Author and journalist Eleanor Herman’s latest book, Sex With Presidents, is, duh, about presidential nookie, but it’s also a look at how commander-in-chief coitus has affected American history. “If you want to be President, you have to have a certain amount of ego—you think you should be the only one running this country,” says Herman. “And that often is tied together with sex.” Who are history’s horniest White House honchos? Here are her picks.
1. John F. Kennedy
Everyone knows JFK couldn’t keep it in his pants, but Herman believes he was “pathologically oversexed.” The author recounts the time a worker accidentally exited the elevator into the White House residence and encountered a topless young woman (who was not his wife). Kennedy was also fond of bringing side babes into Jackie’s bed in her separate bedroom. “One night, she found a woman’s panties under her pillow,” says Herman.
2. Warren Harding
Harding was hardly a Hemsworth, but he still did pretty well for himself. “Maybe it was pheromones,” says Herman. “He turned women into howling cats in heat.” The former President may have slept with thousands of women, often sent 60-page pornographic love notes, and had sex in an Oval Office closet, according to Herman. “It’s a good thing I’m not a woman,” he once told reporters. “I would always be pregnant. I just can’t say no.”
3. Lyndon Johnson
He allegedly had affairs with several of his White House secretaries, and according to Herman, Lady Bird once caught him and a secretary in flagrante on an Oval Office sofa. After that, Johnson had a buzzer installed for the Secret Service to warn him of approaching trouble “so he had time to quickly pull up his trousers,” Herman says.
4. Bill Clinton
“Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office with the cigar,” says Herman. “Need I say more?” No, ma’am.
5. Donald Trump
Herman’s book outlines a now-familiar list: the Access Hollywood tape, the multiple sexual-assault allegations, the Stormy Daniels hush money, and so on. How did such a man become President? Perhaps because of his predecessors’ antics, Herman writes: “We are exhausted. Numb. Desensitized. We are now a very hard nation to shock.”
Mimi Montgomery joined Washingtonian in 2018. She’s written for The Washington Post, Garden & Gun, Outside Magazine, Washington City Paper, DCist, and PoPVille. Originally from North Carolina, she now lives in Del Ray.
