Reply #13: I think it's the power -- just like rape is a crime of violence,

[vickitulsa]

and sex is only the form it takes in rape. Just ask any woman who has been date-raped, ask her how that power the guy has and uses -- or ask yourself if you're a guy -- how the pressure can get steadily more forceful for the female to "put out."

Ditto with power in DC circles, where the inhabitants who find themselves through whatever mechanism (voting, appointment, or more "normal" types of employment) in a position of some significant power. Somehow, "the more you have, the more you want."

Speaking as a woman, I see the phenomenon as male politicians, from the day they first arrive in DC, finding that the addictive pull of power is something that literally "grows on them."

I do think the reason female politicians are a bit less often -- and less likely -- to be discovered having trysts or affairs outside of their marriages is that there is way more testosterone flowing through men's bodies than women's. But I suspect the affinity for power addiction is similarly gender-linked.

And then there's the aspect of "groupies," women who are drawn to powerful men to the point they will throw themselves at such men, making it difficult for them to resist! Sexy, beautiful and often young ladies offer themselves to the male politicians; and even though they might wish to resist, they break down eventually and give in to the temptation. They WANT to feel like the powerful person that drew these women to behave this way; it feels GOOD to think you are that special and a force to be reckoned with in your world.

I believe that's a longterm genetic thing as well, wherein the gender that gives birth to offspring needs a male to create the young and in many cases one to help protect both them and herself. Very basic and very strong drives involved here, in both genders.

All kinds of psych studies have demonstrated, also, that women tend to be stronger in an endurance sense, while men are stronger in brute force fashion. Women have to put up with a lot of sh*t, while men dish it out. :D

Therefore it follows logically that female politicians might well resist the temptation of affairs or one night stands with any men who might find power in HER attractive. I can't see many men, young or not, "throwing themselves" in a groupie-like fashion at women in powerful positions, but I guess it happens sometimes. More likely, however, men would be wanting to dominate a powerful woman to demonstrate that they then are yet more powerful!

It all makes perfect sense to me, the WHY of this particular phenomenon amongst politicians.

No matter which sex is involved, however, they have to KNOW that they're being monumentally stupid to take the risk of having a fling while they're "public servants" and often recognized -- and noticed.

Not to drift off on a tangent here, but I heard somewhere that while Hillary was deeply hurt by Bill's "doing" Monica, she was also just so very angry at him for being stupid on a colossal scale to have done that as the President!

Have no idea where I read or heard that, but the way I remember it, she supposedly confronted him after he'd finally admitted the truth and stopped lying about it, and asked him, demanded: "How could you be so STUPID?!" Apparently this happened, if in fact it DID happen, when they were outside their private quarters at the White House, and thus someone else witnessed the scene.

Yet even Presidents DO take such risks -- many if not most of them, apparently. None of us will ever see or think about Bill Clinton now without having that in the back of our minds, that "weakness" he had and how much damage it did to his reputation.

He is no different from any other pol or person in power in that respect, however, so I'm not "picking" on him.

Men who want more power than they have already seem to find their sense of it buoyed when they can abuse their power to pressure or compel subordinate women into "putting out."

Pretty sick, when you think about it. But it certainly goes on and on, doesn't it? *Sigh* :eyes: