"Great" Men & Their Lovers

13 Comments Published by Billy Joe Mills on Saturday, May 3 at 9:28 AM.

Men society esteems as great or as leaders seem incapable of maintaining fidelity to their wives. Thanks to Katie Dunne for sharing this article on FDR's sexual exploits entitled, "The Women the President Loved":
The charming, pretty Lucy was employed by Eleanor Roosevelt as her social secretary in 1913. Five years later, a stricken Eleanor discovered a bundle of love letters from Lucy to her husband—at which point, Eleanor wrote, "the bottom dropped out of my particular world." She offered Franklin a divorce, but his mother threatened to disinherit him, and his political adviser cautioned that accepting it would destroy his chances of becoming president. FDR returned to his wife, promising that he would never again share the marital bed—or see his lover, who married a man 29 years her senior.
Other adulterous historical figures of purported greatness include: Any Kennedy Man, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Bill Clinton, Nelson Rockefeller, Michael Jordan, Frank Gifford, Eddie Murphy, Mike Bowers, François Mitterrand, Eliot Spitzer, etc. I encourage you all to add to this list.

How would society judge a powerful woman if she were to cheat on her husband? Does adultery say something about a person's overall character that would be a legitimate assessment of their ability to be a leader? Why does society seem to give these men a free moral pass? Can anyone famous resist the waves of people who want to have sex with them or are the temptations simply too many and too great for anyone? Is there a nexus between the ego necessary to achieve a position of power and the likelihood of adultery, in other words, perhaps it is the nature of people who become famous rather than the affect the position has on their morality? Why do these men get married at all if they wish to spread their seed across the continents like cream cheese on a bagel?

Some men want everything. Springsteen once sang, "Poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king and a king ain't satisfied till he rules everything." Men who have the egos necessary to reach levels of public power tend to be like modern Genghis Khans, simply wishing to conquer as much territory as possible, including as many women as possible. It is awful and sad and disgusting. FDR's story made me particularly sad because of Eleanor's pain, which is easy to feel even today. Why couldn't he feel it? Why are some men never satisfied?


P.S. Side note about adultery laws in the U.S.:

Is a single person in an adulterous relationship guilty of adultery? All but seven states punish both people involved. Colorado, Georgia, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Utah only punish the married person. In the District of Columbia and in Michigan, when a married man sleeps with an unmarried woman, only the man is guilty, but when a married woman sleeps with an unmarried man, they're both guilty. Most laws make no exceptions for couples who are separated or in the process of obtaining a divorce. Punishments also vary. Adultery is a felony in Massachusetts, Michigan, Oklahoma, and Idaho, and a misdemeanor everywhere else.

In practice, adultery laws matter little: Only one case--against an Alabama man--has been prosecuted in the last five years. Most states have not enforced their adultery laws since World War II.


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13 Responses to “"Great" Men & Their Lovers”

  1. # Anonymous Anonymous 5/03/2008 10:47 AM

    Billy, thanks for the warning. I refuse to marry a man society esteems as great, so I guess that's a "yes" to your proposal.  

  2. # Anonymous for sure 5/03/2008 11:04 AM

    The women are lying.  

  3. # Anonymous Segen 5/03/2008 11:26 AM

    What would be interesting to know is if the leaders cheated before or after they attained power---making the case that power corrupts if they only cheated after. If they cheated both before and after, then I might say that cheating might be a personality flaw of powerful leaders.  

  4. # Anonymous Segen 5/03/2008 11:39 AM

    Cheaters:
    Giuliani, LBJ, Kennedy

    Not cheaters (so far as anyone knows):
    Lincoln, Truman, Bush Jr., Obama, H. Clinton, Carter, Reagan (?), Ford (?), Hoover (?)  

  5. # Blogger Billy Joe Mills 5/03/2008 12:07 PM

    The other question is whether the rate of adultery among "great" men is any higher than society at large or whether we simply take note of celebrity affairs more than common affairs.  

  6. # Blogger Brian 5/03/2008 12:10 PM

    Another possibility, besides power corrupting or cheating being a personality flaw of powerful leaders, is that powerful leaders are more likely to be forgiven for their personal moral failings, either because they are powerful or because of other personality traits that tend to correlate with being powerful. OR the women who tend to pair up with powerful leaders might not care as much about infidelity as other women.

    I think there are reasons to believe both those things, and I also think (and hope) that there are reasons to think this is changing, and that this kind of behavior is increasingly being seen as pathetic and stupid, rather than being romanticized as a sign of psychological complexity.  

  7. # Anonymous Evan 5/03/2008 1:57 PM

    The other question is whether the rate of adultery among "great" men is any higher than society at large or whether we simply take note of celebrity affairs more than common affairs.

    I don't know how much that would really tell us about their character relative to society, because obviously way more women (or men) throw themselves at those in power. Would those in society at large cheat more if given the same opportunities? Probably, but how we would we measure it?

    I like Segen's test.  

  8. # Blogger thetodd 5/03/2008 2:07 PM

    In addition to Segen's and Brian's ideas, I think it is also worth considering that as one becomes more powerful, the quantity and quality of potential cheating partners increases. There are probably a lot of men who wouldn't cheat with the girl next door but who would've cheated with Marilyn Monroe.

    "How would society judge a powerful woman if she were to cheat on her husband?"

    Probably worse. It would probably be bigger and more sensational news due to the novelty factor, and our society looks down upon promiscuous women ("sluts") but does not do the same for promiscuous men.

    As an aside, I sometimes wonder why some men call women sluts. In some cases, it seems to me they are discouraging behavior (promiscuity in women) that they actually want to encourage.

    "Does adultery say something about a person's overall character that would be a legitimate assessment of their[Photo] ability to be a leader?"

    Maybe it depends on the circumstances. An "I'm the boss and I'll do whatever I want and think is right" sort of leadership style is effective in some settings. But it's usually not.

    "Why does society seem to give these men a free moral pass?"

    I don't think they get a free pass. A lot of people (including you in the post you just wrote) condemn their actions. Maybe it seems like they are getting a free pass because (especially in the case of a US President), what they do on the job has far greater impact on the world than whether or not they cheat, so people will tend to discuss their job performances much more than their sex lives. The adultery sort of just gets drowned out by everything else.

    "Why do these men get married at all if they wish to spread their seed across the continents like cream cheese on a bagel?"

    It is difficult for unmarried people to reach positions of power. This opens up another moral discussion: should one marry for convenience and/or personal gain?

    "FDR's story made me particularly sad because of Eleanor's pain, which is easy to feel even today. Why couldn't he feel it?"

    I have some friends with very stressful jobs in finance. They have turned to drugs and cheating, and they did not have these problems as college students.

    They are aware they are hurting others and sometimes themselves, but they feel so stressed out that the need to relieve their own stress takes precedence.

    Being president is probably also quite stressful. This does not excuse the behavior, but it probably partially explains it.  

  9. # Blogger Brian 5/03/2008 2:22 PM

    On the point about society giving these men a free pass, I think that's more just a function of the fact that society is not (or at least, should not) be in a position to judge something like the infidelity of a public figure. The extent to which infidelity is forgivable or unforgivable, and what exactly the infidelity says about a person, are things that are difficult enough to figure out for the people directly involved in the situation. It would be impossible for members of the public, as far away as they are from the situation, to accurately judge the matter, and it would be extraordinarily presumptuous for them to try. This extends to a lot of matters related to one's private life.  

  10. # Anonymous Mr. Stallion 5/04/2008 11:55 AM

    billy joe,

    you are greatly confused on this issue.

    tantric sexual rituals, and their foreign equivilents (bacchanalian, elysian, attic, or Dionysian "mystery" rights) are practiced by almost all of the elite.

    you should read Machiavelli, Rousseau and Voltaire. Consider what they propose for the masses, as compared to what they propose for the prince and similar men of (latin) virtu. consider who they praise: look up the names if you do not know them.

    like Alexander VI.

    or simply read about their ideal cultures and sexual relations as expressed by the bronze age aryan conquerors (the greeks). they are pederasts generally, which is the culmination of 'the mysteries.'  

  11. # Anonymous Mr. Stallion 5/04/2008 11:56 AM

    Learn about the sexual rituals of the elite:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCDs9Vs2iYM  

  12. # Anonymous Segen 5/04/2008 12:16 PM

    Mr. Stallion,

    Your video said nothing of the sexual rituals of the elite. Did you link the wrong video?  

  13. # Blogger Billy Joe Mills 5/04/2008 12:24 PM

    I agree with Segen, it didn't mention the word sex. Stallion tends to make wild inferences from subtle symbols. I'm sure he took the owl to mean "crazy orgies happen here."  

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