Ever think about what Donald Trump is like in bed?
That is, when he's not otherwise occupied, tweeting. Or watching Fox News. Or tweeting again.
This week, a presidential address to 40,000 Boy Scouts gave a remarkable, if unintended glimpse into what Trump is really like in the bedroom.
These were scouts who'd come to hear sage adult advice about what it takes for a boy to become a real man, aspiring to the ideals of the Scouting Oath. These are ideals which, they may later learn as men, are as good a guide as any to how a man should act as a lover: Kind. Brave. Trustworthy. Loyal. Prepared.
Instead, they got Donald Trump.
Point by nasty, boastful, petty, slipshod point, the president took apart and trampled the Oath, in the process revealing what we all suspect Donald Trump must truly be like in bed: Suffocatingly selfish. Ostentatiously disloyal. Sulky and short-tempered. Untrustworthy. Ungenerous. Uncaring. Aggressively disrespectful.
What's Donald Trump like in bed? Picture it. This man who is picky, babyish, judgmental, a slave to routine, easily distracted. Who ranks women publicly, statistically, caustically, cruelly. Who is afraid of germs.
This is not a real man. This is not someone who has the slightest glimmer of a sense of what a real man is.
If you knew nothing about Donald Trump beside what he's said and done over the last several days, you'd already know all you need know about him.
Here, on full display, is the person for whom the concept of manhood is a swamp cocktail of bluster and bullying and male chauvinism and love of golf and love for guns and, more than all of it, love of the mirror.
On Wednesday in Youngstown, Ohio, in the heart of a country literally built by immigrants, Trump boasted about how he was going to choke off immigration. And in the perverse self-righteousness of the admitted practitioner of sexual assault, Trump explained his policy with this characterization of immigrant gangs:
"The predators and criminal aliens who poison our communities with drugs and prey on innocent young people - these beautiful, beautiful, innocent young people -will find no safe haven anywhere in our country. And you've seen the stories about some of these animals. They don't want to use guns, because it's too fast and it's not painful enough.
"So they'll take a young, beautiful girl, 16, 15, and others, and they slice them and dice them with a knife because they want them to go through excruciating pain before they die. And these are the animals that we've been protecting for so long. Well, they're not being protected any longer, folks. "
But Trump was just warming up. Suddenly, he had become an authority on the association between sexual identity and military prowess.
On Wednesday afternoon, this man, who in his youth had leveraged his privilege to repeatedly dodge military service, took to Twitter to summarily declare that "the United States Government will not accept or allow transgender individuals in any capacity in the U.S. Military."
Transgender servicemen and women cause "tremendous medical costs and disruption," he wrote. And in a statement that said much more about the president than it did about transgender people in the service, Trump said the reason for the ban was that "Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory."
Never mind that last year, campaigning for president, Trump vowed that "As your president, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology."
On another occasion, the candidate cried "You tell me, who is better for the gay community and who's better for women than Donald Trump?"
Never mind that Trump's transgender ban caught the Pentagon dumbfounded. Or that the comments sparked rage and consternation among the thousands of transgender officers and enlisted personnel, as well as many of those with whom they serve.
"I serve in active duty in the military," said California Congressman Ted Lieu, a colonel in the Air Force Reserves, "and I can tell you - we don't care about gender orientation or identity or who you love, we just care if you can shoot straight and complete the mission."
Donald Trump is a disgrace to all men.
A real man is an actual grown-up. A real man holds himself accountable for the wreckage he causes. A real man would not "rather be remembered as a successful, rich winner, than as a good husband."
Some time ago, I came across an open letter signed by nearly 4,000 practicing American psychotherapists, alarmed by the threat which Trump and Trumpism may pose to "the well-being of people we treat and care for in our work."
The text covers a lot of ground, but at the heart of much of it, is concern about Trump's "Fostering a cult of the Strong Man" - a man who, among other core behaviors:
"Subordinates women while claiming to idealize them," "Never apologizes or admits mistakes of consequence," and who "Reinvents history and has little concern for truth." For young men and others, the therapists said, one of the primary ill-effects of Trumpism was "Exaggerated masculinity as a cultural ideal."
A real man doesn't just blithely trot away from the messes he leaves, like a dog, distancing himself from his own deposited waste. Or a serial bankrupt. Which he is.
A real man would respect commitment. A real man would not exalt adultery. A real man would at least respect his daughter enough not to have treated her publicly as just one more sexual object in his life.
Trump had barely been married to his third wife, Melania, when he was caught on tape saying that he wanted to kiss and grope a woman with whom he was about to work. "When you're a star," he explained at the time, "they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything."
A real man would have taken responsibility. He would have sincerely apologized. But Trump is not anywhere close to a real man, even by the old, unevolved sexist standards. He whines and kvetches. He preens and postures. He is a Titan of puny jealousies. He exploits every one of us, supporters and opponents alike. He "wins" by rigging every game he plays. A real man would not look at the presidency, the country, the world, as one more toy, one more trophy, one more possession, and when he's crossed, one more hindrance.
A real man would not take credit for the good works his predecessors have already done. A real man would not blame his predecessors for what goes wrong on his watch.
In going way out of his way to be inconsiderate, in setting new standards of arrogance and creepy kitsch, here is a man who manages even to tarnish the concept of putz.
What's he really like in bed? Chances are - and how's this for depressing - the answer is "No different."
