David Lettermen, on his late night talk-show, revealed that he has recently been blackmailed about "some creepy things" he had done. He started this segment of the show by saying, "Do you want to hear a story?" Of course, the audience was delighted to hear David Letterman tell a story.
As he went through his story, the audience kept laughing and seemed to be waiting for the punch line. At one point, Letterman even asked why it was funny. He finally revealed what the "creepy things" were that he had done. He admitted that he had sex with some women who worked for him. The audience applauded him when he confessed.
Letterman explained that the blackmailer had been arrested that day. It was if the audience saw the blackmailer as the bad guy and Letterman was the good guy.
I had been flipping through the stations earlier in the evening, I stopped on CNN as they announced "breaking news" that was just being reported for the first time. The "breaking news" was about Letterman's story, which would be told on his show that night. I stayed up and watched it. As I watched him finally come out with the "creepy things," I kept thinking the audience would fall into a silence appropriate to the conversation. When they kept laughing and applauding, my thoughts ran to "where are we in our culture that sexual immorality is applauded?"
Letterman never disclosed who the women were or when the incidents occurred or who initiated them. Regardless of whether they were before his marriage or after, they were committed outside of marriage, on more than one occassion. Were they situations of "to get ahead or keep your job, you have to sleep with the boss?" or were they initiated by the women who were open to having sex without commitment? We don't know and that is not the real issue to me.
Even though I have enjoyed many aspects of Dave's humor, he has continually degraded women and focused on their sexuality above all else. I am reminded of Scott Stanley's statement that commitment to one person in marriage means that you are saying "yes" to that person and "no" to all others.
Dave, just say "no."
