Bobby Baker's amazing history of the US Senate, the personal weaknesses of Senators

Politico has a long interview with Bobby Baker, long known as the top fixer in the US Senate.  Baker, a loyal Democrat, might have viewed the Senate through a slightly colored lens and much of the dirt seems to be on Southern Democrats or Republicans.  I have no idea how much of this is a result of the desire for political payback for the political corruption investigation that ended his career in 1963 and lead to an 18 month prison term, but it still makes for very interesting reading (see here and here for all the dirt).

Put this in the obvious file, politicians cheat more because they have more opportunities

So women are attracted to power. This is news?

The upcoming Psychological Science study did not find evidence that people who travelled more cheated more, but politicians do have more opportunities to stray than the average person.
"They do meet a lot of people," said Pepper Schwartz, a sociologist at the University of Washington in Seattle who studies sexuality and relationships. "Women are impressed with their position, and they are attractive to women who might have never noticed them if they were an accountant."
Indeed, Coontz said, gender role socialization plays right into the hands of potential political adulterers.
"There's a tremendous identification of power and privilege with sexual excitement, so it's easy for the guys to translate the ego trip they are on constantly into sexuality," Coontz said. Meanwhile, women who believe that rubbing elbows (or more) with the rich and powerful will benefit them are more likely to accept the position of mistress.
Politicians "have a lot more willing takers than your ordinary guy," Coontz said. . . .

Eric Massa makes Mark Foley look incredibly clean

This guy was completely out of control. The Washington Post has this amazing description of this completely crazy sexual predator. You can read the Washington Post piece here. I fail to see the symmetry in the way the Massa and Foley cases were covered by the media.

UPDATE: There might now be lawsuits in the Massa case.

A onetime aide to former Rep. Eric Massa has filed a complaint with the congressional Office of Compliance alleging that he and other staffers were subjected to various forms of sexual harassment by their boss, who resigned in March amid an ethics investigation into his behavior toward aides.

The filing, for the first time, raises the specter that Massa’s case could end up in the legal sphere.

Debra Katz, the attorney for the former aide, says a complaint alleges that Massa, a freshman Democrat from New York, “subjected my client and other young gay men” to “unwelcome touching, sexual propositions, groping, sexualized comments” and similar forms of harassment both inside his official congressional office and outside of it. . . .

The Pill Makes Women More Attracted to Less Rugged Men

From the New York Daily News:

It gave women control over their own sex life, their fertility, their everything, it seems.

But now the Pill, the modern miracle of the 1960s, is being blamed in part on women's changing taste in men.

London's dailymail.co.uk reports that scientists have discovered in a new study how the hormones in the oral contraceptive suppress a woman's interest in masculine men and make boyish men more attractive.

The change may only occur for a handful of days each month but, given that the pill has been around for 40 years, it has more than likely been highly influential.

Consider the shift in tastes from rugged, manly stars of the 1950s and 1960s such as a young Sean Connery, Marlon Brando and Steve McQueen to the heartthrobs of recent years. The 1990s brought you good-looking men with great, well proportioned facial features such stars such as Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt.

Now, pretty boys such as Zac Efron and Chace Crawford are the sex symbols du jour. . . .

It is not new that scientists have known that a woman's taste in men changes over her menstrual cycle.

During the few days each month when women are fertile - the time of ovulation - they tend to prefer masculine features and men who are more assertive.

But research has shown that on days when women are not fertile, their tastes swing towards more feminine, boyish faces and more caring personalities.

If women are taking the Pill, however, they no longer have fertile days, which means they do not experience the hormonal changes that make them more attracted to masculine men. . . .

Sociobiology for why women want Sex

The discussion is here.

Meston and Buss have interviewed 1,006 women from all over the world about their sexual motivation, and in doing so they have identified 237 different reasons why women have sex. Not 235. Not 236. But 237. And what are they? From the reams of confessions, it emerges that women have sex for physical, emotional and material reasons; to boost their self-esteem, to keep their lovers, or because they are raped or coerced. Love? That's just a song. We are among the bad apes now. . . . .

"People just assumed the answer was obvious," Meston says. "To feel good. Nobody has really talked about how women can use sex for all sorts of resources." She rattles off a list and as she says it, I realise I knew it all along: "promotion, money, drugs, bartering, for revenge, to get back at a partner who has cheated on them. To make themselves feel good. To make their partners feel bad." Women, she says, "can use sex at every stage of the relationship, from luring a man into the relationship, to try and keep a man so he is fulfilled and doesn't stray. Duty. Using sex to get rid of him or to make him jealous." . . .