Cuomosexual No More

Like many New Yorkers I’ve been following the saga of our governor’s troubles these past weeks first with curious amusement and then with increasing concern. I’ve asked myself what I really thought about it. As the allegations piled up I wondered which was the right question to ask. “Should he fight and stay in office?” “Should he not run for reelection?” or “Should he resign right now?”

When the first woman spoke up about his inappropriate actions with her, I believed her story. But it was also easy to dismiss as regards what the proper punishment for this ought to be. He didn’t rape her, as has been the accusation against at least one sitting Republican U.S. congressman. He wasn’t being accused of having an affair as our former president supposedly had soon after marrying wife number three. And after the way Al Franken was shunned out of the Senate because of a much lesser example of bad boy behavior he had years before he’d become an elected official, I was loathe to boot out the governor as a knee jerk reaction to something I found distasteful. For the most part I align with him politically and given the double standard that’s developed over what’s acceptable sexual behavior for Democrats and Republicans, I’d need further proof to sway my opinion that it’s not right to punish Democrats for things that Republicans are allowed to get away with unless there’s a compelling reason.

While the #MeToo Movement has allowed women to come out of the shadows and reveal secrets they felt forced to hide for years, there have also been women who’ve taken advantage of the situation for money or a prime time interview on cable TV. I’d also read a tweet on that bastion of credible news, Twitter, that perhaps Donald Trump, Jr. was behind the leak of the incident, believing that with Cuomo out there was room for a right winger to take his place. So I was wary but ready to learn more. I wanted to believe the woman and needed reassurance of her sincerity.

I also didn’t have my own reference point to consider. For over three decades I’ve been working for myself and back when I did work for others, my male bosses were the epitome of professionalism. There was a clear line between boss and employee and zero whiff of anything sexual in any of our conversations or actions. I felt lucky I never had to endure workplace harassment or feel the pressure of sexual favors to advance my career.

But then I remembered an incident that took place early in my professional life that called that into question. After I was laid off from my first job and fell into a second job that put me in an organization filled with depressed people, I was feeling a severe lack of self-esteem and my confidence fell way under the radar. I was all of 22 and feeling like a failure since I was working at a low-rent magazine, and without a mentor or a clear sense of myself to tell me otherwise, I believed that was all I was cut out to do.

I didn’t have the balls or the raging self-confidence to put myself out into the publishing world as someone who knew what she was doing. I was still looking to others for proof of my worth and didn’t know how to find it within me. Unable to help me out of my funk, my husband suggested I enroll in a self-improvement course at the Dale Carnegie Institute.

I felt like I had nothing to lose so I jumped in. Dale Carnegie was the groundbreaking author of How to Win Friends and Influence People and built an empire based on helping people improve their social skills as well as beef up their mastery at sales. I’d always done well at school, so I thought education of any kind could help me. I signed up for the basic ten week course on building relationships and increasing my confidence, held on consecutive Tuesday nights at their offices in Midtown.

All three of Dale Carnegie’s books were required reading and while I had to get past the stilted early 20th Century writing style, I saw there was wisdom there. There was a disconnect between his lessons and how they really pertained to me. But there was a teacher to help guide me and the rest of the fifteen or so people who were in the course with me.

That first night we all waited in bated anticipation for the teacher to arrive. Admittedly I let out a gasp when he sauntered in from the door in the back of the room and turned to face us. It wasn’t because I was relieved he arrived but because of how he looked. This medium built man in a well-tailored business suit was a dead ringer for Bob Dole, a face I knew from regularly watching the news as this was years before ran for president and became a household name. Not only did this man look like Bob Dole, his voice and mannerisms were just like those of the Senator from Kansas. Unfortunately I don’t remember his name but for the sake of this narrative I’ll call him Bob.

Bob was charismatic and had an electric smile that could light half of Manhattan. He clearly knew the Dale Carnegie program down to the nitty gritty details. His method was to find our weaknesses and have us overcome them by regularly speaking in front of the class. This was meant to get us comfortable with strangers and feel the warmth of our fellow students when they applauded after our mini speeches.

The only other person in the class who made a lasting impression on me was a woman from Queens, probably in her early 40s, who was there to boost her own confidence. By the end she was sparkling and while I had my moments, I probably looked and sounded better to the others in the class than I did to myself.

During the course of the program, Bob befriended me as a teacher and gave me some career advice. He suggested I create a ‘publication’ for the class, as a way of proving to myself that I could run a magazine. I ended up Xeroxing articles I found about self-confidence and achievement and distributed it to the class. I didn’t write anything myself or do any layout to make it look like anything other than a bunch of copied handouts. It was probably the least amount of work I could have done, but Bob said he was impressed.

When the class was over, Bob told me he knew some people in publishing and asked if I’d meet him for drinks after work. I didn’t think anything of it other than his wanting to help me so I said yes. We met on a weeknight at a restaurant somewhere in Midtown. The table was small, built for two, and Bob ordered me a cocktail without my asking. His end of the conversation was personal, asking me questions about myself, where I lived and what I enjoyed doing outside of work.

I tried to steer the conversation to business, the reason I was there in the first place. He smiled and said his friend was starting a new magazine called Games. Was I interested in having a job there?

This was different from what I was doing. I didn’t know if I had to be an expert in games to qualify for an editorial position and honestly wasn’t sure if I was interested in pursuing it. Bob’s sparkling smile stayed on his face as he waited for my response, clearly hoping I’d say yes. But there was something in the way he looked at me then that disturbed me. His dark eyes focused in on my face and combined with the way he started to move his hands closer to mine, I got the subtext right away. He wanted something else from me to make this conversation go farther. It wasn’t said out loud. It didn’t have to be.

I would have been the first one to call myself naïve but there was no denying that he wanted or expected something in exchange for his business help. The shaky nervous feeling I felt in my stomach confirmed that for me.

There was no way I was going there. I mumbled something about my husband not wanting me to stay out late or something to that effect. I knew if I hung around much longer than that he might get more explicit and I wanted to head him off before things got to a point where I’d feel even more awkward than I did. I said my goodbyes and left.

If there was any saving grace, it was that he waited till our classes were over to make this move. I never would have gone back to complete the course otherwise. I know that for sure.

I imagine my reaction must have surprised Bob. I’m sure he must have figured I’d been flattered by his attention, and knowing about my dissatisfaction with my work situation, would have said yes to anything he’d offered to get me away from it. But what he did had the opposite effect. It left me shocked, appalled and disappointed in him. And because I tended to blame myself for anything that didn’t go my way, I felt ashamed of myself, and any of the confidence boosting benefits I’d received from the course went by the wayside.

Remembering my reactions after leaving the restaurant that night, I have even greater sympathy for the women who have spoken out about their sexually charged encounters with the governor. The issue here is not about sex in itself. For me sex or the implied promise of sex was just the method Bob used to display his power over me, his ability to give me a boost to my career, if I was willing to go along with whatever he wanted.

Power is the real issue here. The governor has reportedly used his rank and privilege throughout his career to get what he wanted. Money for a state program. Approval of a construction contract. Passage of a favored bill. He bullied his way to get state officials to say yes to him time after time. Why wouldn’t he bully a woman for the same reasons?

I think it’s also instructive that the governor doesn’t believe he’s done anything wrong. He’s been in powerful positions for so long that he’s gotten used to the idea that people will obey him. For all I know there are probably women out there who’ve happily accepted his sexual inuendoes, using his favor to advance their own careers. Running into women who have enough courage to speak up about his treatment of them is probably something that feels alien to him.

It was around this time last year that we all got to see the governor in a different light, as the truth teller who bore the grim news of the spreading virus to us every day at noon. I even had a notification on my phone to remind me to turn on the TV when he was about to speak. His words were comforting to a fearful populace, me included, especially in contrast to the words and actions of the president, who tossed aside the pandemic as something that would go away in two weeks. He became a folk hero. Ironically, his elevated status helped erase the earlier troubles he had with corruption plaguing his administration and his approval ratings shot up to record levels. He got a new even bigger audience with regular nightly visits to his brother’s TV show and they proved so popular that a new word was coined “Cuomosexual” to highlight their desirable images to the masses. Even one of my friends proudly showed me her Cuomosexual T-shirt last summer. We were thrilled to be living in a state with such as caring governor.

Then the disappointment set it. The cracks in this stellar image started late last year with reports that he lied about the Covid deaths in nursing homes, to make the numbers look rosier than they really were. Then came the news about his manhandling of women. As of this writing, I believe eight have come forward, all of whom are victims of a man who got too drunk over his own power. Cuomosexual has now taken on a more sinister meaning. My friend has now put her T-shirt in permanent hiding and I imagine there are a lot of people all over the state who will swear they never voted for him in the first place.

I’m all for due process and the quaint belief that an accused person is assumed innocent before proven guilty. It’s one thing to grope an unsuspecting woman with your hands at a wedding. That’s disgusting but not illegal. There are laws involved with what he’s allegedly done with other women, like sexual harassment, and if he’s broken these laws he must pay for them. But the biggest issue now for me is the moral one. Do we want someone who admits he’s done what these women accuse him of doing but stubbornly believes he did nothing wrong running our state? The growing list of officials who have called for his resignation certainly don’t believe so. And that has created another issue. Could someone this embattled still govern effectively?

According to recent polls, a slim majority of New Yorkers are standing behind him and want him to finish his term. I can understand this position, as it entails separating the man from his policies, forgiving his misdeeds for the sake of continuing the good things he’s run in running our state. Sadly, I’m not sure I’m able to do that anymore, and for that reason, I now believe he should step down and allow the Lieutenant Governor to finish his term.