Kids in Toronto City Hall: Political Sex Scandel Comes to Town

Politics and religion
1

TTC Chairman and ex-mayoral candidate Adam Giambrone has had a rough couple of weeks.

He released this video announcing his candidacy, which created a lot of backlash.

Also, over the past month in Toronto, a number of TTC workers can been photographed sleeping on the job and filmed running for coffee breaks while on their routes.

Now this.

Disgraced Toronto city councillor Adam Giambrone fled from a news conference unable to speak Wednesday morning, leaving an aide to announce the end of Giambrone’s mayoralty campaign.

A few minutes after Giambrone refused to answer questions and merely apologized for an affair, Kevin Beaulieu made the announcement: “His mayoralty campaign ends today.”

In case you missed it in the article, the guy isn’t married and is still with the girlfriend.

Trust Toronto to have the lamest political sex scandal ever.

2

Sex scandal? What? He’s not even married, how is it scandalous.

3

The idea is that he was using his long-term, live-in girlfriend as a sort of prop for his public image. I don’t care who he has sex with and I’m not sure if I care about the lying about it. But many people would care.

4

Apparently someone somewhere is freaking out about the name of a person that might be playing with the penis of another person. You know, that lovely sexytime that is responsible for the creation of every person ever.

5

His mistress is a 20 year old university student. It makes me think less of his judgment and morals.

6

Why’s that?

7

Not sure what her age has to do with it. She wasn’t underage, and he’s only thirty-two. That’s not some insane, sick age-gap.

8

There’s a guy who knows how to close a deal. I’d want him in charge.

9

Women I have sent messages to on OkCupid beg to differ. That’s another thread, though. Also, I’m not even 32 yet.

10

Frankly, who gives a fuck about the age difference of two people who decide to have a relationship, as long as they are consenting adults.

11

He has big political ambitions (“precocious ambition” defines his public persona), yet he couldn’t control his impulses long enough to get elected, or at least lose the election with face. I don’t believe that 32 and 20 is about anything but sex. It’s not like he made a profound connection that let him experience personal growth. He’s with a very young adult who hasn’t found her way in life, has no financial independence, no social status, and is no way conversant with his peers - in fact, she has to be hidden from them! There’s a massive power imbalance and she’s persona non grata. That he finds this relationship prudent or desirable seems unlikely to me; it’s more likely that he feels strongly self-entitled and lacks effective self-criticism. I don’t think those traits contribute to effective leadership.

12

And you know this how? You are treating the 20 year old like an underage freshman in high school.

13

At the risk of identifying with somebody with whom I do not agree, have you met your average 20 year old? They’re worse than the freshmen I remember going to school with. I seriously doubt that one who didn’t have at least a slightly better understanding of the universe than your average college-aged waste of human matter would manage to connect with anybody running for anything more complicated than Head Jackass of his fraternity or whatever rank they have at those places, but a blanket defense of 20 year old humans will not serve you well in this case, because that’s like trying to defend cancer with the ebola virus.

That said, the rule is really quite simple:

Dirty Old Man Age = Your Age * 0.5 + 7

This individual’s DOMA is 32 * 0.5 + 7 = 23. By the closest thing I have ever encountered to a social convention, she’s sneaking in a little under the bar. And as I said before, I’m not even 30 just yet (this year) and women as young as 23 have reacted to my casual attempt to introduce myself as though I were creeping up behind them on the bus in a trenchcoat.

14

That’s a hell of a broad brush!

I like your theory, but I don’t agree that it’s a fixed scale.

15

So the question is, do you not vote for him because he has a working penis, or because the TTC is in the shit?

16

I lived in a college town until I was 22. Since then, I just go there one weekend out of every month. I have issues.

17

I wasn’t planning on voting in the municipal elections. If I did, I’d probably enter a protest ballot. The field is pathetic. I wouldn’t vote for Giambrone because he’s young and he has no real achievements. The affair stuff (apparently it was -several- women, not just the uni student, which significantly boosts his GF’s risk of exposure to STDs through no fault of her own) speaks to deeper personality issues which make me not vote for him even harder.

18

I no longer live in Toronto, so I have not vote. But his inexperience, combined with a less than satisfactory chairmanship of the TTC are reasons enough not to vote for him. The affairs, and attempted coverup and denials are just the nails in the coffin.

19

Now now, you know they’d react exactly the same if they were your age.

20

Certainly not a fixed scale, but a popular rule of thumb. The older you both are, the less the age gap matters. There is a world of difference between 32/20 and 50/38.

If both these people agreed it was purely about sex, then fine, no harm, no foul for them. The age thing is more an issue in relationships than in tumbling between the sheets. Issues of maturity, life experience, common interests, father/mother figure problems, power imbalance, etc are almost irrelevant in an acknowledged purely physical relationship. If the older partner is using his/her age/experience to manipulate a sexual encounter though…

I’m sure we can all think of real meaningful relationships between people 12 or 15 years apart. But I’ll admit to feeling more than a little weird about gaps >10 years.

The girlfriend should be pissed off no matter what the age gap was - the cheating and lying is probably a bigger problem for him.

Troy