Looking online for the source of the well known quote, I actually found two:
Napolean Bonaparte: “[Women] belong to the highest bidder. Power is what they like - it is the greatest of all aphrodisiacs.”
Henry Kissinger (seems to have uttered two similar statements): “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac”, and “Power is the great aphrodisiac”.
But the metoo movement paints a different picture. Unless those getting called out had women lineing up, but got greedy or stopped trying to discern who was willing and who wasn’t. So how much truth is there to these quotes?
One example: I got the impression Al Franken did not have women lineing up, and it even seems he was even struggling to get a second conversation here:
Yet he was a U.S. Senator, which is on the high end of the power spectrum.
True for all social primates, and we are social primates. That doesn’t mean it trumps everything else (no pun intended), but it’s definitely there and well documented.
A man with real or perceived power turns me off. I hate the arrogant, God’s gift type of man. Give me a hard working, humble, loves his Mother type guy.
True, a lot of that was tabloid stuff (although his relationship with Jill St. John actually went on for awhile) but he ended up marrying a woman who was 3" taller than him, which counts for something.
There is nothing contradictory about these two things…
It is a fact that men in positions of power (particularly in industries that society considers aspirational for young attractive women, e.g. movies), are more attractive to some women in ways they would not be, if they were not in those positions of power.
There is nothing inherently abusive about this EXCEPT that many many men in those take this fact to mean they are entitled to sex from whoever they want. And this means they can use their power (or just plain physical force) to coerce women into sex and otherwise abuse them.
Former fact does not somehow excuse the latter one, or some how make it the fault of the women involved.
Get the point your making (though I don’t necessarily agree, I think the guy washing the floors is no more or less horny than the CEO )
But I think the meaning of.the term aphrodisiac may have changed over the years. In Napoleons time it meant a love potion, rather than something that would make the taker physically aroused.
Well, yes. Powerful men are more attractive to women than non-powerful men, all other things being equal.
I suspect that powerful women may NOT be any more attractive to men than non-powerful women, and in fact may be less attractive because of such.