Fascinoma

Just imagine you are a rich and powerful man, a politician. You've been married for several decades and you love your wife and children. But your marriage is now sexless; it's undergone the hetero equivalent of bed death. You may not be wholly blameless, of course, but for reasons not entirely clear to you, your wife's skin now crawls when you touch her. She sometimes looks at you like you're her deviant uncle. You've talked about it, but that just seems to make it worse. She wants to want you but...it doesn't work that way. You're hurt; you're angry; you're frustrated and horny. You despair. You love your wife but you're not ready to swear off sex. You don't want to divorce or have affairs, or take a mistress (as they do in some Old European countries) so you decide to go the route that makes for least emotional entanglement, least bad faith and so, to your way of thinking about it, least infidelity -- straight cash transactions at a rate which should buy confidentiality, and which maximizes your pleasure and minimizes your sense of victimizing anyone.

The whole thing blows up in your face. And everyone wants to know why your wife stands up with you at the press conference. It's almost as if she felt somehow complicit or responsible.... People just find it inexplicable. What a mystery....