The difference between an affair and a scandal

While political sex scandals can be disturbing, outrage at sex scandals can also be irritating. When news of the Profumo affair broke in 1963, Lord Hailsham vented that his Tory colleague, Secretary of War John Profumo, had “lied and lied; lied to his family, lied to his friends, lied to his solicitor, lied to the House of Commons.” Another member of Parliament, noting the accuser’s tendency toward the sin of gluttony, responded: “When self-indulgence has reduced a man to the shape of Lord Hailsham, sexual continence involves no more than a sense of the ridiculous.”

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