Gigilos, Pimps, and Politicians

For more than a year the three words in this title have caused me to ponder their connection.  They popped into my mind while in my car and I have no idea what I heard that made them stick.  I did however, write them down and my mind has not been able to let them go from that time till now.  There must be some connection here, I told myself, so I have been trying to make some sense of it ever since.

I started to look at definitions.  A gigilo as defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary is, a man who is paid by a woman to be her lover and companion.  Some synonyms are, lover, cassanova, seducer, panderer or procurer. The Oxford Dictionary says a gigilo is, a young man paid or financially supported by an older woman to be her escort or lover.  In short a gigilo is a person who does favors for others for pay.  (Do politicians receive money from private interest groups for favors???) 

A pimp as defined is a criminal who is associated with, usually exerts control over, and lives off the earnings of one or more prostitues.  The Oxford says a pimp is, a man who controls prostitiutes and arranges clients for them, taking part of their earnings in return.  Synonyms for pimps would be panderer, procurer, provider, supplier or caterer (kind of like a gigilo above).  Pimps arrange for someone else to do favors for others and get paid for those favors.

So a politician...what can I say.  We the people elect them to take a job to represent OUR interests which should be enough...they get a fine salary for that.  To have the pleasure of serving their constituents in a just way and fulfilling their comittment to us, they instead get caught up in their own needs and begin seeking other revenue streams.  They are caught between working for those who elected them and the people seeking favors from private interest groups.  And we all know who wins that battle. They are primarily interested in political office for selfish or other narrow, short sighted reasons...like a carpetbagger or sycophant. as the definition says for synonyms for politicians.

As you can tell I have little, if any, time for those elected officials in DC.  In fact I have trouble calling them "elected officials".  The politicians inside the beltway have turned their backs on most of us and are facing a different direction much the same way a Budhist faces the east during morning prayer.  This is a problem that is hard to solve and I have no answers except to change the voting laws, but that is for another story at another time.  Suffice it to say, throw a gigilo, a pimp and a politician in a bag, shake and they will come out with the same same values.