Human nature tells me that there’s a bit of all of those explanations involved. You forgot one more part of the equation: our culture is sexist when it comes to age. Powerful people who have affairs tend to behave in a similar fashion to powerful people who swap out their spouses for a new trophy. They generally get younger and more attractive versions of the current one. There’s a smaller pool of younger men willing to have affairs with older women than younger women willing to have affairs with older men.

#5 gets my vote. To get the statistics right, you need a level playing field.
I also think men have affairs for sex and women have them for love.

Steve,
Just as recent brain scans of teenagers have revealed that kids under the age of eighteen lack certain logical/cognitive functions, so too I bet that if you gave a middle-aged man (or maybe any man) a brain scan while in a state of high sexual arousal, you might not find any sort of reasonable person there. Like nobody’s home in the brain right now. Just instinct and drive. The old adage for men “Don’t let your Little Head do the thinking for your Big Head” applies nicely here.
Also, if we view our male politicians as “pack leaders,” maybe the pack leader’s instinct is to keep a harem so the pack will long survive. Just another theory.
I guess it’s well established that when women get busy, especially older women with families and the schedules of senators, their interest in sex isn’t stimulated. In fact, it just shuts down. She can’t even find it when she has time to look for it. She’s gathering eggs, nesting, pulling people together to plan. It’s all she can do to go grocery shopping when the day is done. And look around for some comfortable shoes.
CM

Well, it took women a while, but they’re catching up to men in the teacher-pedophile arena. Maybe they’re simply behind the curve on this one as well. Let’s revisit this one in ten years.

They are too busy proving themselves, trying to pay bills on salaries that are 1/2 of that of their male peers and trying to break through the glass ceilings preventing them from holding corporate and other high level positions.

I vote for #4. We all know men are hopeless at multitasking. And what is having an affair if not trying to do (and be) several things at once?

Women politicians would have as many affairs as men politicians had they had someone willing to participate.
Too bad for them young men don’t find you more attractive because of all the power you posses, but are more interested in qualities like youth and beauty .
Since women are drawn to middle ages man with lots of power, men politicians have many women standing in line to choose from.
Now what that makes of women ?

This question is far too complex to be answered by these simplistic few choices.
The cliche title to a book describing how psychologically each sex processes and approaches various life situations. Sex is complicated in a female mind. After sex, it is rarely impossible to feel emotionally neutral. She is aware it will affect how it will impact how she feels about her husband. She’ll begin to emotionally detach and fantasize about being with the stud or feel ashamed and guilty. A roll in the hay inevitably brings on a ton of anxiety over what will happen next. Will anybody find out? Then what? She knows she’ll feel differently about her spouse. Will she want him instead of her husband? It will eat at her over if she should tell him or not. If/when he finds out, what obvious reaction will he have? If or when the stud’s significant other finds out, how will she react? Then what happens when the public finds out? The term “slut” will be thrown at her from somewhere. Most females will view her negatively, a phenomenon men never encounter. When your position is dependent on public appeal, it is foolish to jeopardize it for a roll in the hay.
She knows she’d probably scorn another woman who did this. The public frequently rationalizes unfaithful behavior of men. This is obvious in the nature of this very discussion.Since male infidelity is historically common, the benefit vs. risk scenario is applicable to a man. Combine that with male sexual nature, and affairs are somewhat permissible.
Remembering the Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton affair, the universal response is “it doesn’t really bother me that he had the affair. But the fact that he LIED under oath to the American people is what I can’t excuse!” Note that she was just one of many women on Bill’s long list of frequent extramarital sex acts. She was horrified that this became public. Undoubtedly there were numerous women he screwed. Appalled by the way Paula Jones was treated, they wouldn’t dream of going on the record.
I am sure this has nothing to do with opportunity. At 45, I could find a willing male within a few hours if I tried. But as an average married woman, there is no way I’d want to deal with the ramifications or the anxiety even if nobody found out. The stakes would by immensely higher for a woman in power.
Obviously human beings vary and of course not every woman is alike. Society may slowly change, and one day there will be a number of powerful women who have affairs. Currently, this is my best explanation.

Have you taken a look at female politicians lately?
What men desire is not what they have. That’s reality.
Women should use their youth and beauty to find a man who is likely to stick with them. Instead, most of them spend it on useless fools and they end up with unhappiness which is what they so richly deserve.

Has everybody forgotten Helen Chenoweth, the Montana congressional rep who was fooling around during the same period as the Clinton impeachment? Obviously she was (statistically speaking, that is ) an outlier.

Well……..this only shows what men really think with. ha ha
Just kidding.
Look at Clinton. He didnt just have one affair he had multiple affairs. He did not care if he got caught, he didnt care that it hurt his family. Didnt he coin the phrase, oral sex is not sex?
And look at John Edwards. He chooses to have an affair while his wife is battling a terminal illness. He ruins his career and he drags his family through the mud.
These guys dont care. “If I could take it back I would.”
No way. They would have just been smarter about getting caught.

No, Clinton did not coin the phrase “oral sex is not sex.” So far as I know, he didn’t even say it. It was a quote from some Baptist teenager, who said that was what he and his friends all believed, and that Clinton, after all, had been raised Baptist too.
However, Clinton really DID coin the phrase “It depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is.”

ML was not ‘horrified’. The whole thing was orchestrated and planned by the Republicans. She was well rewarded and overjoyed by her success.
Remind me again why my 24 year monogamous, true, faithful and loyal partnership with my husband is a threat to Christian America and men like this deserve our trust?
I guess, I won’t choose any of the possibilities because there are too many factors involved in the equation for a simple answer. Given that we now know that the whole ‘women multitask, men don’t’ is nonsense and all the other crap evolutionary psychology has promoted over the last years (men are genetically programmed to be hunters, women to stay home and clean out the cave) I think the only serious answer can be found in this jerk’s head.
He delights in attacking gays and transgendered, why be surprised he should turn his hatred upon his wife? It’s always the same game with the christianists.

I’m with JB. The only affair a woman politician is likely to have will be at the Lighthouse for the Blind.