Man of the Month Gary Condit CONGRESSMAN GARY CONDIT: WHY SEX GETS MEN INTO TROUBLE Congressman Gary Condit is poised to become yet another high-profile reminder of the potential destructiveness of male sexuality. Bill Clinton, Bob Livingston, Dick Morris, Bob Packwood, Clarence Thomas and Gary Hart are but a few of the members of this truly bipartisan and not-so-exclusive club. It's no big news that sex gets men into trouble-in their private as well as public lives. But why is that? A few psychological concepts, which apply to both normal and pathological male sexual behavior, can explain. Actions Speak Louder Than Words. On top of being wired differently than girls, from a very young age boys are made to feel ashamed of their emotions. Whereas girls are socialized to be emotionally open, boys are raised to value actions rather than words. So if a man feels neglected by his wife, and if he subscribes to the philosophy that talk is cheap, he automatically springs into action. In this case, he can express both his need for affection and his anger towards his wife by having an extramarital affair. Masculine Insecurity. In counterpoint to Freud's notion of "penis envy," unconsciously men long for some of the privileges our society reserves for women. Such privileges include the skills of social intimacy and the option to opt out of the career battlefields. But these "feminine" desires are all too threatening and must be denied and disguised, which is why men always strive to feel and appear ever more masculine. If being with a woman provides them with some of the femininity they desire, the means of getting there, i.e., the conquest, reaffirms their masculinity. Self-esteem. While women are more likely to be recognized for their looks or helpfulness to others, men are more likely to be admired for their success. For many men the accumulation of wealth is sufficient evidence of self-value. But others seek to boost their ego by pushing to the limit that which limits us most, i.e., the human body. Youthful sexual exuberance can go a long way to soothe our fear of aging and to deny our ultimate limitation, our mortality. But denying our mortality only brings it closer to us (e.g. smoking). So the more we seek young women to make ourselves feel young, the more likely we'll end up feeling like a "dirty old man." In addition, if we engage in sex for the purpose of boosting our self-esteem, we don't really want to keep it a secret. What's the point of doing it if we can't brag about it? Aggression. Unconsciously, in their interactions with women, men are forever trying to reverse the balance of power from their early relationship with their mother. Through sex they try not only to be intimate with a woman but also to dominate her. When a man has a rigid sexual preference (e.g., insisting on being on top or on being "serviced" orally) it often reflects a desire to dominate his partner. This infusion of the sexual impulse with an aggressive impulse is the reason why many men develop the "Madonna/whore" syndrome. Here, in order to "protect" his partner from his aggression, the man will engage in certain "less kosher" sexual activities only with other, less respected women. Some men's addiction to pornography comes from the same place: in pornography women are objectified so that they can be controlled, used and discarded. For their own psychological reasons women tend to collude with this male agenda. But often, when they stop cooperating they retaliate, for example, by exposing the man, by calling his wife, or simply by using their own sexual powers. Emotional Distance. Men's proclivity to live in their heads and to distance themselves from their emotions explains why they are often preoccupied with sexual technique or outcome rather than with emotional intimacy. It is also what allows them to employ talmudic arguments to rationalize their sexual misconduct (e.g., "Oral sex is not sex," "We only kissed," or "It was just sex.") This emotional distance is also one of the reasons why men are much more likely to have "virtual relationships" on the Internet, relationships with prostitutes, or relationships with pornographic magazines. Rebelliousness. From the vantage point of children, sex appears to be highly desirable yet clearly forbidden. For various reasons boys are particularly susceptible to the this association between sexual exploration and rule breaking. So for many men, the thrill of doing something forbidden is part of the joy of sex, which is why they might pursue "illicit" sex, and of course, do it in places where they might get caught. The Pleasure Compulsion. The compulsive element in the male sexual response propels all these dynamics into what sometimes feels like an irresistible force. As men speak the language of sex from a young age, they are particularly vulnerable to its pleasures. And like other extremely pleasurable sensations, sexual stimulation can become highly addictive, especially in the absence of other pleasures. In a clinical practice, one often sees men with depression confusing sex with Prozac. But even in the absence of such obvious pain, men can become so dedicated to the pursuit of short-term sexual pleasure that they abdicate psychic functions such as judgment, planning and decision-making. When a man is aroused, he'd rather not think about the possibility that his partner is not in the mood. Indeed, in its purest form, men's wish for pleasure ignores reality, which is a short step from making reality your enemy, at which point you are, by definition, self-destructive. So it's the universal nature of male sexuality that gets men into trouble. Perhaps this is why, even if we don't approve of the personal conduct of Bill Clinton, most of us didn't seem to judge him too harshly. In a sense, he mirrored our own potential imperfections. This may also explain our obsessive ambivalence about the media coverage of the personal lives of public figures-we want to know how we look, warts and all, as long as the mirror doesn't turn too ugly.		Archive Gary Condit Rudy Giulliani Ariel Sharon George W. Bush President Clinton