I wonder what was going through Tommy Sheridan’s mind as he stood clutching his wife outside the courthouse, where he had been found guilty of perjury, while she gave a canned speech about standing by her man.
A man who had been outed by the News of the World as being a swinger and a serial adulterer. Why that was news to anyone is beyond me. Politicians have been doing this kind of thing since forever. It seems to come with the territory. Power and sex go together like salt and pepper, peanut butter and jam, ham and cheese, well, you get the point.
What I don’t get is why he thought he could get away with it in the first place. I guess power has a way of making people think they are invincible. I mean if you go to a public place like the swingers’ club Cupid’s in Manchester with an entourage of people, one of whom is a journalist, how could you not expect to be outed? I guess Tommy thought the old Shaggy line, “It wasn’t me,” would be enough to give him plausible deniability.
I wonder what was going through Tommy’s mind when he called up his pals Andy McFarlane, Gary Clark, Katrine Trolle, and Anvar Khan. I count three men and two women. I wonder if he invited Gail along or was she stuck at home looking after their daughter?
I don’t condemn Tommy for doing the swinging thing. Hey, to each his own. What bothers me is he didn’t want to man up to his actions and tell the public and his constituents that yeah, he likes to swing every now and then. So what. You know how it is when you’re a married man in your mid 40’s and feeling a bit bored, sometimes a little swinging can put the swing back in your relationship.
It’s funny that Gail describe Tommy as “boring” and that he would rather play Scrabble than have sex. I guess Scrabble was his front. Or maybe he was doing what he thought she wanted him to do – you know, be a domesticated family man playing Scrabble as a gesture of spending quality time together, when actually all he probably wanted to do was jump her bones. And she probably wanted him to jump her bones, but he missed the signals, like men are prone to do. We find it hard to read women.
Maybe it’s the communications barrier. We all know we want sex. So why all the drama? Why not just get busy, like we did when we were horny teenagers groping each other in the park after dark or in the cemetery where we knew no-one would find us. I guess romance replaces horniness. Women want romance or at least that’s my perception. Men, we want to knock the boots with no fanfare. But then we’re made to feel guilty thinking of women as sex objects, a receptacle for our lust. So instead, we opt out of sex with our partners altogether and turn to extra-marital shenanigans. As Yasmin Alibhai-Brown alluded to, some times gentlemen prefer whores because its easier, like going to the grocery store and buying any other product.
It’s a shame Tommy boy didn’t just own up to his sexual shenanigans. Now if things don’t turn out in his favour in January, he’ll have to hope his girl will pay him a conjugal visit. Although, judging from her past actions, she’s more likely to send him another postcard from Barbados saying ‘Hope you and Bowling Bag Bob are having a good time in cellblock four.’
