Battle of the Sexes Over Sex

"This is why we need more women in politics," my friend Virginia Randall said yesterday. "Did Ella Grasso ever have to stand up on the podium and admit she paid for a 'rent boy'? Or Nancy Pelosi? Or Bella Abzug?"

Uh, no. It's kind of disturbing just to think about. But, as women and men discuss "L'Affair Spitzer," the differences between the sexes become more pronounced.

It's not just that female politicians have so few sex scandals to their name. (Actually, I can't think of any.) It's when females even think about political sex scandals, they react differently.

In the case of Gov. Spitzer, most women think: "Scum."

Most men think: "Dumb."

"Look, getting sex outside your marriage is kind of like a requirement for a politician," said publicist Peter Shankman. "It's what you do. But we have 2,000 cameras on us every day and we're not famous. How could he not expect to get caught?"

Spoken like a guy. Shankman even went on to add, "I'm not passing judgment."

Of course not. Why judge a married man who cheats on his wife with prostitutes?

A comment posted below a Wall Street Journal article titled, "After Years of Support, What To Do When a Spouse Disappoints?" sounded as if the guy thought the headline referred to a disappointing wife.

"He was just boinking anonymous hot prostitutes once in a while," wrote the poetic soul signing himself as "SD Dad." "It was an (affair) of the flesh but not of the heart. I think things like that can be more easily understood/forgiven."

Maybe — if it only happened once, at a dental products convention in Las Vegas. But when the guy has been doing it for years? To the point where he leaves deposits for the next time, texts the madam like a middle school kid in math class, and has his women shipped c.o.d.? (And, by the way, a pal asks, "What are the girls in D.C.

"I think guys are idiots," said Rachel Weingarten, author of "Career and Corporate Cool." "I don't know a woman alive who would consider a sex scandal that could affect her life or her family."

In addition to being a snake, the governor strikes her as incomprehensibly profligate. "Maybe, because as a woman, I'm a really good shopper. That $5,000 price tag. …" Weingarten said.

It's like a guy who buys a $20 bag of potato chips. How much crispier can they be?

"There's probably a sizeable percentage of men who are wondering that," Randall said.

Voila: The male/female divide again. Guys are dying of curiosity. Women know all it really takes to turn on a man is — metaphorically speaking — a 12-ounce bag of store brand chips. Even the unsalted kind. Guys just like to snack.

In fact, just that lust for "chips" makes men more willing to see the governor as a regular fella. "He was just thinking with his ..." they say indulgently, and then they come up with a cute word, like "Winkie." But you never hear anyone say, "God, what came over her? She was thinking with her G-spot!"

No, for women, sex and love are still pretty much linked. That's why it's harder for us to forgive the governor, no matter how supposedly unemotional his encounters were.

"You had to go and just … you know, pay for it somewhere, and now your whole family is going to be humiliated for their whole (lives)?" said Marla Sherman, mother of two. "Wasn't life good enough?"

Most of us women are wondering that right now. Of course, it's because we're thinking with our heads.

Lenore Skenazy is a columnist at The New York Sun and Advertising Age. To find out more about Lenore Skenazy (lskenazy@yahoo.com) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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