Infidelity and the paradox of power
Life without it might be safer, but excruciatingly dull too. It takes up the least amount of time, but sexual hanky-pankies can cause the most amount of trouble.
Just ask Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head honcho of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) who was arrested for alleged criminal sex offences last week.
Strauss-Kahn, who trousers a Sh42.5 million tax-free annual salary as boss of the 187-nation money lending agency, fell madly in bed with a hotel maid without her consent inside the Sh255,000 a night hotel suite, the allegations go.
Accounts the housekeeper provided to the police indicate Strauss-Kahn emerged from his bathroom naked and chased her down a hallway of Sofitel Hotel, pulled her into a bedroom and ravaged her.
Strauss-Kahn, who had left his cell phone in the hotel, was later seized at JFK International Airport in New York by police and taken to a Harlem prison.
The world’s top banker was on his way to meet German chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin to discuss how to get debt-laden Greece out of financial woods, before joining European Union Finance ministers in Brussels, Belgium the following day.
The thrice-married and wealthy 62-year-old father of four was touted by opinion polls as the likely successor to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, so, why do otherwise intelligent men — and not necessarily those who are busted daily by suspicious spouses on FM radio — do such seemingly dumb things?
For Strauss-Kahn, this is not even the first time. In 2007, a French journalist accused him of attempted rape five years earlier. She didn’t press charges though.
In 2008, he was investigated for having an affair with a married subordinate whom he later made redundant before assisting her get a new job. French Press labelled him le grand seducteur (The Great Seducer).
Why are men recklessly promiscuous, especially those in positions that require moral propriety? It is not just Strauss-Kahn, really, who has been caught pants down.
Look nearer home and behold Kenyan marathoner Samuel Wanjiru and his alleged women, wives and the strain they spiked into his marriage.
In his memoirs, Politics of Betrayal, former Bahari MP Joe Khamisi paints some members of 9th Parliament as randy.
Khamisi recalls how some turned Continental House, where their private offices are located, into a lodging of sorts, with used condoms flushed down the toilet often blocking the sewerage system.
While the promiscuous might lightly take it that the Commandment “Thou shall not commit adultery” was meant for people living in the desert and too busy trying to reach the Promised Land to stray, recent research into the DNA of Don Juans reveals that people with a certain variant of the dopamine receptor D4 polymorphism (or DRD4 gene) “are more likely to have a history of uncommitted sex, including one-night stands and acts of infidelity”.
DRD4, according to the research, is the “thrill-seeking” gene that is also responsible for alcohol and gambling addictions. The “love rat” gene can influence the brain’s chemistry and subsequent behaviour.
The research continues to say that the desire to cheat or sleep around seems to originate in the brain’s pleasure and reward centre where the “rush” of dopamine motivates those who are vulnerable.
“… Everybody has got the gene, but just as height varies, the amount of information in the gene varies. Those who have more… are prone to thrill-seeking.”
The research concluded that the promiscuous gene “is inheritable too. If your parents have it, you have it too.”
“I was unfaithful, I had affairs, I cheated”
Jacob Zuma, South African President
Admitted in February last year to having a “love child” out of wedlock with Sonono Khoza, a mistress 30 years his junior.
It was his 20th child for the polygamous Zuma. Sonono is the daughter of Zuma’s long-time friend, Irvin Khoza.
“His rampant libido has made South Africa a laughing stock of the world,” Jo’burg based Star newspaper wrote in an editorial at the time.
In 2006, JZ was tried and acquitted of raping an HIV-positive family friend half his age. He testified that though it was consensual, he didn’t use a condom as he did not have one available.
Zuma added that he took a shower afterwards to minimise chances of infection. “I erred on having unprotected sex. I should have known better,” he apologised to the nation after the trial.
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General Sani Abacha, former Nigerian dictator
Nigerian writer and Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka described the once de facto President as “a murderous imbecile who died in the arms of Asian prostitutes”.
Abacha surrendered to a ‘sudden’ heart attack in 1998. Being a Muslim, he was buried the same day, and thus without an autopsy, fanning rumours that he was fixed by political rivals via sluts.
This was in reference to the six teenage hookers flown from Dubai for his palatial pleasure at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
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Ndumiso Mamba, former Swaziland Justice Minister
He left King Mswati III dealing with infidelity of royal proportions when Mamba was caught red-panted with Nothando Dube, the king’s 12th wife at Mswati’s Royal Villas Hotel in August last year. The ngwenyama (lion) had Mamba — his childhood friend — held at the Big Bend Prison. Having a romp with the king’s wife carries a death penalty in Swaziland.
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Wayne Rooney, English soccer star
The “oldest looking 24-year-old” cheated on his pregnant wife with Jenny Thompson, a Sh138,000-a-romp hooker (according to tabloid Press) against the family-man image the Manchester United striker portrays.
“Wayne certainly enjoyed all our meetings and didn’t seem to care what he was doing to his wife,” Thompson told journalists in September last year.
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John Terry, English soccer star
The Sh20.7-million-a-week Chelsea defender was in 2009 voted Dad of the Year by Daddies Sauce, a British ketchup brand.
However, the father of five-year-old twins was caught playing an away match last year with Vanessa Perroncel, the underwear model friend of his wife, Toni Poole, and one time girlfriend of Wayne Bridge, Terry’s former teammate.
The affair cost him the English captain’s arm band. “I really regret what I’ve done to Toni. I’m not going to cheat on her ever again.”
Ha! That was in 2007 — before they got married.
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Bill Clinton, former American President
Had a three-year affair with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern 25 years his junior. The 1998 political sex scandal dubbed “Monicagate” almost led to the impeachment of Clinton in a case of naivety, lust and misguided passions.
“I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” Clinton told the world in a televised broadcast.
Had he been impeached, he would have been the second president to exit that way after Andrew Jackson 130 years earlier.
His wife Hilary, the current US Secretary of State, stayed put because of “a love that persisted for decades… but as a wife I wanted to wring Bill’s neck,” she writes in her 2003 bio, Living History.
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Tiger Woods, Golfer
The girl-crazy golfer’s peccadilloes cost his agency $4.6 million (Sh391 million) in lost commissions and up to $25 million (Sh2.1 billion) in endorsements after sponsors like Gillette and Proctor&Gamble deserted the world’s richest sportsman following a torrid sex scandal with 19 women.
“I was unfaithful, I had affairs, I cheated,” Woods, who had all along put up a goody two-shoes persona, said in a public confession after undergoing therapy in February 2010.
Elin Nordegren, the Swedish model wife of the world’s number one golfer, teed off a Sh63.7 billion divorce settlement in August 2010.
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Sven Goran Eriksson, Coach
His dubious lust led to an affair with Faria Alam, secretary of Football Association (FA) when Eriksson was England’s national soccer coach in 2004.
But Alam caused a scandalous alarm by having an affair with Mark Palios, FA’s chief executive. The scandal almost tore the FA down the middle.
