In recent years it has become increasingly common in the United
States and in the United Kingdom for newspapers and other media to
expose problematic aspects of the private lives of political (and other
public) figures; or, since the facts may already be in the public
domain, to draw wider attention to them and to make them the subject of
commentary. These “problematic aspects” may include past or
continuing physical or psychological illness, eating disorders, drug
and alcohol abuse or dependence, financial difficulties, family
conflict, infidelity, or certain sexual proclivities of both the
political figures themselves and of their family members or intimates.
In the United States, the most prominent cases are probably those of
President Bill Clinton in relation to a series of alleged extramarital
affairs leading up to the scandal involving White House intern Monica
Lewinsky, and of President John F. Kennedy, also in relation to marital
infidelities. The latter exposure was, of course retrospective, as were
revelations of similar matters concerning other presidents and holders
of high office. Up until the mid-1960s, while it was sometimes known to
the press that politicians had “problems” in their private
lives, it was rare for these to be made public. Sometimes it might be
reported, or more likely hinted, that a figure had a
“complex” or “difficult” personal life, and the
public was left to infer whatever it might from this (generally
concluding that infidelity, alcoholism, or both, were probably at
issue). The recent culture of exposure results from a combination of
factors, including changed attitudes toward public discussion of sexual
conduct, changed standards of sexual behavior, recognition of the scale
of Cold War espionage and of its practice of blackmail, a general
decline in social deference, a threat to the print media posed by the
growth of television, and the rise of satirical entertainment. All of
these elements were present in the case that marked the establishment
of the culture of exposure in the U.K.: the ‘Profumo
scandal’ of 1963. For those unaware of this episode, it may be
sufficient to say that it involved the then-secretary of state for war,
members of the British aristocracy, a Soviet naval attaché, and
a number of “society” call girls, and that it contributed
to the resignation of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and the
subsequent fall from power of the Conservative Party. In the United
States, the culture of exposure developed somewhat later and took shape
in the period of the Watergate scandal, which damaged the American
public's perception of the governing classes just as the Profumo
scandal had in Britain.