The sexual escapades of powerful men in France have always been met with Gallic shrugs. Not anymore.

The arrest in New York of former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on charges of attempted rape is forcing men to watch what they say and emboldening women to challenge the modern-day version of France’s “droit de cuissage,” a feudal practice giving masters the right to have sex with female servants. It’s prompting introspection in the media over whether its laissez-faire attitude toward private lives of those in power helps them act with impunity.

“Since power is often thought of as an aphrodisiac, there was a sort of acceptance of men’s excesses toward women,” said Rachel Mulot, a member of a feminist group called “La Barbe,” or The Beard, which on May 22 joined protests in Paris against the “dominant male.” The Strauss-Kahn case may serve as a trigger to help victims of sexual assaults to break the “taboo of rape” in France, she said.

Strauss-Kahn, 62, was indicted May 19 on charges of criminal sex, attempted rape, sexual abuse, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching of a 32-year-old maid at the Sofitel hotel in Manhattan. The former French finance minister, who had been a leading contender for next year’s presidential elections, denies the allegations and will plead not guilty, his lawyers say. DSK, as he’s known in France, is under house arrest in Manhattan.

After DSK
Early reactions from male French commentators to the maid’s allegations sparked outrage. Jean-Francois Kahn, founder of weekly magazine Marianne and a witness at Strauss-Kahn’s third marriage in 1991, laughed as he said on state-owned radio station France Culture, that “there may have been a careless action, how should I put it… the shagging of a servant.” He later apologized.

For France, “there will be a before and an after DSK,” former Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin was quoted as saying in Le Figaro newspaper over the weekend. “We are not saints, but our actions need to be coherent with our thinking. Those in power need to be exemplary.”

While sexual assault and attempted rape allegations that Strauss-Kahn is accused of in New York are also crimes in his home country, the French have been more indulgent when it comes to the indiscretions of their politicians.

“Earlier, kings had their droit de cuissage with servants in palaces; this looked like a powerful person trying it on a maid in a New York hotel,” Jean Quatremer, a journalist with newspaper Liberation, said in an interview.

‘Sexus Politicus’
Unlike in the U.S., where sexual scandals have forced the resignation of four members of the House of Representatives in the past five years and ruined the careers of a former vice- presidential nominee and presidential candidate, sex is treated as private matter in France. No French politician in recent years has been brought down by a sex scandal.

View more, please visit http://www.onThesource.com