A Different Kind of Romance

Or is it?

You'll pardon me, I hope, if I descend into the murky depths of illicit affairs, which I take in this instance to mean sexual relations outside of marriage.

I'm thinking right now of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and his Argentine inamorata. Reports from Argentina have referred to her as a 43-year old professional woman of uncommon beauty. Sanford is 49, so the age range is in line with general expectations.

The element in this romance that strikes me as interesting is the appearance of the two. Given that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, we are, nonetheless, prone to accept reports that the woman is pretty darned good looking.

Sanford, on the other hand, altghough tall and with a commanding presence by virtue of that alone, doesn't have the face of a Hollywood idol. He has close-set eyes that some may describe as beady. And a long, narrow nose reminiscent of the noses of some species of lower primates.

As your typical generic Anglo-Saxon male, I am naturally prone to ask, "What does she see in that guy?"

In fact, when I look at Sanford's face, I am reminded of an old Mickey Gilley honky-tonk song, "The Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time."

The song clearly suggests that a woman's attractiveness increases in proportion with the amount of alcohol consumed by the male. I hold that the rule also applies to women. The more booze a woman consumes, the handsomer a generic will appear to be.

I am not suggesting that Sanford's inamorata has to get loaded to engage in an affair with him. But Sanford surely must possess some sort of characteristic that transforms him into a desirabke male, a characteristic that acts on the female brain much in the manner of booze, a characteristic that casts a soft glow on his entire being.

In my judgement, power is that characteristic. As pudgy Henry Kissinger once said, "Power is an aphrodisiac." This once-Secretary of State ought to know. He used to squire some of Hollywood's most beautiful women around town.

And now, it seems, generic Sanford is the beneficiary of Kissinger's homily. If only the rest of us plain folks were as fortunate. Sigh.

To Each His Own

Besides being the title of an old romantic ballad played and sung by Eddie Howard in the forties and fifties, the title as used here is a reflection on a post by Grace Scott, my partner in this blog.

A couple of posts back, she made the point that romance is in the mind of the person who defines it. Each person decides what the word "romance" means to him or her. I agree wholeheartedly with Grace and just for the heck of it, I thought I'd jot down some thoughts on the way I view romance without attempting to define it.

First, I think most people believe that women are more romantic than men. Women are supposed to be romantic by nature whereas men are thought of as pragmatic get-it-done types with little time for romantic interludes. This belief may or may not pass the holds-water test. I suggest that women are more open about their romantic feelings than men because male culture tends to dampen overt signs of romanticism. Male peer pressure is very powerful. No man wants to be thought of as weak or sissified or feminine. But that doesn't mean men lack romanticism, merely that they aren't as open about it as women. I would argue that some men are highly romantic, some are not. As Grace says, it's an individual thing.

I also have observed generational differences in perceptions of romance. For those who care to listen to the music of past generations, they may be struck by the lack of overt and blatant sexuality in the tempo and lyrics of music in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. That doesn't mean sex didn't exist then, merely that it wasn't flaunted in public as it often is today. Softness seems to give rise to romantic feelings whereas much of the music and lyrics today seem focused on sex. In my judgment, there is romantic sex and then there is sex for the sake of sex. I may be wrong about that, but I perceive a good deal of sex for the sake of sex today with an added element. Many people today seem proud and unashamed of their encounters, even keeping track with Excel spreadsheets. I'm old fashioned about this, certainly, but I see no respect for the other person in these sorts of activities and certainly no romance.

My third an final observation concerns concepts of romance in different cultures. Not all societies and cultures share the American version of romance. Some cultures, like Japan, still, even in this modern era, encourage arranged marriages and discourages romantic engagements. But oddly, within this framework, romance thrives in such beliefs that gray hair is a desirable romantic commodity in a man. A man in Japan with a streak of gray hair is referred to as having "romance gray." In the Philippines, music is a predominant vehicle for the encouragement of soft romance. The music of the Philippines is largely the music of Spain and it is centered around romantic ballads. Filipinos love to dance and we all know that dancing is a sure fire enhancement of a romantic relationship.

Okay, these are my thoughts on romance. What are yours? Let us know your opinions about romance and about your own romantic stories.