Now THAT Stings!

An aging Lothario takes pride in his manhood, believing that as he sees himself; dashing, confident, irresistible to women; so should the world. He has power and position, and wealth. Better yet, he has a beautiful wife, aware of his indiscretions, but patiently waiting for the time when his sexual exploits will diminish, his id catching up to his advanced chronological age. He has children with his beautiful wife; two males, one female, all three advanced into adulthood.

Yet the man is reluctant to relinquish his past-time of the pursuit of sexual congress with appealing women. Nothing lugubrious about this man, the Prime Minister of Italy. His lavishly beaming face says it all. And Italians being Italians, most people in the country are accustomed to males exhibiting their virile nature, enamoured of their storied prowess in sex. There is a certain sympathy with Silvio Berlusconi, despite his years, in insisting that women love him and he loves them right back.

His wife, however, has lost her patience, and is suing for divorce. Having come to the realization that her public denouements of his attachment to self and to sex have come to naught. His daughter expresses the puzzlement of social civility that her ageing father continues to romp about in the bedrooms of the nation, including his own, into which he invites courtesans. While strenuously denying that he would pay for sex, when women fling themselves at him.

He is not exactly emotionally bereft that his wife prefers divorce to continuing to live with a man who courts young girls with a view to teaching them about life in its earthier permutations. He does not consider that he is making a fool of himself; he exhibits overweening pride in his undiminished sex drive, delighted that women, beautiful and young make themselves available to him.

Now, however, he has begun to suffer an indignity to his reputation that he simply cannot and will not permit. The scurrilous rumour, the unrepentant slander that he is impotent. Impotent! He? Surely, no one could believe such a demented slur on his manhood. Yet the Italian newspaper, L'Unita, stands firm in its declaration.

And for that, they are being sued for $3-million (U.S.), by a man for whom that amount of money is trifling, but who is intent in humiliating those who dare to attempt to humiliate him by a degrading slander. "Berlusconi is ready to go to court to explain that not only is he not a big lecher, but also that he is not impotent", according to his lawyer.

"Why on earth should Mr. Berlusconi be prevented from explaining to 20 million Italians, his affectionate voters, that he is in perfect working order?" Why on earth not? His plumbing is in perfect working order, perhaps, but there remain questions about his cerebral functioning. Obviously of no great concern to those who have brought him twice to public office.