicto…all that plus others too numerous to mention, including governors and even presidents…and I almost forgot that guy who heads a world bank of some sort. Back to what I keep saying, that “as long as there are other women there’s going to be trouble.”

 

What about all those men of the cloth and that evangelist guy?

 

Woody Allen said that he never meets a woman that he doesn’t mentally undress. That’s not an exact quote but you get the gist.

 

Are all men created equally horny – and what about women, are they totally innocent? If so, why do so many keep inviting us to view their” pix?”

 

Who knew that we Americans were so lustful.

 

(Not me. Girls, before you answer – what are you wearing, by the way?)

 

The Internet, OMG, what goes on there would make a sailor blush, and we’re talking millions hooking up for real or by virtual imagination.

 

I say this, too (in “Indecent Proposal”) that “sex is nothing. Temptation is everything.”

 

The transaction of sex (through the Internet) with people we don’t know is tempting because we don’t want to miss out.

 

So many women, as has been said, so little time.

 

The “perfect” sexual experience may be just around the corner, or rather, by a simple click at the keyboard. That’s Real Temptation.

 

I was careful here by saying “some men” but the real question here is whether Arnold and that Congressman – do they speak for all of us, all of us guys?

 

Are any of us pure of heart and thought?

 

Men, we are told, think of sex once every 14 seconds (or something like that). Women? What do they want? Coupons! (Finally, the answer to Freud.)

 

Back in the mid-1980s I wrote the novel “Indecent Proposal” that was later made into a huge Paramount movie that was all right but left out all the good parts. Turns out that the novel is as valid today as it was yesterday – about an Arab billionaire who has everything and can BUY anything except – EXCEPT for the lust of a woman who belongs to someone else.

 

This is what he wants. He wants what he cannot have, or rather, should not have, and is willing to pay one million dollars for one night of pleasure…one night to find out what he may have been missing all his life. This, this woman out of reach, is worth more to him than all his oil wells. Why – because she IS out of reach!

 

That’s where the Internet comes in and says – you can’t touch, but you CAN play.

 

(There’s no evidence that the Congressman actually had relations with these women, far as I know. The game was enough.)

 

NPR just did a fine brief of all this titled “Infidelity on the Big Screen”-- http://www.npr.org/blogs/tellmemore/2011/05/20/136505832/infidelity-on-the-big-screen

 

The Internet provides the ideal mechanism for virtual rendezvous with the unknown. We’d rather not meet these people – chatting, exchanging pix. That is the turn-on.

 

So back to the question – are we all Weiners, except that he was acting upon his temptations and got caught? The rest of us just dream?

 

Well, I don’t know all 150 million American men, nor, certainly, can I speak for all 150 million of our women.

 

Best way to find out is to talk to your clergyman…oh wait a minute…

 

About the author: Jack Engelhard wrote the international bestseller “Indecent Proposal” that was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. His award-winning book of memoirs, “Escape From Mount Moriah,” has been honored at CANNES Film Festival through Nikila Cole’s filming of the book’s short story, “My Father, Joe.”

 

Engelhard’s website – www.jackengelhard.com