SOCIETY: Ladies' man or rapist...

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Another issue that drew my attention was the case of DOMINIQUE STRAUSS-KHAN, the president of the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and potentially, the next president of France.

The case involved Mr. Khan, in the buff, allegedly surprising a hotel room cleaning lady, chasing her down, locking the hotel room door and forcing her to perform oral sex on him and attempting to rape her. She broke free and ran, he cleaned up and boarded a plane to Paris. One fortunate mistake was him calling the hotel and asking for his cell phone that he left behind…that was all the cops needed to catch him.

My interest is not another famous person being caught in another sex scandal, that happens nearly every week, no it is the FRENCH reaction to the whole thing…

France was aghast! How dare we treat Khan as a common criminal? How dare we put him in hand-cuffs and allow him to be seen by the media? How dare we put his arraignment on TV?

It appears that the rich, famous and powerful do not get treated like common criminals in France.

I won’t go into all the legal differences between France and the U.S. but suffice it to say that in France Mr. Khan would probably not be facing 25 years in the slammer.

Time Magazine’s May 30^th cover asks “What Makes Powerful Men Act like Pigs” and the magazine delved into all the possible answers. In the U.S., we have a slew of the rich and famous behaving like sexual pigs (Schwarzenegger, Clinton, Gingrich and many more) but Khan went a little further, he forced himself on a woman whereas the Americans merely dallied.

Khan has a history of sexual improprieties where he was the predator; a forceful predator but he was never charged with a crime… but he did apologize.

As the media digs deeper into the affair, we are becoming more aware how different American society is from French society when it comes to sexual behavior. It seems that French society is more tolerant of sexual abuse or misconduct or harassment by men towards women; Khan’s wife said she was proud of her husband as a “seducer”?

There is a huge difference between what is a “ladies’ man” and a rapist and sexual predator.

France has always prided itself as a country of liberated women but maybe now the ugly truth is coming out that they are not as enlightened as they think they are; maybe French men have been allowed to sexually harass women because it was accepted as a part of their culture…

This should be a very, very interesting g case.

Related articles

• The Female Factor: A Change in French Sexual Views (nytimes.com)
• The Turning Point (time.com)
• Why Anne Sinclair is standing by Dominique Strauss-Kahn (guardian.co.uk)
• Strauss-Kahn case may change France's lassiez-faire views on sex (shortformblog.tumblr.com)
• Bonnie Erbe: France tolerates 'bad boy' behavior (knoxnews.com)
• French question mores after Strauss-Kahn scandal (seattletimes.nwsource.com)