Sleaze Central

One might imagine the people of Italy to feel nothing but contempt for the man who they elected - twice, as it happens - to represent as their head of state. A man who at his advanced age of three-score-and-ten-plus-four fondly considers himself an ageless golden gift to womankind. And for whom no sexual relationships can be considered too embarrassingly sleazy.

For he is a man who 'loves' women. And women, quite naturally, 'love him' right back.

It helps, immeasurably, that he is a billionaire. It does not help at all that he is corrupt as a businessman, wily as a fox, unashamed to use his money and his power to alter Italian law to exempt himself through his high office, from prosecution for illicit business dealings and outrageous contraventions of Italian law meant to protect young girls from sexual exploitation.

He is exasperatingly self-willed, as challenging to confront as a vain adolescent, and with the morals of an alley-cat. The cat can be excused, he cannot. Finally, his long-suffering wife decided she and her children no longer wished to be associated with him.

And that severing of relations appeared to give him a new lease on sex, propelling him to ever more outrageous stunts of sexual conquest and purported prowess.

Surely, he makes people wince each time his name crops up in the news? People who voted for him? People who may consider him to be just an ordinary guy doing what guys do - even them? With new revelations that underage girls were paid to perform striptease shows for his pleasure?

Parties at his mansion, a series of recently-discovered properties in Milan where a stable of young women were tasked and handsomely paid to perform for Berlusconi? Where paying women under the age of 18 for sex is a crime in Italy?

The man's errant self-confidence and ego transcend mere arrogance.