On June 16, the same day former Congressman Anthony Weiner resigned from office, legendary Hustler publisher Larry Flynt publicly offered him a job at Flynt Management, LLC. In the letter, published on Huffington Post, Flynt emphasized the seriousness of the offer, “Just as we do not undertake insincere political crusades, we do not make insincere job offers.” So far, Weiner has not responded. When Flynt spoke to the Progressive Reader, he insinuated that “somebody probably made [Weiner] a better offer” in order to persuade him to resign “so he wouldn’t hurt his party anymore.” Nonetheless, Flynt’s offer stands – be it next month, next year, or even five years from now.

The bid to employ Weiner might have surprised many, but Flynt has taken an active (though unconventional) interest in politics and politicians for over 30 years. Flynt’s “political crusades” began in 1976 when he issued a $1 million reward in the Washington Post for documentation of “illicit sexual relations” among prominent politicians. The most successful of these snares compelled the Speaker of the House-Elect, Republican Congressman Bob Livingston, to resign in 1998 during Clinton’s impeachment hearings, for carrying on his own extramarital affair. Then, in 2007, Flynt busted Republican Senator David Vitter, a major backer of abstinence-only sex education, for using the services of a D.C. prostitution ring. All in all, according to what Flynt told Bruce Handy in a 2007 Vanity Fair article, Flynt has spent at least $5 million on investigating political sex scandals over the years.

It might seem contradictory that Flynt offered Weiner employment while continuing to engage in vendettas to decommission other politicians. To Flynt, however, there is a crucial difference between Weiner and those others.  Vitter is the type of politician who dishes out one set of rules while operating under another. Flynt has no respect for this sort of hypocrisy (including anti-gay Congressman Larry Craig and homophobic preacher Ted Haggard, both of whom, it turns out, practiced gay sex). Flynt told us, “Hypocrisy is the biggest threat to democracy.” Of Weiner — who, as far as we know, took no political stance on sexting – Flynt says, “I think he’s a smart guy, had a little incident, but I think he’ll be able to handle it – I really do.”

In April, Flynt published his fourth book (his third to connect politics with sex), One Nation Under Sex: How the Private Lives of Presidents, First Ladies and Their Lovers Changed the Course of American History (Palgrave MacMillan, $25), co-authored with Columbia professor and historian David Eisenbach. While its cover may raise some eyebrows (“Sex” appears in all capitals, irreverently colored in with an image of the American flag), One Nation Under Sex is a serious book that shows how the sexual lives of leaders have shaped national policy. Flynt said, “The reason why I did the book was to go back and see if the sex scandals from 200 years ago were the same as they are today.” His findings? “It’s very much true,” he said.

One Nation Under Sex not only rehashes some famous sex scandals, but reveals their lasting ramifications — both positive and negative — on U.S. history. For example, the two authors show that Benjamin Franklin’s seduction abilities played a role in gaining the French support during the Revolutionary War, and that President James Buchanan’s 32-year-old homosexual affair with southern senator William King (evidenced by their personal correspondences), influenced Buchanan’s pro-slavery stance – ultimately encouraging the secession that preceded the Civil War.

Why haven’t we heard much about these affairs before? Flynt said, “For the most part, it’s been covered up over the years…history books tend to be conservative. They only want politics, policy – they don’t want anything about sex scandals.” But history is riddled with them; Flynt observes that political sex scandals occur “about every six months.”

In their conclusion, Flynt and Eisenbach explain this bad behavior with research that says politicians are by nature risk-takers and sensation-seekers, more prone to engage in “reckless sexual behavior” than the rest of us. Flynt hopes that Americans learn to discriminate between innocuous sexual indiscretions and malicious political ones. Once we’re able to distinguish more clearly, the authors write, “We might not be able to prevent our leaders from being sexually reckless, but we can prevent their sex scandals from diverting our attention from the real problems at hand.”