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Susan Reimer: Behind every philandering man, a willing woman

The former never learns -- but what could possibly motivate the latter?

By SUSAN REIMER, Baltimore Sun

Last update: October 30, 2009 - 7:00 PM

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In yet another example of powerful men behaving badly with women underlings, ESPN baseball announcer Steve Phillips admitted last week to having an affair with a 22-year-old production assistant at the network.

Unlike the even more powerful David Letterman, who admitted having affairs with women in his employ, Phillips was fired by ESPN and has been served with divorce papers by his wife. It looks as if both CBS and Letterman's wife are sticking by the late-night host for the moment.

Apparently, the learning curve is much steeper than we imagined in the matter of men having sex with women subordinates. Nobody seems to have retained anything from former President Bill Clinton's nasty go-round with impeachment, and men continue to assume that the office takeout menu includes the newest cute young thing.

But it is at least rewarding to see the steep price some of these guys are paying.

Letterman was the object of a $2 million extortion plot and was forced to come clean in front of a national television audience that laughed awkwardly while waiting for the punch line.

Phillips' choice for a summer dalliance freaked out his wife, scaring her into a 911 call; stalked his son on Facebook; and wrote explicit letters about their sex, all of which are now part of the public record.

Serves them right.

But if I am exasperated by the ego and entitlement of these men, I am also furious with these young women.

They seem to have missed the memo saying that it is no longer necessary to sleep your way to the top. It remains an option, of course. Phillips' obsessed young lover, Brooke Hundley, wrote that she would do anything to make her way in television.

But it is no longer the only route, ladies. Your mothers and aunts took care of that.

Certainly, career advancement is a much less delusional motive for sleeping with the boss than believing you have found your soul mate in a guy who thinks of you as one of his job perks.

Even if "your reputation" doesn't mean what it did 30 years ago, you risk an extraordinary kind of public humiliation when the affair goes viral. The New York Post will call you a "tubby temptress" and arrange all your stupid Facebook pictures in a slide show on its website.

Long ago, the sexual exploitation of disenfranchised young women by their employers was an ugly workplace reality, and those women had no recourse and no recompense.

But we had no illusions about the men who thought their name on the office door gave them the prerogative to call us in and close it.

All these years later, this is still what being used looks like.

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