In the Halls of Power, the Lure of Libido

WASHINGTON —  He “waved his muscular arms and the crowds waved back. . . Hands were everywhere around us. He said that one speech didn’t make a campaign. That one did, I said. I groped for words. It was electric, high voltage. He smiled mischievously. ‘It isn’t electric,’ he said quietly. ‘Electricity has nothing to do with it. It’s sexual.’ ”

--from “Honor, Power, Riches, Fame & the Love of Women,” by Ward Just.

Crime Capital of the Country. Power Capital. Lawyer Capital. Need we add one more to Washington’s dubious list of laurels?

With Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank jolting Congress with yet another scintillating Washington sex scandal, some say the nation’s capital could easily be ranked as the country’s libido capital as well.

“Capitol Hill is the most sexually charged spot in America,” says a staffer on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

On the Hill, staffers say, affairs are as common as fax machines. There is a roster of congressmen known to have “arrangements” with spouses back home allowing the politicians to roam about in D.C.

Sweet Young Things

And groupies! While they’re not as plentiful and flamboyant as those hanging around the Rolling Stones, congressmen have their own throng of sweet young things who make it known they’re available. There are tales of “frat house-like” parties, X-rated phone encounters, back seat liaisons.

“I have thick files,” says Rudy Maxa, Washingtonian magazine gossip columnist.

There’s little mystery about what fuels these politico-promiscuous passions.

“If you’ve ever been involved in amateur theater, it’s the same intensity, the same bonding for a specific purpose,” says Maxa. “Congress is like a traveling road show. Human relationships are really intense in that arena. And fast. They’re almost like spontaneous combustion.”

Add to that the heady, rarefied air of the U.S. Congress.

“The seduction of power,” says Maxa, “makes sexual romping a little more prevalent in political Washington than in a machine-tool factory in Middle America.”

Because of increased television coverage in this post-Watergate age of disclosure, members of Congress have become “small stars in their own rights with a sex symbol aura about them.”

“Sex and power are seen as going hand in hand,” says Robert Terry, director of Education for Reflective Leadership at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. “Men use power as an entree into sex. Women see sex as access to power. Men are the generators. Unfortunately, women are the losers on all counts. Men keep the power and get the sex. Women lose the sex and don’t get the power. So what do they gain?”

Maybe not even a good time.

“John Kennedy may have been the greatest sex partner in the world (to have attracted so many women),” says Terry, “but I doubt it. It was because he was President.”

Plenty of Opportunities

Politicians, some say, often have a particular talent for courtship and seduction.

“Politicians are in the business of making people love them,” says James Glassman, editor of Roll Call, a newspaper about Capitol Hill. “They’re quite happy to have people attracted to them. And they’re good at it.”

Glassman also says that opportunities for interludes--illicit and otherwise--abound on Capitol Hill. Not only are there numerous parties and social functions to attend, but “there are a lot of young, attractive people on the Hill,” he says.

“Because they’re out of the civil service loop, members can hire whomever they want. Attractiveness is not necessarily a job qualification, but people who come up to the Hill are always struck by the youth and attractiveness of the staffs.”

Glassman believes the more unconventional sexual practices that have recently made headlines--such as answering an ad for a male prostitute, as Rep. Frank admits he did, or trysting with a 16-year-old, as Rep. Donald E. “Buz” Lukens of Ohio was convicted for, or fondling a Peace Corps volunteer, as Illinois Rep. Gus Savage was accused of doing on a fact-finding tour of Zaire--result from “a lot of sexual energy that develops on Capitol Hill and has to be kept under wraps. That energy comes out in odd, kinky ways.”

Bill Thomas, author of the “Heard on the Hill” gossip column in Roll Call says, “Any time you’re in a high-pressure, high-stress environment, sex will take on more desperate forms.”

But not everyone agrees that legislative libidos are running at especially high, or unusual, frequencies.

Suzanne Garment, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, believes that many in Washington are so caught up in the pursuit of power, they care little about anything else--including sex.

“Some people are nothing but ambition. Power is the only object of their desire. Everything else is subordinated to that.”

Others believe members of Congress and their staffs are no different from the rest of the country.

“Congress has always been fairly representative of America in almost every respect, including moral demeanor,” says former Maryland Rep. Robert Bauman, whose political career was crushed in 1980 amid charges that he solicited sex from a 16-year-old boy.

Spotlight Has Changed

“The liaisons may start with power, but they are no more than manifestations of human instinct, just like that which could occur between a farmer and his friend or a plumber and his friend. I’m not sure the activity is that different or the emotions that different. It’s the spotlight that’s changed.”

Indeed, although more and more sexual dalliances seem to grab headlines, some Hill watchers say there is no more scandalous behavior today than in decades past, only more attention paid to private lives and issues of character--especially since the Gary Hart-Donna Rice caper.

Because of stepped-up surveillance today, the chances of getting caught are greater or, as one former aide puts it, “the risk-reward ratio is skewed.” And no longer does it take something outrageous to make news--something like jumping into the Tidal Basin or getting friendly on the Capitol steps.

“They’re extremely worried, even about innocent relationships,” says Glassman. “Single members of Congress are not as willing to be thought of as someone who dates a lot or is a swinging congressman. In the past, that was not such a bad image to have.”

Along with more scrutiny by the media and a conservative trend in social issues, Garment says, the women’s movement has had a hand in focusing attention on “back room” politics.

“Twenty years ago, a lot of this carrying on was viewed by the participants and onlookers as amusing. The women’s movement led people to listen to the stories and say, ‘That’s not funny.’ ”

With charges of sexual harassment a common tool today, members of Congress are less likely to coerce personal “favors” from staff members, says Stuart Stevens, a former Hill administrative assistant who is writing a pilot for a TV series set in a Capitol Hill office.

“It’s a different legal environment. Sexual harassment is the legal equivalent of AIDS.”

While a decade ago it was common for congressmen to have affairs with members of their staffs, today, Stevens says, they are at least thinking twice about it.

He believes this trend toward caution and away from a swinging, bon vivant image is apparent all over Washington--and perhaps only Washington.

“In most cities, it’s mandatory to be sexy,” says Stevens, who worked for former Mississippi Rep. Jon Hinson, another scandal-maker who resigned his seat in 1981 after being caught by police with a library clerk in a House office building men’s room.

“If you work for a hotshot San Francisco law firm, to be sexy is to be good. In Washington, it’s the exact opposite. It’s considered a breach of conduct to be sexy. Just go down to 19th and K (the heart of the business district)--the women are all walking around in Reeboks.”