Addicted to Excitement

Perhaps more accurately, addicted to the varied roles that engender attention, acclaim, the kind of notice normally accorded celebrities of one kind or another.  For someone owning varied attributes, intelligence, beauty, physical prowess - the allure of presenting as an original, authentically athletic, obviously desirable individual, imbued with talent on many levels of human aspirations - admiring attention becomes addictive.

High-powered men, engaged in politics, in the upper echelons of corporate affairs, those who have attained great wealth, or whose professional achievements in science, medicine, sport, art, theatre have gained them a devoutly admiring following often succumb to the attraction of dalliance with fervent hangers-on.  It is most commonly recognized as an overt attribute of musicians and sport figures.  Less commonly exercised other than covertly by others.

For the most part, it is male figures who indulge in exercising their options for a wide range of sex partners.  Other than in exceptional circumstances where those celebrated figures have portrayed themselves as other than given to relaxed morals in exuberant promiscuity, these peccadilloes are usually shrugged off as irrelevant to their extraordinary talents and of little consequence.

When they have burnished a reputation for impeccable behaviour and are then discovered to have been leading a secret life of disguised libertinism, obeying their libidinous cravings, they are exposed to the disappointed opprobrium of those who once set them on the pedestal of quasi-immortal fame in recognition of their outstanding performances in their professions.

So why be surprised when a woman does the same thing?  Perhaps because it's a woman who appears wholesome and unaffected by her supreme physical abilities.  Like former U.S. Olympian Suzy Favor Hamilton.  Who, in an interview with the website Smoking Gun once her double life was outed, explained that she found the escort business she was clandestinely engaged in "exciting".
FILE - In this Feb. 27, 1999, file photo, Suzy Hamilton reacts after winning the women's 1,500 meter run with a time of 4:13.96 at the USA Championships athletics meet in Atlanta. he three-time Olympian has admitted leading a double life as an escort. She apologized Thursday, Dec. 20, 2012, after a report by The Smoking Gun website said she had been working as a prostitute in Las Vegas. Photo: John Bazemore / AP

"She took "dates" in Las Vegas, Chicago, Los Angeles and Houston under the alias Kelly Lundy, working for Haley Heston's Private Collection.  Charging hefty fees of $600 each hour of her services, or ten times that amount for her full attention for a full day.  "I met Haley with the idea of fulfilling a fantasy and only doing this for the short term.  Well, after my first date I was hooked, and have been doing my best to visit Las Vegas as often as my schedule allows."

Suzy Favor Hamilton poses for a portrait at her home in Shorewood Hills a suburb of Madison, Wis. in 2012. The three-time Olympian has admitted leading a double life as an escort. She apologized Thursday after a report by The Smoking Gun website said she had been working as a prostitute in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Michael Sears) Photo: Getty Images / SL

Not that this 44-year-old mother of a 7-year-old boy, wife of her college sweetheart has a lot of spare time.  She runs her own business.  She is hired by organizations to deliver motivational speeches.  She does promotional work for Disney and for the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon series.  And her real estate business in Wisconsin (with her husband) keeps her quite busy.

They are an affluent couple, living a satisfying life.  She has appeared in commercials for well-known brands like Nike, Reebok and Pert Plus shampoo.  She is fit and beautiful and has no problem attracting attention.  She also seems to have no problem with the fact that her husband is unhappy, knowing about her double life.  "He tried to get me to stop. He wasn't supportive of me at all."

That must be quite the understatement.  Would she have expected him to be?  And here's the kicker; she is rather put out that she was outed.  She had informed several of her casual partners in the business of her real identity.  And someone she 'trusted' repeated what was told to him in confidence; you know how such men like to brag of their conquests, of their sexual contacts...? 

To her this represented an unforgivable transgression of trust.  She blames herself for being too "trusting".  This is rather an astonishing interpretation of trust.  Trust, one might logically think, is what her husband and her son have in their wife and mother.  Only to have discovered (at least her husband) that trust was misplaced. 

But for exceptional athlete and world running champion Suzy Hamilton, her trust in someone in her secret business was misplaced.  "He totally broke all the rules by outing me.  I don't want to be like him because he is scum.  And I will not become scum to make myself feel good."  And so - there!