Secrets, Sex, and Spectacle

A leader of a global superpower is betrayed by his mistress, who makes public the sordid details of their secret affair. His wife stands by as he denies the charges. Debates over definitions of moral leadership ensue. Sound familiar? If you guessed Clinton and Lewinsky, try again. This incident involved former Japanese prime minister Sosuke Uno and a geisha. In Secrets, Sex, and Spectacle, Mark D. West organizes the seemingly random worlds of Japanese and American scandalfrom corporate fraud to baseball cheaters, political corruption to celebrity sexcapadesto explore well-ingrained similarities and contrasts in law and society. In Japan and the United States, legal and organizational rules tell us what kind of behavior is considered scandalous. When Japanese and American scandal stories differ, those rulesrules that define whats public and whats private, rules that protect injuries to dignity and honor, and rules about sex, to name a fewoften help explain the differences. In the cases of Clinton and Uno, the rules help explain why the media didnt cover Unos affair, why Unos wife apologized on her husbands behalf, and why Unoand not Clintonresigned. Secrets, Sex, and Spectacle offers a novel approach to viewing the phenomenon of scandalone that will be applauded by anyone who has obsessed over (or ridiculed) these public episodes.