The Griveaux affair, the infidelities of François Hollande or Jacques Chirac, the light customs of Berlusconi in Italy… Political life and sexual scandals intersect regularly. In the show Sans rendez-vous on Europe 1, sexologist and psychiatrist Catherine Blanc responds to an auditor who wonders if men of power have a sex life different from that of anonymous people, or if media coverage has a magnifying effect on these business, which are found in other strata of society.
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Tristan's question
"We had the Griveaux affair, we remember the libertine mores of Berlusconi or other politicians. Do men in power have a more active sex life, or at least different from ours, or is it more publicized? "
Catherine Blanc's response
"It's extremely complicated, especially when you name names. You can't know what's going on in the minds of these people and it would be improper, counter psychoanalysis, to guess. In fact, when we are in a position of important and recognized power, there is in each of us a feeling of omnipotence. We reach the highest level. This feeling suggests that we are safe from everything. And nothing like an erection demonstrated and shown to testify to this omnipotence.
That said, it is also because we are in a time of our civilization where we transmit all this through the media, and therefore we stop on it when they are public figures, even more so for politicians. It is made something even more erect than the erection itself.
Are women less affected?
The female sex being in essence more hidden, they have less material to make large demonstrations. Young boys measure themselves more than young girls. It is really in the masculine structure, quite animal, to show its omnipotence in relation to the other.
Do men of power have a more active life?
The idea that we have of pressure and how to evacuate it often goes through sexuality, which does not have place to be. Sexuality is not a place to bring out the tension, and the woman is not the receptacle of this tension. These are fantasies. The individual is lost. We are not animals, we are always in control of ourselves. This begs the question of something fairly self-destructive. When you have so much power, going to flirt with risk, that raises the question of the ability to assume your power. "