Let me begin by being upfront about one detail: the notion of this man having sex - anywhere, with anyone, however old he is, however youthful they might be - is something I'd prefer not to envisage. The traditional media, however, are doing their weather best not to let something gleefully innocent pass them by without lathering the news cycle in the greasy, comfortable anti-sophistries of tripish troping.Yes, ladies and gentlemen: its time for another edition of the Catechism of Cliché.
How, in one word ought Mr Griffiths act of coitus in his Commons Office be defined?
A romp.
What species of embarrassment did this "romp" provoke?
A sex shame.
It isn't that I find anything particularly admirable about the whole affair. His sausage-fingered attempt to shut the door on proceedings - only to make his judicial spanking another breath of life - the paltry denials, the cringing submission to ostensibly felt but palpably dishonest "shame".
The point I want to raise is a simple one, but readily overlooked in the apparently serene pleasure of chortling at a tribune with his cock out and his ageing virility pendulously and ludicrously on show. I loathe betrayals. There is nothing smaller or meaner or crapper than a man or woman indulging in fumbling, ill-concealed affairs - all the while fostering the ignorance of their partner and gently excusing themselves on some imagined testosterone-predicated basis. After all, when one considers, even for a moment, how few people truly in life one owes stern moral honesty towards - how little labour that must be in the eddying space of moral emptiness where popcorn monad souls frazzle and crack all around you - to fail is unthinkable, it is lazy and utterly, uttlerly contemptible.
However, who says this is an example of that, necessarily? I suspect it probably is, but have we checked before casting Sally McLaughlin as the shallow-pated, betrayed woman who knew nothing but whose ignorance is now cacklingly and mercilessly draped out in public for all to see? Methinks the answer is no, and that being so - it demonstrates the narrow, nasty side of the "family values" press. Is it impossible their relationship may be governed, freely and in agreement, but alternative sexual norms? If not, why not, such that breezily one could feel free not to explore the possibility.
And here is the nub. Public interest shagging exposés mercilessly replicate dull sexless middle-class stories - where tired fidelity is kept to drab spouses - and the physical act of love itself becomes the object of loathing or contempt. Deeply implicated, here, is the classic Silly Old Man take on it, the lusty quasi-geriatric who makes a fool of himself over a younger, riper partner.
It is that judgement - that hypocritical, body-hating judgement - all of the conservative, assumptive dishonest pictures of family and physicality peddled underneath these tales which bores me rigid and wipes off my smile. It underlay all of the Max Moseley case, that prim frown-faced judgement of the editor which transforms the ordinary into the transgressive - which offers only a relentless conservative vision of life and love.
Of course, per the above, I suspect the blander more likely tale is the one told by the idiots - but these assumption I can't bear.
The point I want to raise is a simple one, but readily overlooked in the apparently serene pleasure of chortling at a tribune with his cock out and his ageing virility pendulously and ludicrously on show. I loathe betrayals. There is nothing smaller or meaner or crapper than a man or woman indulging in fumbling, ill-concealed affairs - all the while fostering the ignorance of their partner and gently excusing themselves on some imagined testosterone-predicated basis. After all, when one considers, even for a moment, how few people truly in life one owes stern moral honesty towards - how little labour that must be in the eddying space of moral emptiness where popcorn monad souls frazzle and crack all around you - to fail is unthinkable, it is lazy and utterly, uttlerly contemptible.
However, who says this is an example of that, necessarily? I suspect it probably is, but have we checked before casting Sally McLaughlin as the shallow-pated, betrayed woman who knew nothing but whose ignorance is now cacklingly and mercilessly draped out in public for all to see? Methinks the answer is no, and that being so - it demonstrates the narrow, nasty side of the "family values" press. Is it impossible their relationship may be governed, freely and in agreement, but alternative sexual norms? If not, why not, such that breezily one could feel free not to explore the possibility.
And here is the nub. Public interest shagging exposés mercilessly replicate dull sexless middle-class stories - where tired fidelity is kept to drab spouses - and the physical act of love itself becomes the object of loathing or contempt. Deeply implicated, here, is the classic Silly Old Man take on it, the lusty quasi-geriatric who makes a fool of himself over a younger, riper partner.
It is that judgement - that hypocritical, body-hating judgement - all of the conservative, assumptive dishonest pictures of family and physicality peddled underneath these tales which bores me rigid and wipes off my smile. It underlay all of the Max Moseley case, that prim frown-faced judgement of the editor which transforms the ordinary into the transgressive - which offers only a relentless conservative vision of life and love.
Of course, per the above, I suspect the blander more likely tale is the one told by the idiots - but these assumption I can't bear.
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