So, back in literary La-La Land, the book currently setting lips a-twitter is Mimi Alford's new — some say, shocking — tell-all memoir Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with President John F Kennedy and Its Aftermath. So much consternation over yet another alleged JFK extramarital affair! But the hue and cry is largely, naturally, for Alford. People will apparently excuse a beloved former president for having sex with other women, even while he was married, but will find no space in their hearts to forgive the other women who slept with him. But that's how it always is, even amongst us the unwashed masses: a married man can always slip and fall between an 'other' woman's legs; the woman between whose legs he lands is the cheap tart who should have the good sense God gave her to keep her legs shut.
In the summer of 1962, when she was just 19, Mimi Alford, nee Beardsley, a White House intern, began an affair with John Fitzgerald Kennedy. At least, this is how Alford's account, 50 years later, goes. Four days into her internship, she met Kennedy and he invited her the following day on a personal tour of the White House residence that included first lady Jackie Kennedy's bedroom. (What the hell does a White House intern do but give presidents fellatio and such, is what I'm wondering, considering the hair-curling stories that have emerged in past years about extracurricular White House activities involving pages and interns.)
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Anyway, long and short, according to Alford, who is now a 69-year-old meemaw, she lost her virginity to the president that same day. (If I'd known her, I'd have told her that nothing good ever ends up happening when a man more than twice your age takes you on a tour of his wife's bedroom. President or no.)
But it was the age of innocence — and it's hard to believe that women were once naïve, given that we've all become so jaded in this post-Sex and the City age — and she allowed herself to be given the grand tour that began the 18-month affair.
For the record, I believe her. And not because she's now a church administrator. That's neither here nor there, since it's my experience that church folks can be some of the most, shall we say, deluded people on the planet. I work closely with one and he makes me want to jump through a bloody window.
But I digress.
The point is, Mimi Alford, outed by a Kennedy biographer back in 2003, has a voice that's matter-of-fact and open — she doesn't seek to romanticise the relationship. Their first encounter was exactly as we'd expect it would be for an inexperienced teenager: a kind of letdown, with him startling her by an inelegant request for, well, congress, and then pointing her to the bathroom after it was finished. As time went on, though, the sex improved, becoming "varied and fun". Still, they never kissed; there was always a "layer of reserve" between them.
"The fact that I was being desired by the most famous and powerful man in America only amplified my feelings to the point where resistance was out of the question. That's why I didn't say no to the president," she wrote.
Who among us as young women involved with older, possibly married, men never felt this antiseptic thrill of being with a man who had no business "choosing" to be with us? Who among us hasn't luxuriated in the secret joy of a forbidden relationship? Who among us hasn't dreamily thought, 'Oh, he prefers me to his wife'? Then, mind you, we grow up and realise that he really won't leave his wife, and so the only way an extramarital affair is even remotely viable is if there's no expectation of it becoming something permanent.
I can't believe that the women who are criticising Alford have never in their lives had a sexual assignation that reflected poor judgement. I read a review by one of these shriek-bots (and it's always a woman high astride that old horse of condemnation) who wondered aloud whether Alford didn't notice how bad she made herself look by admitting to this affair. Another one questioned how Alford could have "done this to Caroline", Kennedy's remaining daughter. Discretion, this woman suggested, should perhaps be the better part of valour.
Excuse me, but how about asking why this powerful man exploited a vulnerable teenage girl? Why does the late president get a free pass? Listen, everybody knows how fascinated I am by JFK and that idealised period, up to circa 1963, which we define as Camelot. I'm not about bad-mouthing him. But at this point we can no longer pretend that the rumours about the president's many dalliances and White House affairs are simply conjecture. The fact is this: our icons aren't saints; they often have feet of clay. Everybody thinks JFK was a good president but it doesn't mean that he didn't have his personal demons. There's an author I admire for his work. Then, some years ago, the late Wayne Brown and I sat talking about the man, who happened to be one of Wayne's esteemed friends. Out came the revelations about the man's, um, chequered personal life, and let me tell you: I was traumatised. The man, it turned out, was a nasty piece of work who engaged in sordid, unseemly behaviour.
Genuinely bemused by how distraught I was, Wayne taught me a life lesson: never equate the artist with the art. Hitler was devoid of a soul, but did you know he made exquisite art?
But back to Mimi Alford's book, which, by its attendant controversy, has helped to highlight the unfortunate fact that women are each other's worst enemies. How many of these women hell-bent on criticising women who have extramarital affairs, upon finding themselves in the same situation Alford found herself in, would have taken the morally superior road down which they're judgementally skipping? What if their 19-year-old daughter had had sex with, say, President Bill "Love-'Em-And-Leave-'Em" Clinton? Whom would they blame then: the child or the adult?
Sex and power are not-so-strange bedfellows. Which impressionable teenager would have said no? I know I wouldn't have. At 19, a girl is feeling the intoxicating power of her sexuality. By and large, we don't raise our young girls to have the requisite self-esteem and self-confidence needed to get by in this world with its sexual slings and arrows. Believe me; I know of what I speak. That's why they're always looking to be validated by men. Well, men and pop stars. (Rihanna is now blond, so teenage girls, and some older women too, are growing the recent red out of their hair in order to take the bold blond dive.)
I never thought I'd ever say these words, but thank God for the perspective of age. Hopefully, I'll try to remember to keep my paws off someone else's husband. One thing I won't be doing any time soon, for damn sure though, is bleaching my hair blond.
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/lifestyle/Why-Is-the-Other-Woman-the-Villain-in-Every-Love-Story-_10869129#ixzz1o98ONMQx
