Liz Williams: journal

This from karentraviss: The more creative a person is, the more sexual partners they are likely to have, UK investigators have found. Artists and poets had an average of four to 10 sexual partners, compared to three for non-creative types, Newcastle and Open University teams discovered.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4479628.stm

One has to ask oneself: is this because artistic types are inherently more attractive, or just more badly behaved? It's an issue which has been annoying me somewhat over the weekend in the wake of George Best's demise - a lot of the coverage has been along the lines of 'yes, he was a drunk and a wife beater. But what a character, eh? And a genius footballer!' Tyson gets the same kind of coverage. Since when was athleticism an excuse?

If you're single, or in an agreed polyamorous relationship, then fair enough: it's no one's business but your own. But I'm sure we have all run into a few folk who think that writing second-rate novels or painting indifferent oils somehow gives them a free access-all-areas pass into other people's relationships, or allows them to run around behind their partners' backs ('And that's okay because we're so WONDERFULLY CREATIVE and free in our expression!'). I blame Augustus John, Eric Gill and all those late 19th century artistes who thought that their genius entitled them to shag anything that moved: other people's maids, their own kids...And carries right through to the Bloomsbury Group, a bunch of mediocre poseurs if ever there was one (with the exception of V Woolf), the Factory, and pretty much any rock star you care to mention. It probably reaches its culmination with Anais Nin, who really wasn't all that good at anything except having lots of sexual partners.

I don't think genius entitles you to anything except acknowledgment that you're good at something. I don't really care all that much about other people's lives - but I'd like it if, just to keep a balance, some creative person with a long, dull, everyday marriage was celebrated, precisely for that.