Strauss-Kahn admits ‘moral lapse’
Summary of story from Irish Times, September 19, 2011
Dominique Strauss-Kahn has told French television that his sexual encounter with a maid in a Manhattan hotel in May involved neither violence nor aggression, and that no money was exchanged.
‘…it was a moral lapse. I’m not proud of it and I regret it, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop regretting it,’ he told TF1 anchor Claire Chazal, a friend of his wife, Anne Sinclair.
When he was arrested in May – following allegations by Nafissatou Diallo that he had raped her – Strauss-Khan was frontrunner to challenge President Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s election.
The Strauss-Kahn case has divided opinion in France, but an opinion poll in yesterday’s Journal du Dimanche newspaper found 53 per cent of those surveyed wanted him to announce he was retiring from politics.
I doubt that man has any idea what morals are!
This was more than a lapse in morals – it was a lapse in character. Are we really supposed to believe that the maid went along with the program, here? It’s disheartening that the woman’s past was put on trial, yet DSK’s was conveniently overlooked, as was the allegation made by another woman who bravely stepped forward. No woman wants to her name to be a headline associated with sexual impropriety. This is all about power. If he didn’t threaten her physically, I can guarantee that he did so verbally and emotionally – just as he’s done to at least a few others. Lest anyone doubt, the “good old boys” network is alive and well.
Exactly – how is she supposed to successfully fend off the advances of someone like this man? The cynical part of my brain suggests that she has changed her answers, been cagey etc. because of the intense scrutiny she’s been under but also the implication that the US could ship her out of the country if they wanted to.
If she had opted to react violently I bet it would have been a case of some ‘mad maid’ attacking a powerful man because of a ‘misunderstanding’ and the vague murmurings about his previous behaviour to women would quickly have been silenced.
An annoying aspect of both this and the Julian Assange case is the theory bandied about that it’s a set-up, because these men are powerful the women concerned are only pawns or tools (used by other powerful men) to reduce the power of the men but not to gain any of their own. It also feeds into that pervasive myth that women will shout rape at the merest provocation. And back in the real world women like Nafissatou Diallo don’t have their voices heard and nothing is done.
You’re spot-on and make some great points. This poor woman was damned if she did, damned if she didn’t. She couldn’t get fair treatment either way, could she?
No, it seems the fair treatment is reserved for those in power. Or at least, they can ensure that they are treated in a way *they* think is fair, to them.
A friend of his wife’s? Wow, I bet she really hauled him over the coals. This is annoying seeing as there were probably journalists (outside his closest friendship circle)who were lining up to interview him. Coward.
I prefer to imagine that his wife has already hauled him over the coals and he has had to do this interview with a friend because she has told him in no uncertain terms that she will trust him with no one else. But I accept that this may be wishful thinking.
@Halla, @SurvivorGirl007
If the man is powerful, the world cries “conspiracy” and the accusor is dismissed. But what we should remember about people like DSK is that having this gross amount of power often distorts a persons view of the world. So perhaps they have trouble empathising with others. Perhaps they have an out of control sense of entitlement. The corrosive impact of extreme power is well documented. Where a gross, disorientating imbalance power goes, rape will often follow.
Of course a massive sense of one’s own privilege will inevitably lead to sometimes forgetting that other people are not there merely for the convenience of the privileged person.