I've done research of my own, and I find *nothing* to back up the slanderous accusation. If there are facts that can do so, I'd really like to see them. For something that is so oft repeated, there is a curious absence of anything to back it up with on the web.
hehe ! Well, that professor made that statement 30 years ago. I'm not real certain whether he made comments intending it to be solid truth or if he was referring to it in jest though.I did check around Google Search and found a couple of things that referred to his ways with the ladies, however. That he had an illigitimate son may say more about that issue than anything else, perhaps ??:
Editor Claude-Anne Lopez describes
her 'life with Benjamin Franklin'Franklin has a reputation as a ladies' man. Did he have a lot of love affairs?
I think we should distinguish between sex and love affairs. Sex is quite plausible, when you consider that he was a vigorous man, away from home for years at a time. But love affairs are another story. The best answer is that we have absolutely no proof of any. Certainly Franklin liked women. He knew how to flirt. He wrote lovely letters. But that doesn't mean he had affairs with all these women, as is often supposed. He did have one illegitimate son who was born before he was married, and Franklin raised him in his own house as one of the family. Apart from that, we don't know about any illegitimate children, about any liaisons once he married. Everybody in those days kept diaries and gossiped in them, and in all those French diaries, there isn't one mention of any kind of liaison that Franklin could have had. So there you are.
Why do people speculate so much about Franklin's sex life?Because it makes him more human, closer to the rest of us. And then, of course, the rumor was propagated by his political enemy John Adams, who refers more than once to Franklin's love of women. Adams talks about it in a shocked way. But this was when Franklin was in his late 70s, so I think it was a tribute to his lasting power.
Setting aside his reputation as a ladies' man, what do you think Franklin would have wanted to be remembered for?I think his favorite invention was his musical instrument, the glass [h]armonica. He was terribly proud of that. He delighted in it. He told people about it. He played it and wanted his daughter to learn to play on it. It was something that gave him great joy. I imagine that he would also want to be remembered for his invention of the lightning rod, which had such an impact in his day, and of what is currently known as "the Franklin stove," then called the Pennsylvania fireplace. Come to think of it, he also invented bifocals.
REMARKABLE SIMILARITIES BETWEEN PRESIDENT
ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND BENJAMIN FRANKLINStrong Sex Drive Though the information was suppressed for years, Lincoln was sexually active prior to marriage. So was Franklin; he fathered an illegitimate son and was strongly attracted to the ladies throughout his life.