Support independent journalism and set up a regular donation to Navarra Media from just £1 a month.

A regular donation helps us to plan our future and be even more ambitious with our coverage of news,

politics, culture and the really big ideas that you'll always find on our podcasts.

So please consider joining us and become a regular supporter from just £1 a month

by heading to Navarramedia.com forward slash support.

Why do sex scandals capture the public attention like almost nothing else?

From the wives of Roman emperors to the likes of Hugh Edwards,

we've always been fascinated by the idea of someone's sex life being the cause of their downfall.

But what does sex have to do with political corruption?

Where does the balance between privacy and public interest lie?

And are there things which we simply don't need to know about the intimate lives of powerful people?

And look, it's important to say from the outset that I'm grouping a lot of different things

under the imperfect term sex scandal.

In some cases I'm talking about black legend, lies which have been deliberately

fabricated and spread around in order to destroy somebody's reputation.

In other instances I'm talking about something that's true,

a feature of somebody's private life that's deeply embarrassing to them when it's exposed.

And sometimes I'm talking about real cases of abuse, exploitation and harm done by powerful people.

And normally I wouldn't call things like that a sex scandal because it's minimising,

and it lumps together consensual activity with abuse.

But really there isn't a better word or phrase overall for information about people's

sex lives that when made public has the potential to alter the course of powerful institutions

...