Why Women Pursue Powerful Men, Part 2 of 3

The Unique Biology of Powerful Women

Paula Broadwell rebuked restraint and slipped between the sheets of one of the most powerful men in the country, risking public shame and injury, heaving heartache on multiple family members, and jeopardizing national security. With millions of miles of penis from which to choose, why did Broadwell pursue this particular four-star phallus?

 Watching the drama of the Petraeus affair unfold causes us to examine our own power and the affair potential of both ourselves and our partners. This three part series answers: How does the power aphrodisiac make women succumb to and even pursue men of power?Why are many willing to risk the shame of public exposure?

Why would these women resort to email cat fights and squeal to the FBI to protect their positions?

The Influence of Paula Broadwell and Jill Kelley

A powerful woman in her own right, Paula Broadwell developed even more influence during her sexual affair with General David Petraeus. The world has noted how her unprecedented access to Petraeus is described by the title she gave her biography of the general —All In. Broadwell, a doctoral candidate, is not resting on wilted laurels. ABC News reports Broadwell recently starred as a submachine gun expert in a promotional video for a Swiss company trying to win U.S. military contracts.

The other other woman in this scenario, Jill Kelley, exchanged thousands of “flirtatious” emails with General John Allen who is the current Commander-In-Chief in Afghanistan and is slated to become the Supreme Commander of NATO. Although the media first portrayed Kelley as a socialite housewife, we now see that her power maneuvering extended beyond party planning. Kelley allegedly positioned herself as someone who could broker a multibillion-dollar energy deal with South Korea and asked for an $80 million commission.

Birds Peck, Cows Butt, and Women Rebuff

On the average, men have a greater interest in power than women do. We each, both males and females, fall somewhere along a continuum from little power interest to great power interest. In this way we are like cows and bulls with a definite butting order or birds with a rigid pecking order. When we see how pecking and butting hierarchies mirror human behavior, we intuitively understand that it is not healthy to pick on someone more powerful.

The higher the females of most animal groups rank in the power scale, the fewer their options for sex with a more dominant male.  Dominant cows and powerful women will butt away less dominant bulls and men respectively. A female’s biological imperative is to select the most powerful male available to her. This increases the availability of sexual partners for lower dominance women; however it greatly restricts possibilities for dominant women.

This differs from men, whose biology directs them to mate with as many women as possible, providing these women are of less power. Men, just like males in other animal groups, will not hook up with women with more power than they have.

Paula Broadwell and other powerful women with fewer options will go to great lengths to maintain their sex-power connections, including sabotaging what they perceive to be other women’s attempts to invade their territory. Broadwell’s biology directed her to pursue power, but unlike most women, her protective instincts and common sense did allow her to just say no.

In the final post, Part 3, we’ll look at why powerful women believe they will never be caught and what happens when they are.

You may also like  to read:
WHY POWERFUL MEN ARE MORE LIKELY TO CHEAT
Why Women Pursue Powerful Men, Part 1 of 3

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Dr. B