Sex and Leadership

“…and you shall see in him

The triple pillar of the world transformed

Into a strumpet’s fool.”

–Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, Act 1 Scene 1

Mark Antony was neither the first nor the last leader to wrestle with the urges of sexual passion. Think only of the continence of Scipio, the conquests of Charlemagne, and the virginity of Elizabeth I, or the exploits of presidents like FDR, JFK, and WJC. Leadership is sacrificed for sex by CEOs, COOs, and CFOs, physicists, physicians, and philosophers, lawyers, lecturers, and landlords.

Plato, Epictetus, Augustine, Aquinas, Rousseau, Kant, Marx, and Freud all recognized the unique moral significance of sex, and GK Chesterton expressed it with typical pithiness:

“The first two facts which a healthy boy or girl feels about sex are these: first that it is beautiful and then that it is dangerous.”

And culture – i.e. ideas, beliefs, attitudes, and aspirations – determines human flourishing or failure. Leaders shape culture, and leadership, by definition, must oppose any ideas, beliefs, attitudes, or aspirations that are inimical to human flourishing.

Whatever one’s views on issues like promiscuity, illegitimacy, abortion, etc., it is easy to recognise the moral implications of sex, unless one is a pervert, a purveyor, or a professor of ethics. So, contrary to those who thought the title of this piece was a marketing gimmick, sex is as significant as character itself in any reflection on leadership. Consider some random facts:

• Sex drives the world’s most profitable industry with street prostitution, brothels, strip clubs, human trafficking, phone sex, pornography, mail order brides, sex tourism, and much more

• Porn alone is a big part of the global economy, generating massive revenues and employment

• Significantly, 70 percent of all Internet porn traffic occurs during workdays from 9 am – 5 pm

• A quarter of all daily searches in the US i.e. over 68 million, are for pornography

• Two-thirds of HR operatives in the US report finding porn on employees’ work computers.

Curiously, many will say, “So what?” Well, even ignoring the low productivity and workplace disengagement that plague business, if you learned that your accountant was a gambling addict, would that colour your judgment regarding his services? And if you discovered that a candidate for a position with your company was a heavy drinker, would you consider his application with the same level of interest? And if your business acumen told you in each of those cases to reevaluate the relationships, how would you feel about a married colleague who was having an affair with a member of your staff?

Of course, many would still feel that these mere peccadilloes were common, and really none of their business, and that anyway, to challenge such impropriety would imply a need to review their own sexual proclivities. Yet to ignore the statistics, and the associated realities is to sanction the permissiveness that undermines human flourishing in homes, schools, workplaces, and communities everywhere.

Human beings are rational animals, and sex often brings our rational and animal natures into conflict. Thomas Aquinas pointed out that promiscuity enslaves the soul to the body in a unique way, because in the throes of passion a person can think of nothing else. Other carnal urges like gluttony do not suppress the rational mind so completely.

The intensity of sexual pleasure is related to the fact that sex is necessary for the procreation of the species. It should be enough, or at least used to be, to overcome any reluctance to take on the socioeconomic burdens that accompany parenthood. Moreover, the sublime physical and emotional intimacy enables a unique expression of the romantic love that seems to promise the existential fulfilment for which we all yearn. The emotional and spiritual consummation that complements the physical pleasure elevates loving human sexual relations far above the brute carnal act.

This explains the often irrational behaviour people slip into where sex is involved: a civic leader risks family, career, and reputation in an affair with an intern; a teacher betrays his professional commitments and the well-being of innocents for fleeting release; a young woman submits to psychological and physical abuse to be with a man who is manifestly unsuitable to be husband and father, and so on.

Intemperance, the lack of rational self-control, is a characteristic weaknesses of postmodern society, and classical philosophy and modern psychology both affirm that, especially in the case of sexual profligacy, it impairs our ability to think straight. It weakens the intellect, the very essence of our humanity. Lust overwhelms reason not just in the heat of the moment, but also, when there is no restraint, in ever-expanding portions of everyday life. It becomes obsessive.

Consider the bitter fruits of the darkened intellect: promiscuity, porn addiction, STDs, rape, incest, dysfunctional relationships, broken homes, solo mothers, absentee fathers, and severely disadvantaged children, and untold millions of lives lost to abortion. Moreover, the connection between these tragedies and loneliness, the greatest social scourge today, is manifest. These are hardly the foundations upon which to build a healthy society or a flourishing business. A few pertinent statistics emphasise the danger:

• 83 percent of US families in the lowest income quintile are headed by a single mother

• There is a direct correlation between fatherless children and teen violence

• Fatherless children are more than twice as likely to commit suicide

• 71 percent of high school dropouts come from a fatherless background

• Fatherless children are at a much greater risk of drug and alcohol abuse

• Nearly 1 in 5 women in the US have been raped in their lifetime

And while politicians, academics, and media hacks might at times find it expedient to rail against one or two of these social tragedies, all steadfastly refuse to connect the dots and admit that they are presiding over a socio-economic catastrophe of historic proportions. The intemperance enshrined in western culture, promoted by policy, encouraged in schools, and celebrated in the media, is destroying democracy and free enterprise, and freedom itself, because without self-control, it becomes licence.

Humanity has always recognised the dangers, constantly seeking ways to channel the sexual instinct to avoid social instability. The Stoic philosopher, Epictetus, expressed a view that both common sense and science endorse:

Psychiatrist Norman Doidge has shown how neuroscience throws greater light on the experience of traditional cultures throughout history in regard to sexual development:

In a culture where people are frequently exposed to explicit sexual imagery and promiscuous ideas in a seductive cocktail with graphic violence, the risk of social dysfunction is plain. While the neural networks for sexual awareness and response are shaped by sexual experiences, others dealing with anger and aggression are configured by violent or domineering conduct. Still, others manage fear and anxiety and evolve according to experiences that provoke such responses. A culture that actively promotes the mingling of these properly distinct emotional and affective experiences inevitably invites social dysfunction.

A recent cover story in Time Magazine revealed the extent to which permissiveness, promiscuity, and political correctness have unhinged our world. The article collected the testimonies of young men who believed that pornography had perverted their social and sexual development. It was ironic to have a major media outlet, well-known for its progressive views, attacking one of the cornerstones of the Sexual Revolution, but predictably, the article reflected the moral confusion choking the West: the only alarm raised was for the demon of erectile dysfunction.