I USED to imagine I wanted power over women. Rich and beautiful women in particular. So I devoted a couple of decades to the pursuit of pretty young things.
What we pursue and what we end up with comes down to commitment, and I mistook true commitment for frenzy. No lady I landed was rich and beautiful. At least not at the same time.
Commitment means giving 100 per cent. I was chugging along at 99, which is not nearly the same thing. I also missed the point. A lateral thinker would have said: ''Hey, this is not working. I've been scouring the globe for a rich and beautiful woman to have power over and - based on results - I am remarkably unsuccessful. So why don't I get some power over a dozen women who are reasonably attractive and have a healthy bank balance?'' Patrick Wong, recently released after four years in the slammer on a manslaughter charge, did exactly that. He had women bending over backwards, frontwards and sideways to give him money for drugs and gambling.
One pretty 27-year-old is so moved she is happy to spend seven years in the jug on what some consider is on his behalf. Another little darling was so taken by his vulnerability she married him while he was still inside.
Numerous articles have been written about The Man Who Had Power Over Women. I do not take issue with these stories as they stand. What I do question is the premise on which they are based, and how that premise is an absurdity most of us see as normal.
For example, did Wong go to these ladies and say ''give me all your money, your devotion and your body or I will give your entire family a manicure with a chain saw''? Apparently not. In fact, he did nothing but accept the bread, the body and the beatification as it was laid on him.
He has already been acquitted of the charge of manslaughter. Now, we want to make him guilty of having power over people. Again, I am at a loss to understand how one human who has not chained another to his cellar wall and is holding an M16 to her child's head can have any power over that person.