MEN DON'T LEARN
Most men do not want to learn from either their past mistakes, or from the mistakes of other men. Maybe, we must just blame this on the biblical Adam, who, according to the Holy Bible, became the very first person to throw caution by the wind and disobeyed God's instructions, just to enjoy the joys of the flesh.
Sex and lust have taken down many powerful men, including church bishops, priests, state presidents, prime ministers, school principals, academics, judicial officers, teachers, bankers, lawyers, financial wizards, and sportspeople. The only position not yet directly affected is that of the Pope; let us hope this will not happen in my lifetime.
Some pseudo "medical experts" assert men are simply physiologically conditioned that way; when the blood pumps stronger to the Southern parts (the reproductive organs) of their bodies, there is less or no blood which flows to their Northern parts (the brain). Whatever the true medical facts are on this matter, the truth remains that most men stop thinking rationally once their reproductive organs start getting excited.
Well, you all know I am about to move to the topical Zwelinzima Vavi sexual matter. It is not for us to pronounce (yet) on who the guilty party is on this matter. What we all know, which Vavi has already admitted through the social networks, is that he had sex with a married colleague. This is not just about religious fanaticism or platitudes that people must not have sex outside the wedlock; our secular country is more lax about that.
The non-religious moral issue here is that Vavi creates a picture of himself as a person who has a sharpened appetite for married women; especially taking into consideration that his current wife was also married to someone else when he started having an affair with her, and it is public knowledge that her ex-husband has publicly blamed Vavi for the breakdown of that marriage. This latest scandal will also not go down well with the conservative religious lobby who enjoyed citing him (Vavi) as one of the very few leaders with "moral fibre" within the ANC-SACP-COSATU tripartite alliance.
Many of Vavi's adversaries within the tripartite alliance have been irritated by his regular criticisms of the ANC, as an organisation, and some of its political leadership. It is also public knowledge that many powerful people within the ANC - and even COSATU itself - cannot wait to see the back of him. It stands to reason that these such people will do their best to engineer his early exit, as he is perceived as a thorn in the flesh. Hence, any occasional lapses of moral judgement on his part are a political bonus for those who do not like him.
It is against this background we believe Vavi, as a seasoned political activist, should have known better that you do not throw bricks if you live in a glass house. He has just given good live ammunition to his adversaries; regardless of whether you categorise that sexual activity with his colleague as "rape" or consensual sex.
Consensual sex between work colleagues is common, though morally unacceptable to most people under many circumstances. Unfortunately for Vavi; he has just opened himself up to a potential charge of sexual harassment, which both his political adversaries and his COSATU opponents will likely use to get him out of their way.
Vavi has conceded, through social networks, that he is only human, and that he has human feelings; and that what happened between him and the 26 year old married COSATU female staff member was a private matter between two consenting adults (that is, until the staff member's husband came into the picture).
The problem for Vavi here is that a careful reading of the definition of sexual harassment in the Code of Good Practice on the Handling of Sexual Harassment Cases, contained in both the Labour Relations Act and in the Employment Equity Act, also covers an aspect of sexual favouritism "where a person who is in a position of authority rewards only those who respond to his or her sexual advances, while other deserving employees who do not submit to sexual advances are denied promotions, merit rating or salary increases."
Bosses who engage in sex, consensual or not, with their subordinates run the potential risk of opening themselves to later charges that they abused their positions to get sexual favours; and that the people they had sex with were effectively unwilling participants who were unduly pressured into "consenting" to the sexual encounter(s) just to safeguard their jobs. Vavi should have known this.
There are many powerful successful men who have allowed their private reproductive parts to give more live ammunition to their opponents, just when they needed to concentrate more on building their professional legacies. The list comprises among others, the biblical Samson who gave away valuable sacred secrets about the source of his personal strength to a female enemy agent Delilah, just because of sexual enjoyment.
In the USA, we have had a very powerful, well-loved, competent President Bill Clinton who nearly got impeached from Office because of one Monica Lewinsky. Tiger Woods lost his golf invincibility, lost sponsorships worth millions of USA dollars, and his World Number One golf position because of his problem with keeping his pants up. Similarly, the formerly world-respected Dominique Strauss-Kahn, one of the very best leaders that the IMF has ever had, has his future career in tatters because of various criminal investigations against him, including the current demeaning charge of "pimping", just because he could not keep up the zip on his trousers. In Italy, Greece, and Russia, they currently have legal investigations and / or trials against sitting or past heads of state for past sexual misbehaviours.
Going back to the past in South Africa, we remember one very good banker, Bob Aldworth, who had been an outstanding head of Barclays in South Africa, in the 1980s. His very successful banking career was unceremoniously cut short t because of his sexual indiscretions with one ambitious married consultant called Professor Van der Merwe.
Closer to home, with people who are supposed to Vavi's contemporaries; in Zimbabwe, Morgan Tswangarai has his attention distracted from the serious political campaigning because of all the deliberate focus that his political enemies, Robert Mugabe's ZANU, have opportunistically directed to his sexual behaviour. Worse still, Vavi knows how Jacob Zuma's political future was nearly brought to an earlier abrupt end because of lack of judgement on matters of sexual behaviour.
When will men ever learn that the few minutes of extra-marital sexual satisfaction can ruin their entire carefully built careers which had taken decades to build?
Prof Bonke Dumisa is a Professor of Management at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and an Advocate of the High Courts of South Africa and Lesotho.
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