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Karnezar t1_ixv1gh3 wrote

Has a notable person of power ever jeopardized their position solely to get laid?

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elmonoenano t1_ixwfbqp wrote

JFK is a good example of this. He was constantly putting his larger plans and hopes at risk for hook ups.

The Logevall biography gets at a specific instance during WWII. JFK was having an affair with a journalist, I think she was Dutch, who had had significant contacts with major Nazis before the war. The FBI was monitoring her. She doesn't seem to actually have been a spy but there were serious concerns at the time. While this was all going on JFK had an important post in naval intelligence and would have been an excellent source.

He was transferred to the PT boats partially b/c he was high profile and some serious backers wanted to highlight the boat and his stature would raise the boats profile, partially b/c it was seen as a good recruitment tool for the Navy to have Joe Kennedy's son serving in the Pacific on these boats, and partially b/c the Navy was sketched out by JFK's inability to keep it in his pants.

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Deuce232 t1_ixvhoso wrote

Kings have abdicated for love. Whole wars started over infidelity. Presidents and ministers disgraced over affairs.

I can't think of a region or era that doesn't have examples.

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AngryBlitzcrankMain t1_ixvh49l wrote

Depends how much do you want see "having a relationship" view as get laid. One British monarch abdicated so he could live with women he did love. Franz Ferdinand greatly ruined his position in Austria-Hungary so that he could marry his future wife.

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Karnezar t1_ixvmt19 wrote

Naw, I'm talking just to hook up, or pursue a lifestyle in which he could sleep with women all day.

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Thibaudborny t1_ixv938y wrote

One could say modern sex scandals in politics come to mind, think perhaps of famously Bill Clinton.

You'll find older examples, too. However, often they are more up for debate due to the context. Case in point, the case of the French king Philip I (1060-1108), who was put under Interdict by the pope (multiple times) for taking another (married) woman as his own. Whilst Philip repudiated his former wife, the Reform Papacy retaliated on moral grounds. The whole affair lasted years, and while Philip made it seem as if he broke of his second marriage, he stayed with his new woman. It went so far that the former husband (the Count of Anjou) of his new wife retracted his allegiance to the house of Capet & placed Anjou under the suzerainity of the Papacy... Clerical writers on the side of the Papacy couched this affair in terms of weakness of the flesh.

The reality was, however, more prosaic.

Philip's former wife was eventually barren, and with only one male heir, the king had his dynastic duty to consider and ensure more offspring. The feelings he might have held for his new woman we will never truly know. It is important to consider that in early medieval Europe, marriage as a singular concept was not yet established, and various forms of matching existed. Basically, noble and clerical values clashed as both sides were in the process of establishing social norms that in this regard, conflicted.

So the Pope and his cronies would say it was weakness of the flesh, but king Philip arguably had other things on his mind.

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RanCestor t1_ixw5d34 wrote

I think Caligula from Rome takes the cake. This guys was like "fuck you and your accusations of debauchery!" While he married his sister to a horse before the Senate. Clinton just tried to claim "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

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Elmcroft1096 t1_ixwexlc wrote

The name of the nobleman escapes me but there was once a Prince-Bishop who as a Catholic Cleric was committed to Clerical Celibacy but as he was in charge of some small minor German speaking state (this was well before Lutheranism) but when his I believe father died he became the ruler of the Principality and due to heredity and maintaining the power of that position the Pope actually released him from Bishop duites and allowed him to marry so that he could rule his state, marry and produce an heir which he did. Technically he didn't jeopardize his position in so much that fate forced him into the position of being a ruling Prince. If memory serves me he wasn't the original ruling Prince's first son I believe he was the third son which is why he originally chose a career in the Church.

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