The Sex Lives Of Presidents: William Howard Taft
President William Howard Taft probably did not have an exciting sex life because he was very, very fat.
I don’t mean that he was un-sexy (because, damn! He was fine…um). Rather, because he was obese, he had very high blood pressure.
He also had obstructed sleep apnea, roast beef, and a wife, Helen Herron, who was actually kind of a hot little piece.
It’s possible they had a lot of sex, but the physicality of it is baffling to me.
Helen Herron and Howard Taft met at a bobsledding party in Cincinnati when he was 22, and she was 18. He asked her out on their first date in 1880, but they didn’t date regularly until 1882.
During that time, after not being snatched up by more able-bodied men in her social sphere, she grew an overwhelming fear of becoming a spinster.
When Taft proposed to her in 1885, she proclaimed, “Willy, you’re a little bit fat, but I’ll take you because I don’t want to become an old maid!”
I made up that last paragraph.
Helen Herron is often credited as the driving force behind her husband’s political career. Without her, it is supposed, he’d have spent most of his time eating roast lamb and being rejected by pretty young things.
The two stand-out moments of Helen Herron’s own career were the “silver wedding anniversary gala” she threw in 1911, for 8,000 guests, and the time when she planted the first of 3,000 Japanese cherry blossom saplings, which continue to grace Washington DC every spring.
Two months after Taft was elected to the White House, Helen Herron had a stroke that left her speech impaired. “Willy,” she said to her husband, who continued to love her just the same. “You’re my mutton chop.”
Helen Herron and Howard Taft had three children together. They stayed married through his presidency, through his appointment to the Supreme Court as Chief Justice, and through to his death in 1930.
When Helen kicked the can on May 22, 1943, she was buried next to her man in the Arlington National Cemetery.
In other words, the sex life of William Howard Taft, however nonexistent it was, was endearingly uxorious, and ringed all around with touches of sweetness.
The end.
Happy President’s Day!
