Reading about the latest American sex scandal involving New York Governor Elliot Spitzer shtupping a high-class prostitute, I was reminded of a quotation from the indomitable Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno: "Where Semitic blood flows, there is an overly carnal sense of virility." Considering the mixed bloodlines that resulted from repeated Iberian conquests and reconquests, I can only assume his statement was at least somewhat self-referential. However, after exhausting the possibilities of this admittedly fun train of thought, I was then reminded of an article I read from Psychology Today:
Betzig has written on the mating behavior and reproductive success of politicians and other political leaders in history. She points out that, while powerful men throughout western history have married monogamously (they had only one legal wife at a time), they have always mated polygynously (they had lovers, concubines, and female slaves). Many had harems, consisting of hundreds and even thousands of virgins.
. . .
From Betzig’s Darwinian historical perspective, the question that many Americans and others throughout the world asked in 1998, “Why on earth would the most powerful man in the world jeopardize his job for an affair with a young woman?” is a silly question. Betzig’s answer would be: Why not?
. . .
In other words, reproductive access to women is the goal, political office is but one means. To ask why the President of the United States would have a sexual encounter with a young woman is like asking why someone who worked very hard to earn a large sum of money would then spend it. The purpose of earning money is to spend it. The purpose of becoming the President (or anything else men do) is to have a larger number of women with whom to mate.
I don't agree entirely with the reductionist conclusions, but there's certainly something to the link between sex and power. We can call our more enlightened rulers Presidents and Prime Ministers instead of Sultans, but that doesn't mean they have any less of a desire for a harem. At periods of historical uncertainty, the masses tend to desire a leader who projects virility: John F. Kennedy and Pierre Trudeau in the near past, Nicholas Sarkozy and arguably Barack Obama in the present. So why act astonished when that virility is expressed in the traditional manner? I've read up a bit on cults, and a recurring theme is the sexual power that inevitably flows from the spiritual/political power of the cult leader. The cult leader may not have formed his sect for the express purpose of sexual conquest, but when the opportunity presents itself - quite literally, in some cases - the link is natural. If nearly everyone acted submissively toward you, would you not test the limits of that submissiveness? As Browning put it, "A man’s reach should exceed his grasp / Or what’s a heaven for?" When it comes to politicians whose whole careers are devoted to incrementally exceeding their grasp, why should we be surprised when that grasp should fix itself on a supple, extramarital bosom? I wouldn't paint every man with the brush of a mania for sexual power, but certainly it takes a unique sort to rise to the level of political power. And that unique sort is not more than human, but perhaps, rather, excessively so.
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