Lawyers: Sexual dullards or great lovers?

Everybody nowadays is talking about sex. Not just about sex, but about having plenty of it. It seems the heavy burden of the presidency is no stumbling block to having a plenitude of sex. A bountiful sex life may soon be part of the Filipino dream.

Since the First Gentleman is a lawyer, an interesting and intriguing question is: "Do lawyers make great lovers?" (The term "lawyers" as used here refers only to the male members of the legal profession.) Lawyers have always tried to project a macho image; some even behave like they are God’s gift to women. Many prominent lawyers – both in the government and in the private sector – have been romantically linked to some famous personalities and their sexual escapades are grist for the gossip mill. A dashing high-ranking government lawyer is a well-known Casanova. A congressman lawyer was reported to have been caught by an irate husband in a hotel room and made to streak through the lobby like Lady Godiva except that he had no long hair to cover his manhood. In the private sector, there is a handsome practitioner who wears suspenders to prop up his most important asset.

But what’s really the public perception about lawyers being great romantic and passionate lovers? A review of the literature on the subject shows that lawyers rank very low in women’s sexual esteem.

Down through the centuries, the lawyer has been the object of universal loathing; the only ones with good words for the legal profession are invariably either lawyers or their mothers. (Roth, J. and A., "Poetic Justice, The Funniest, Meanest Things Ever Said About Lawyers".) Lawyers are viewed as professional buzzards who prey upon people’s troubles. If H.L. Mencken is to be followed, all lawyers should be hanged and their bones sold to a mahjong factory.

Because of their work – which requires what a writer has described as "artificial emotion and superficial indignation" – lawyers are psychologically incapacitated to become great romantic lovers. The practice of law tends to brutalize the feelings and destroy every tender emotion. This is explained by "The lawyer’s perpetual fellowship with dishonesty and constant intercourse with villainy" (This quotation is taken from a book entitled "The Lawyer, or Man As He Ought Not To Be").

Lawyers are seen by people as a "joyless lot" and as the "dullest section of the community." According to a former judge in Australia, "They bury their heads in their law books and know nothing about life" (McClelland, J., Sydney Morning Herald, "Sayings of the Week", March 22, 1986). Erika Jong has remarked: "I have never been in a chamber with a lawyer when I did not wish either to scream with desperation or else fall into the deepest of sleep, even when the matter concerned my own future most profoundly."

That lawyers are perceived to be the least romantic of human beings or, worse, not to be interested in sex at all is evident from the oft-quoted statement of Woody Allen: "Some men are heterosexual, and some men are bi-sexual, and some men don’t think about sex at all, you know they become lawyers."

There is a theory that lawyers become sexual dullards or bores because of the deadening influence of the legal texts they work with. A lawyer’s daily reading staple of "whereas", "wherefore", "thereof", "and/or", "aforesaid", etc. can numb the senses of anybody. Consider the following: If a lawyer wants to give an apple to somebody, he does not merely say, "I give you this apple." He has to say it this way: "Know all men by these presents that I hereby give, grant, bargain, sell, release, convey, transfer and quitclaim all my right, title, interest, benefit, and use whatever in, of, and concerning this chattel, otherwise known as an apple or pome fruit of the genus Malus, family Rosaceae, together with all the appurtenances thereto to skin, ripened ovary, and surrounding tissue, hereinafter referred to as pulp, seeds, juice and stem…" (Peter, L., "The Peter Pyramid", pp. 98-99.) Even the way lawyers talk is quite numbing.

Instead of simply saying "I", a lawyer, when arguing in court, would often say, "This humble representation."

All those legalese or gobbledygook can drain anybody of his romantic juices. At the end of the day, a lawyer – after hours of stringing a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo – simply wants to go to sleep or drown himself in vodka or tequila; sex is farthest from his mind.

(The author is a senior partner of the Abello Concepcion Regala & Cruz Law Offices or ACCRALAW. He teaches Evidence in the UP College of Law and the Ateneo School of Law. He may be contacted at tel. # 830-8000; fax # 816-0119; 812-4897; e-mail: [email protected]/[email protected].)