We’d all like to believe that our leaders’ decisions on foreign affairs have nothing to do with their, well, personal affairs. However, often what goes on under the sheets can be as important as what goes on in the Oval Office. Indeed, as we all well know, the Oval Office has long been a place for both.
From blow jobs in the White House to the allure of Bond-esque characters, we seem obsessed with these stories of secret, powerful sex. Perhaps this cultural fetishization of sexpionage and geopolitical affairs has a simple explanation: hot people in suits with martinis are just cool. But our concern with this illegitimately legitimate form of statecraft should go beyond the movie theater and tabloids. Like it or not, sex has and will continue to shape the global order, and the question of this tactic’s morality deserves a place in socio-political theory.
The most famous example, of course, is President Clinton. His affair with Monica Lewinsky, just the tip of the iceberg of a litany of other affairs, ultimately led to his impeachment. However, little attention is paid to his foreign affairs at the time of his, well, other affairs. Indeed, many in diplomatic circles during his second term felt that the Lewinsky affair caused a prolonging of the deadlock in the Israel-Palestine peace process.
We view sex scandals like these as a recent televised phenomenon, but these stories can be traced back to the very founding of the United States.
Thomas Jefferson, then Secretary of State, was accused of an affair with one of his slaves, Sally Hemmings, a finding which may have been exposed by his opponent and friend John Adams in the 1796 election. The tension over this public affair solidified the Federalist vs. Democratic-Republican animosity, helping to explain why both parties have been trying to fuck each other over ever since.
The stories don’t end there. More than one out of three presidents—16 to be exact—have faced allegations of adultery. FDR’s presidency is marred with many tales of cheating, both by him and by his wife. In fact, their marriage itself was a bit of a family affair as they were fifth cousins once removed. In his policies during the Second World War, the US’s special attention toward Norway may have been a product of FDR’s special fondness (though unknown if it was sexual in nature) for Martha, the Crown Princess of Norway.
Recent claims against President Trump are too many to name for an article this small. And, of course, a certain president after whom a graduate school at Harvard is named has had several biographies dedicatedly specifically to his affairs—ranging from a supposed Nazi Spy to Marilyn Monroe. The inability of presidents to keep it in their pants, and the disastrous effects this has on policy, beg an important correlation and causation question. Is politics wrought with these stories because the ego involved in the presidency tends to attract those with large sexual appetites? Or does the power, once obtained, go to their heads (or perhaps somewhere else)?
But beyond mere gossip or impairment of decision makers, sex has often been a direct cause for war. While the famous aphorism states that “all is fair in love and war,” perhaps a less romantic rephrasing might suggest, instead, that all is fair in love-making and war. Indeed, from scandals during the Punic Wars in Ancient Rome to honeypotting by modern Russia, salacious one-night stands have always become, so to speak, public affairs.
Perhaps we should throw it all the way back to Greek mythology. The most famous story is that of Paris, the son of King Priam of Troy, and Helen, the wife of Menalaus, King of Sparta. In the Homeric epic The Iliad, Paris is awarded the most beautiful woman in the world by the Goddess Aphrodite, and he chooses Helen. Paris then steals Helen away from Sparta and brings her home to Troy, sparking a Spartan attack and earning Helen the name, “the face that launched a thousand ships.” And so begins the Peloponnesian War.
Moving forward in history, let’s look at the story of Egypt’s last Pharaoh, Cleopatra. During the climactic decline of her empire, Cleopatra—the non-male, non-Egyptian ruler with renowned wit and beauty—sought external support. Her diplomatic method of choice? An affair. After Rome defeated Pompey, Cleopatra made her move on Julius Caesar, sneaking her way into Caesar’s room and seducing him.
A pregnancy scare, another affair, and war with Augustus’s Rome later, the world order circa 45 B.C.E. had been forever changed. Whether out of strategy or lust, Cleopatra’s obsession with Roman men ended the reign of Egyptian Pharaohs and cemented Rome’s superpower status. In other words, as World War II did for the prestige of the United States, a one-night stand did for the Roman Empire.
The Russian Empire of the 18th Century was also wrought with affairs. Catherine the Great, the late 18th century empress of Russia, was known for her impressive sexual appetite. But her closest lover of all was a man named Grigory Potemkin, a man she would allegedly dress his well-endowed member—his “glorious weapon”—in porcelain. But this affair was not contained only to the bedroom: Potemkin led the famous coup against Catherine’s husband, Tsar Peter III, which promoted Catherine to Empress. And when Peter was assassinated days after the coup, it was the younger brother to her lover Grigory Orlov who carried out the deed (apparently she had a thing for Grigorys?).
But perhaps no period in history attracts more sexual attention than the Cold War. Indeed, the Cold War was a lot hotter than you may think. “It is sometimes said that there are Reds under every bed,” states a Cold War saying that describes a phenomenon called sexpionage, a form of extortion that leverages affairs for diplomatic benefit (fucking them over, so to speak).
Sex in politics is not only something that should be understood merely as lusty events that lead to conflict or as manipulative spy tactics. Rather, since the creation of nation states, sex has long been a diplomatic necessity. As anyone who has seen Game of Thrones or The Crown will tell you, sex is the means of determining who will be the heir to the throne. The vestiges of these monarchical practices are not far removed from the present. In fact, nearly all of the existing royal families in Europe descend from a common ancestor, King George II, who ruled Britain in the late 18th century.
Beyond just a form of alliance among warring states, sex has often been a means of keeping it in the family, as it were. For monarchies, when politics is the family business, sex is their most important product, often blurring the lines between the familial and political. In other words, for many dynasties, sex is a family affair.
Further, perhaps the role of sex penetrates deeper than just those affairs to remember. Political and military iconography is wrought with Freudian imagery. Any middle schooler on a field trip to Washington DC, with a camera and some knowledge of manipulating perspective, understands the phallic imagery of the Washington Monument. Missiles, cannonballs, rockets—the list goes on.
Of course, foreign affairs and personal affairs, sex between leaders and wars between nations, are difficult to separate because they invariably lead to the same outcomes. They are both marred with failed pull-outs. They often end with a bit of retrospective clarity. Someone is always left to clean up the mess. And most of all, someone ends up finishing on top.
SexComm is a group of two anonymous students who study foreign affairs. They derive their pseudonym from ExComm, the Executive Committee of the National Security Council of the early 60s.
Secretary Rusk believes in the importance of comprehensive sexual education.
LBJ refuses to comment.