Sex lives of the rich and powerful have never been the same in
Europe since dour Emperor Constantine accepted Christianity. Gone were the stables
of slave girls and boys, bisexual orgies, sex with animals and other fun stuff.
The patricians and the military commanders were accorded one non-divorceable
wife, no exceptions.
Life in the
Middle Ages was truly grim. Homosexuality was punishable by death. Peasant
girls were unattractive, filthy creatures lacking all sophistication. Noble-born
women were few and far between kept in prison-like castles. Meeting with their
well-armed fathers, husbands and elder brothers was justly considered an
equivalent to encountering band of Saracens on the Crusade. Whores were the
daughters of misery lacking full complement of fingers, teeth and eyes.
It took
European nobility nearly twelve centuries to recover. By that time, a new
Renaissance culture replaced stone moors of the keeps with the palaces open for
lavish parties and created a new type of urban whore, well-dressed and
sophisticated. Still, European nobility could not engage in well-organized
debauchery of their Chinese or Russian counterparts. Marco Polo writes:
“Thither the grand khan sends his officers every second year, or oftener, as it
may happen to his pleasure, who collect, for him, to the number of four or five
hundred, or more, of the handsomest young women, according to … their
instructions… Upon the arrival of these commissioners they give orders for
assembling all the young women of the province, and appoint qualified persons
to examine them… Upon their arrival in his presence, he [the Khan] causes a new
examination to be made by a different set of inspectors… when thirty or forty
are retained for his own chamber. Having undergone this rigorous scrutiny, they
are divided into parties of five, one of which parties attends during three
days and three nights, in his majesty’s interior apartment… The remainder of
them, whose value has been estimated at inferior rate, are assigned to the
different lords of household.”
Ivan the
Terrible, though an Orthodox Christian, imitated this procedure in XVI Century:
“Being bored in his unchaste widowhood, he looked for the third wife. Noble and
ignoble brides were collected to Sloboda [his temporary capital] from all
towns, more than two thousands in whole. Everyone was shown to him personally.
First he selected 24 and then 12, which should have been inspected by the doctor
and the nurses. He held lengthy comparisons in beauty, in character and wit…”[1]
Yet, at
about the same time, two horrible innovations—syphilis brought by Columbus’
caravels from the Americas, and the Reformation, proclaiming the return to the
ascetic ideals of Early Christianity—once again brought happy frolics of
European aristocrats into disarray. Reform theologians, who could not compete
with the eternal bliss in the afterlife, opportunistically endorsed by the
Council of Lateran (1518?), re-invented another horrible thing: a divorce.
It was still heavily stacked in
favor of men, but the simple fact, that many an aristocratic wife had equally
powerful fathers and brothers, somewhat restricted toleration of multiple
concubines in high society. Increased toleration of the Jews also enhanced the
probability that highly positioned members of nobility and the clergy would
share their conquests in brothels with the detested circumcised. Yet again, by
the eighteenth century, upper classes resumed their exploits in the
well-appointed “Isles of Cetera”, “Stag Parks” and other establishments of the
Ancien Régime. Propagation of opera, comedy theatre and ballet mightily enabled
meeting attractive sexual partners in an amusing setting.
Then the revolution with its slogan
had stricken the newly comfortable world of the old nobility and clergy: “There
should be no universal revolution without universal copulation.” (M. de Sade) The
answer of the victorious counter-revolution was, well, Victorianism. Uppity Victorians
could, of course, have their kept women and frequent prostitutes. Raping
servant girls was a natural part of male education in high society. However,
there was not a chance that a gentleman could parade his concubine among his
peers. This abrogated “pissing contests” between competing males but also made
market in kept women highly illiquid—in the absence of social gatherings where
the men of quality and the women of endowment could easily mingle—the choice of
potential partners for all but the most illustrious of stags (such as Edward VII,
“the Caresser”) was severely limited. Remaining photographic portraits of the
famous courtesans of the age and consorts of the rich and powerful with rare
exceptions do not blind us with immortal beauty.
The discovery of cinema in the Late
Victorian Age provided somewhat of a relief. Highly placed men could now
present their boys’ toys to each other by pointing at covers and folds of the
glamour magazines. But this was a far cry from the free-for-all contests of the
Ancien Régime because a potential love interest needed at least marginal
acting, singing or dancing talent and, moreover, the dating scene was limited
by geographic constraints.
Most of the prospective conquests
lived in Los Angeles suburbia and to a lesser degree in Berlin before the WWII
or Rome’s Cinecitta thereafter, far from established financial centers of New
York and London and the center of power in Washington, DC. Only the staunchest
and most dedicated whoremongers such as Kennedys could afford, in monetary, as
well as in more important social terms, to pursue Hollywood beauties.
Modeling industry has already
emerged but, in Coco Chanel’s time, models were little more than glorified
prostitutes. They were poor, nameless and could not be accepted in polite
society. For quite a few, modeling was an adjunct to their “working on the
side.” The revolution came with the 60s and was brought about, ironically, by
gays. Andy Warhol with his “superstars”, Robert Mapplethorpe who turned
photographic pornography into an accepted art form and Herb Ritts, who
propagated erotic art from galleries of Soho to the glamour magazines, became
the pioneers and paved the way for many gay as well as straight admirers.
The beginning of the age of a
supermodel coincided with the end of the Cold War. Now the Western ruling class
could cede the last vestiges of its martial origins and entirely absorb itself
in the pursuit of unheard-of-luxury and erotic hedonism. The models were different
from courtesans of old by a few important qualities. Rich and powerful men
could cavort with them and show them off to one another freely under the guise
of charity events, art auctions and fundraisers. With the new invention of
private jet they could be shoveled anywhere. Unlike opera and film stars of
old, they did not have to possess even minimal talents other than in bed. To assist
pissing contests of the elite men, photography in the glamour magazines became
even racier than the established pornographic journals in the 50s and 60s thus
accelerating the demise of the latter. Unlike the porn stars, underage models
could be legally transported across borders and photographed without parental
consent.
For the first time since antiquity,
open pursuit of underage girls and boys became if not legal then less socially
unacceptable under the guise of search for the new talent. If sex with them
would still have legal consequences in New York, there were places like Bangkok
or Prague, where everything goes as long as you are an American or, in cases of
harshest violations, pay the police. Eventually all models had to look like
teenagers, being freakishly tall and thin androgynous creatures with enormous
accentuated eyes.
A few stories of deliberate
starvation and drug abuse, some with lethal consequences, have shaken this
comfortable debauchery. Pesky feminists took their cases with renewed vigor further
emboldened by the fact that the new tabloid culture would discuss these cases with
gusto. Finally, the realization that fashion models are simply the
highest-remunerated strata of sex workers started to creep into public
consciousness. There came prohibitions for superficially young models and
demands for a minimally healthy body weight. The guidelines on the cross-border
transportation and parental supervision of international travel and sexual
images of the underage models are still absent. But, if feminists get their
way—and it hard to imagine that they would not—unless women again are denied
the right to vote, they are the next logical step.
Regulations on model agencies and
shuttering down those, which are most obviously the institutional pimps,
especially in Eastern Europe and Latin America, can be more difficult task but,
if money laundering is the guide, it can be accomplished quickly and relatively
painlessly with a necessary political will. The main obstacle is that, similar
to the world of professional sports and academia, the world of fashion is
highly stratified with the economic interests of (very visible) pinnacles of
the profession being highly incompatible with the interests of those
(invisibles) at the bottom of the barrel.
The
difficulty of modern jurisprudence to cope with these problems can be
illustrated by a recent case of Russian tycoon and presidential candidate
Prokhorov. He was arrested with a number of teenage models at the French resort
of Courchevel and charged with pimping. While the fact of arrest obviously had
political undertones attributable to the Russophobe French officials, the
accusations of the multi-billionaire mogul of pimping raised a significant legal
issue. If one considers an owner of a provincial strip club who gives his girls
a heroine fix before sending them to serve his mafia “protectors” a criminal,
there is no judicial reason to treat a tycoon who provides teenage fashion
model with a pretty nest somewhere in Monaco for cavorting with important
Senators and Duma Committee members to lubricate passing of important
legislation any different. Yet, the French prosecutors failed to make this case
and Prokhorov escaped scot-free and was even able to counter-sue.
When and if fashion models will
acquire rights similar to registered prostitutes in some European countries, e.g.
Germany, i.e. the right to public pensions and health care, police protection
in case of abuse or cross-border trafficking, monitoring of work conditions,
such as exposure to the elements and/or dangerous animals, their exploitation
by the rich and famous might cease to be that much fun. Joining modern
Hollywood and talk show circuit stars, fashion models can become another boring
group of highly paid career women. The arms race between predatory alpha males
and women rights advocates is to be continued.
However,
the powerful and the mighty have strong social tendencies in the Western
society on their side. The monogamous marriage, which has been inviolable in
Europe since adoption of Christianity is now under attack from above and below.
First, the communities of Moslem immigrants, which established themselves in
the centers of Western Civilization, such as London, Paris and Berlin practice
de facto polygamy. Because, in many countries, especially England, Holland and
Scandinavia, formerly France—but there Sarco “the American” fought it
vigorously—established themselves as virtual enclaves with their own justice
and customs, sometimes not even allowing the local law enforcement to enter
their strongholds, Sharia-approved polygamy proliferated among Europe’s poorest
classes.
On top, the upper classes of the
Western societies live in virtual polygamy. The expressions “starter wife” and
“girlfriend experience” appeared either in Wall Street and Hollywood to
describe two different facets of this abandonment of the Christian-Germanic monogamy.
In the former case, the upper-class men practically enter a contract with woman,
who must support them at initial stages of their careers—run around the agents,
type scripts and resumes, cook food and iron tuxedos—until they achieve some
recognition and can drop her for a co-equal in their profession. Of course,
nothing is new in this world, and the phenomenon of French grisette in XIX century provided an obvious template.
On later stages they can part with
the career wife as well, and start marrying long-legged bimbos decades younger
then themselves. Or, if they cannot or would not abandon their social wife,
they can be served by “a girlfriend experience”, i.e. a whore paid not only to
perform tricks but also to provide the hustler a company to opera or social
functions (here, life imitated art because “Pretty Woman” seemed to precede wide
opening of this new market). These women obviously evolved from high-end escort
services but unlike the latter, they are paid not only for playing tricks but
also for faking emotional attachment and concern for her patron’s career being
at the same time as disposable as the former.[2]
Among the new wealthy of Russia,
“the oligarchs”, the following pattern became the norm. A middle-aged man
marries a very young woman, typically a model and/or a winner of a beauty
pageant (‘miss’ka’, a worldplay on ‘Miss something’ and ‘cooking pot’) who
provides him companionship before their children go to school. Then the
offspring followed by his mother is sent to the prestigious boarding school
somewhere in Switzerland or UK and the cycle is repeated. Now, this is true,
not a serial, polygamy, because these women usually must maintain relationship
to their man at his pleasure to get support for their lavish lifestyle in
London or Paris. While in the puritan US true harems are a rarity, such
national treasures as Hugh Heffner and Ted Turner can maintain them in full
splendor.
Our
post-Christian, American-centric world instead of becoming secular adopted
Neo-Paganisms typical for the Roman Empire. The American elites under the guise
of “Biblical Christianity” (heavily influenced by the Mormonism and
Ultra-Orthodox Judaism of the Haredim) promote a cult of militaristic state as
an extension of male-dominated units of nuclear families. There are even propagandists
of such worldview, who abandon its religious shell for the reformed social
Darwinism (Charles Murray, etc.). The lower orders largely hold heterodox
superstitions mainly resulting from this “Biblical Christianity” but which also
include New Age cults. The main underpinning behind all of them is the
replacement of the Christian doctrine of Providence by the Pagan doctrine of
“luck” (Fortuna) mostly associated with the worldly possessions. Feminists are
right to feel that, despite all of their successes, they belong to the city
besieged.
[1] “Скучая вдовством, хотя и не целомудренным, он
уже давно искал себе третьей супруги… Из всех городов свезли невест в Слободу,
и знатных и незнатных, числом более двух тысяч; каждую представляли ему
особенно. Сперва он выбрал 24, а после 12, коих надлежало осмотреть доктору и
бабкам; долго сравнивал их в красоте, в приятностях, в уме.” V.
Karamzin, Russian XVIII-XIX century court historian. Tsarist censorship excised
the detail that the “brides” were paraded naked before him and his teenage son.
[2] There is XIX century
anecdote of a village girl arriving in Paris who asked an established
prostitute how it happens that men would pay such exorbitant sums for so
little. Experienced hooker answered that the wealthy men pay you not only to come
but also to leave quietly.
