European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 3, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse Neo Puritan Washington lips and by Abigail Trafford Washington Post each Day in downtown Washington you can see an army of dark Blue and Gray pin Stripe suits men and women in lockstep fashion hair neat but not obvious their jaws rigid eyes like punctuation Points five year plans in their souls. They Roll into Duke Zeibert a Joe amp mos Mcpherson Grill carrying their briefcases and computerized Day books. Quot it s like watching Black and White to a says washingtonian gossip columnist Rudy Maxa. Washington you realize is in trouble and it s not the budget or the end of the cold War. It s much worse than that. Washington has lost its sox drive. Or to put it More precisely the City s governing elite has repressed the sexual urge to the Point of nonexistence. As political repression begins to the communist world an Iron curtain of sexual repression has blanketed the Potomac what you will ask about the fallen heros of recent scandals what about the courtroom revelations concerning Marion barrys after hours sex life these Are in fact the exceptions. As with the Case of former american University president Richard Berendzen such stories Are tinged with crime arrogance or illness. Otherwise say goodbye to the Giddy superpower Days of Yore when washingtonians took seriously. The slogan a make love not today they make neither. Instead they work and work and work and perhaps after work they work out. Welcome to the Neo Puritan Era of thin lips and thin waists where sensuality is shunned like the plague fitness is High fashion and work is embraced As the sacrament of Power. The result is a culture of Long memos dark suits Low heart rates and big calf Muscles. It starts in the White House. George read my thin lips Bush is the archetypal Neo Puritan. He starts work at 7 . And is such a fitness fanatic that he has an air Dyne bicycle machine installed outside the Oval office. What does he do for fun go fishing. It it ,. A but if it starts there it seems to have no end in the past 10 years Washington has gone Flat. Quot the City is 100 percent More Boring Quot says Sally Quinn author of regrets Only and chronicler of Washington folkways. Quot this administration is Boring. The men Are just very Boring. The women Are afraid they won t be taken seriously. Everyone gets locked into this heaviness no one Damp to laugh. There s no merrymaking no frivolity. There s just a determined Quot and an epidemic of chronic fatigue syndrome a Quot when you work 18 hours a Day there s not enough Energy in the batteries to Light up the radar screen Quot observes columnist Maxa. Or among that subspecies of overeducated Neo Puritan snobs it s the Quot i m too important to be bothered with the life Force Quot kind of attitude says Maxa. As for flirting for flirting a Sake a it s a lost Art form found Only rarely among Cave dwellers who remember the new Deal. Says one 18-year-old woman who has lived in Europe and South America Quot people Here have no idea How to play the game when it comes to flirting it is one extreme to the other. You flirt you jump into bed a or you Don t flirt at Neo Pures Don t like to waste time whether it s a Power lunch or a game of Squash. Washington of course has always been an outpatient setting for workaholics. People come to make it. That a the draw people on the make in a nation on the make. Beaver bureaucrats to big gun policy commandos the top 10-percenters from everywhere. By the time they make it into the different Power cages a a congressional subcommittee a White House task Force a lobby Law firm a these 10-percenters have become certifiable obsessive compulsive achievers. That s Okay. Someone has to run the world and it s an overtime kind of Job. But could it be that the Puritan work ethic carries too stiff a Price could it be that it s not global warming that threatens the environment but the dramatic decline in pheromones a the precious chemicals released by men and women that make the world go round. Some Neo Pures Are simply too tired and tense for sex and suppress the urge altogether. Others wrestle with those Devil impulses and repress them. The Best Way to do that is sublimate sublimate other words they make policy. That s the potential danger for taxpayers legions of repressed bureaucrats writing regulations for medicare serving up War games Matching funds for Low Cost housing. The trouble with sublimation is that it often confuses sex with Power. Which is Why experts in various Fields talk about supercollider and big bang theories. Or surgical strikes Quot incursions Quot and More powerful missiles. Kind of makes you want to stand up and shout give me a libertine or give me death there is however one aspect of Neo puritanism that is politically Correct. It is an equal Opportunity trend. When it comes to the sex drive deficit men and women have achieved Complete Equality. From 12 to 2, every Washington Power Pusher hits the pavement for the Power lunch. Quot you look out and see a sea of Blue suits red ties and White shirts a says Jennifer t. Newby cafe espresso manager at the Willard intercontinental hotel. Quot its very fast very stressed in and but in a half an hour. There a no flirting no gone with the libido is the three Martini lunch. Iced Tea or designer water with Lime Are the Standard libations. For the really secure usually Large framed executives there is perhaps the occasional Glass of White wine. But nost Neo Pures done to drink at lunch. Where it happens is at the gym a and it is exercise not sex. After All its inefficient unhealthy a an unjustified expenditure. At Charley s crab on Connecticut Avenue waiter Darry Tozzolo Hasni to served a cocktail at lunch in 10 Days. He comes from fort Lauderdale where his customers would routinely spend a whole afternoon in Margar Taville. Not in Washington. At the Willard s cafe espresso Newby says she can t even give away a drink. It s even hard to get a Power Pusher to eat an appetizer. Quot in Paris its so different Quot says Newby who lived there for three years before coming to . Two years ago. Quot there a Man would come up to you in the Street and say �?~1 will throw myself off the Eiffel Tower if you done to have a cup of Coffee with Quot that would never happen in where it happens is at the gym a and it is exercise not sex. Neo puritans Are As fanatic about muscle tone As the French Are about wine. A visit to any health class can Tell you where All that repressed sexual Energy is going. Here you find the grinding banging hissing groaning heaving sweating sighing Seething pleasure of Well working out. As the poster says Quot sweat in places archetypal Neo Puritan George Bush has a bicycle machine installed outside the Oval office. What does he do for fun go fishing. 16 a the stars and stripes Friday August 3, 1990
