Shortly after the Lewinsky scandal broke, Time White House reporter Nina Burleigh confessed in Mirabella magazine that she, too, had once caught the president admiring her legs. The episode was “seductive” and “flattering,” Burleigh later said, and she admitted that she would gladly have performed for him as Monica had done, if only asked. A chorus of other prominent female writers quickly volunteered their services, as well. This led New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd to fume about “feminist erotic journalism,” a field in which presumably independent women “pant for power. They crave droit du seigneur. Take me! Take me!”
It’s the way to attract beautiful women, Henry Kissinger is said to have replied when asked why he sought high public office. Indeed, “power [in men] is an aphrodisiac” for the female sex, reports Steven Rhoads in this new book. He points to other cases of feminist icons surrendering to powerful men: Jane Fonda submitting to the “strong, domineering” Ted Turner; Simone de Beauvoir, author of The Second Sex, serving as mistress, cook, manager, nurse, and—eventually—pimp for the insufferable Jean-Paul Sartre. So does human nature trump ideology. However, the phenomenon does not work the other way. As the author notes, “power does not increase the sex appeal of former attorney general Janet Reno or of Senator Dianne Feinstein.”
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