Sex surprises of the week

What a week to inaugurate Surprises of the Week… Sexually Speaking. It's like the columnist gods up there on Mount Olympus (Art Buchwald, Molly Ivins and, yes, even William Buckley) sparked a thunderclap of titillation. Or to put it another way, it's raining sex scandal.

THE SEXUAL STUPIDITY OF SILDA'S HUSBAND

On the evening of February 13, 2008, a fellow named George Fox rented two rooms at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. Sometime around ten p.m., he slipped out of his room, loosing his security detail in the process (if the testimony of his security force is to be believed), and knocked on the door of Room 871. Fox had a big day scheduled for the 14th, including an appearance on CNBC at 7 a.m. But before retiring for the evening, Fox wanted a little nooky.

At that moment in time, the real George Fox was back home in New York. Asked later if he'd traveled to Washington on Feb. 13 and 14, he responded, "Why would you think that? I did not."

At that moment in time, Silda, the wife of the alias George Fox, was back home in New York too, in her 5th Avenue apartment with her three teenage daughters and her views of both Central Park and the Met. Was she looking forward to Valentine's Day and a big bouquet of roses from her thoughtful husband?

Unknown. What is known is that Silda's husband had assumed the Kennedy mantle. Athletic, charming, highly intelligent. Both men graduated from Harvard. Both men appeared ethically sound. Both men, in actuality, were hungry alpha males on the prowl. In politics and other illustrious pursuits.

On the evening of the 13th, Silda's husband did something Kennedy allegedly did not do; he turned to a prostitute for sex. He paid some $4,300 for a brunette named Kristen.

Kristen, the alias for Ashley Dupré, worked for the Emperor's Club V.I.P., a prostitute ring charging between $1,000 and $5,500 an hour. Reportedly, Silda's husband had spent over $80,000 at the Emperor's Club. Reportedly, Silda's husband had been paying prostitutes for six years.

It gets more salacious. Silda's husband, according to the Emperor's Club, would ask "to do things that you might not think were safe."

A law enforcement official clarified that Silda's husband preferred not to wear condoms.

The women of the Emperor's Club were under strict orders to wear condoms. The prostitute who serviced Silda's husband on the night of the 13th talked tough on the condom issue. "I have a way of dealing with that," she told investigators. "I'd be, like, listen, dude, you really want the sex? You know what I mean?"

We know what you mean, Ashley, aka Kristen. But consider Silda. Not only was her husband racking up a huge expense (and, yes, he could afford it); not only was her husband lying to her for years; but he wanted to practice unsafe sex with a prostitute. How safe was that for Silda?

In his first press conference after these events with the prostitute were uncovered, Silda's husband, better known as Governor Eliot Spitzer, told the media that he needed to take some time to "regain the trust" of his family.

It sounds to me like both husband and wife should take an AIDS test.

FRANCE'S SEX INDEX

Speaking of AIDS, tangentially, France's National Research Agency on AIDS just concluded a sex survey, the first since 1992. Interviewing some 12,000 men and women between the ages of 18 and 69, the Agency published its 600-page "Study of Sexuality in France" this week. Here are some of the findings:

1. Average age of first sexual intercourse for men: 17.2 years. Average age for women: 17.6 years. (Compared to nearly 20 years for women in the 1992 survey.)
2. Percentage of children who have seen a porno film by age 11: 66 percent.
3. Women between the ages of 18 and 35 years who say they are sexually abstinent: 3.5 percent. Males who make that claim: 6.2 percent.
4. Men between the ages of 18 and 24 years who say they have no interest in sexual activity: 20 percent.
5. Number of sexual partners on average for women between the ages of 30 and 49: 5.1. (Compared to 4 in 1992). Number of sexual partners for men between the same ages: 12.9. (Compared to 12.6 in 1992.)
6. Percentage of women who say they had only one sex partner: 34 percent. (Compared to 43 percent in 1992). Percentage of men who say the same: 16 percent. (Compared to 21 percent in 1992).
7. Percentage of women over the age of 50 who say they are sexually active: 90 percent.
8. Percentage of women who say they've suffered "frequent or occasional" sexual dysfunction in the past year: 36 percent. Percentage of men who make the same claim: 21 percent.
9. Estimated number of patients who visit sex counselors: 500,000.

LICENSE TO LIE

In the Tuscan fishing village of Porto Ercole a woman named Carla was carrying on an affair with a fellow named Giovanni. Meanwhile, Carla was married to a man named Vincenzo. Apparently the lover Giovanni used Carla's mobile phone to call Vincenzo and utter a slew of insults.

Vincenzo took his wife and her lover to court. That court ruled in Vincenzo's favor, convicting Giovanni of abusive behavior and Carla of acting as an accessory. It was her phone, after all.

Giovanni and Carla appealed the ruling. That appeal landed at the Court of Cassation, the highest appeal court in Italy. In overturning the lower court's decision, the Court of Cassation found that having a lover could be damaging to a woman's honor. Bending the truth, according to the Court, was therefore justified in concealing extra-marital affairs.

Corriere della Sera, Italy's version of the New York Times, called the ruling, "A License to Lie."

No word yet from the Vatican but something tells me that the "License to Lie" won't be in the next Catechism.

SEXUALITY OF VAMPIRE SLAYER REVEALED (SORT OF)

Is Buffy the Vampire Slayer gay? In the latest comic book edition Buffy ends up in bed with a fellow slayer. Except the slayer isn't a fellow. The slayer is Satsu, a female disciple of Buffy's. According to Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy, the story line "evolved naturally."

Apparently the story began with Buffy suffering from a "Sleeping Beauty" spell. The spell could only be undone by a kiss from someone who loves her. Satsu undoes the spell.

The two women eventually end up in bed. The depiction in the comic book has an after-sex effect. Two women on a rumpled bed. Clothes strewn on the floor. A teddy bear tossed aside.

According to Whedon, "It puts the reader in this ‘Oh my God' moment. And it puts Buffy in an ‘Oh my God, what did I just do?' moment."

So is Buffy gay? Whedon answered, "We're not going to make her gay, nor are we going to take the next 50 issues explaining that she's not. She's young and experimenting, and did I mention open-minded?"

Now, if only Eliot Spitzer could have developed a "Sleeping Beauty" spell for the state of New York. Then maybe he wouldn't have just resigned.