Israel the best at democratic sex

What hasn’t been said about our democracy? That it's a corrupt banana republic, plagued with nepotism and an ever widening gap between socio-economic castes.

But let's try and balance things out a bit. While it’s true that on the one hand our democracy at times resembles the Likud Central Committee – on the other hand we also have a free media who reigns supreme and unconditionally, a High Court that terrifies the state's public figures and an attorney general who does his job, though without much fanfare, in an unwavering manner.

But above all, our country is perhaps the most democratic when it comes to sex.

Show me any other country that is as close to putting its president on trial for rape, or a country that was able to convict – justifiably or not – a senior minister over one kiss, a country that had voted out a general, who was also a candidate for premiership, with a taste for the army's secretarial pool.

Every news story about corruption has two sides. The first is naturally the corruption itself - something which puts us to shame - but the other is the sheer fact that that very corruption has made its way to the media headlines.

Israeli norms

These senior officials who have morphed into sex offenders during their terms in office are a clear sign of a social malady. Why haven't we stopped them? How come we know juicy stories about our neighbors, colleagues, even our good friends - but know almost nothing about those who are constantly in the spotlight?

And where were the neighbors, the colleagues and friends of those offenders? Why didn't they say anything?

Simple, they did not want to "tattle" on these men. In our society principles such as "thou shall not rat out" are more important than our solidarity with the harassed secretary. Let's do some soul searching: Had we had such a friend, would we turn him over to the police? Would we ourselves deem him a "sex offender"?

We certainly didn’t rape or sexually harassed anyone, and we never will, but our norms fail to stop other people, for whom the secretary's breasts are a matter for lewd comments over by the water cooler. This is our daily discourse and has become a normative part of our language.

Our elected representatives then are a true reflection of our society. They truly do represent us.

However, there is another side to all this. This very society which has messed so badly with our concept of propriety – is it not the same society which applauds its no-nonsense attorney general, which has such an active High Court, and which lauds such media. We are our own carrot and stick.

So what is more important for democracy - a just economy, honest bureaucrats and capable ministers - or a system that puts high-profile sex offenders on trial?

The accepted international measurements for corruption are not very accommodating to Israel. They should be changed to include the factor of sexual-related corruption. This could push Israel a few spots on the scale.