In light of the debacle over a Republican shindig at a L.A. bondage club, and Democratic congressman Eric Massa’s recently disclosed penchant for giving staffers a tickle, the Daily Beast asks: Which party has more sex scandals?

And the Daily Beast answers. It’s the G.O.P by a landslide!

Don’t bother objecting. It’s scientific:

After studying the 58 scandals over the past 20 years involving all politicians or major candidates for city mayor and above—many involved crimes, others just allegations, but all wound up as tabloid fodder—some conclusions can be reached.

• The number sex scandals has increased dramatically over the past few decades, thanks to technology, new press standards and a post-Clinton belief that everything is fair game.

• Republicans have more scandals (32 to 26), but Democrats have bigger ones, based on our methodology (13 out of the top 20).

• Democrats tend to have more problems with harassment, staffers and underage girls; Republicans tend to have more problems with prostitutes, hypocrisy and underage boys.

While Republicans have an edge in cuckoldry (naturally), there is bipartisanship in adultery, with eighteen instances for each side of the aisle.

Still, this exercise depresses me. Aren’t you tired of sex scandals? When they’re not banal they’re disgusting. What I’d like is a good sloth scandal, or a gluttony scandal. How about a good envy scandal — one way to get Bill Clinton back in the news — or a scandal of pride? Maybe that might not work, since all politics is essentially a scandal of pride.

Sure, it is immensely enjoyable to see a once-mighty firebrand or titanic legislator sheepishly approach a microphone to fess up to some lazy human failure, while a seething spouse over his shoulder looks all crisp in a smart-looking Chanel suit.

But even schadenfreude gets old. When it comes to politics, sex is a capital depravity that I’d be glad to be deprived of for a season or two.

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