There is currently a book on the sex lives of the founding fathers. I do not recommend it based on the Amazon reviews. I was led to think about sex and the Founding Fathers while reading a review of Gouverneur Morris’s life. (pronounced Gover-noor)
I already knew that Ben Franklin was a sexually active and a keen observer of human sexuality. His time in Paris as a courtier and lover are well documented. He is not directly involved as a writer of our Constitution.
I know about Alexander Hamilton’s very public sexual affair with a married woman and the tragic fact that she and her husband used the affair for extortion. Hamilton would certainly have been a president of the United States had this affair not occurred.
Jefferson was accused of having sex with his maid and probably had plenty of sex when he was in France.
The real issue for me was that Gouverneur Morris was a horny and active sexual male. He had many sexual affairs under many circumstances and his surviving documents make this clear.
The American electorate never acknowledged him for his extremely important role in our founding because everyone knew of his sexual escapades.
Morris wrote the preamble to the Constitution, he was the secretary who recorded the notes at the Constitutional Convention, he served in the Revolutionary War, he had clear and persuasive ideas about central government and was influential at the Constitutional Convention, and was correct on many political issues including slavery. He became a diplomat and served as a US Senator.
The disturbing fact for me is that Morris’s contributions to our founding were very significant but because of his sexual promiscuity and public knowledge of it at the time, we will never see his head sculpted onto a mountainside nor will we see him appropriately treated in public school history texts.
(Be sure to read Peter Everett's comment below about the Constitutional Convention).