Every American president has had a penis. The possession of a generative member is, in fact, the one trait they all share. Some have been Whigs, some Democrats, and some Republicans. There have been slave-owning presidents and abolitionists, bearded presidents and clean-shaven ones, Easterners and Southerners. Almost all have been white, but at least one has been black. Yet all have been men.

With the prospect of Hillary Clinton becoming the first penis-free president, it’s not surprising that her Republican rivals want to remind the world that their genital anatomy is the traditional norm.

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Donald Trump’s claim during the Republican debate in Detroit that he was amply endowed might have shocked many, but it belongs to a venerable history. Structurally, the president occupies the same position in American politics as kings and queens do in monarchies. The monarch’s body is, traditionally, the microcosm of the state, hence closely monitored. It’s not just of prurient interest to know whether the king is sleeping with the queen (or a consort). It’s a fact upon which the fate of the realm, and the royal lineage, hangs. Hence the ancient tradition of royal gossip, which in the American republic has been replaced by a concern for the presidential penis.

It’s not an accident that during the vicious presidential campaign of 1800 Thomas Jefferson accused John Adams of having a “hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.” Hermaphrodites are, of course, defined by their sexual organs.

The Founding Fathers created a framework for American politics that resulted in a repeated focus on the the penises of aspiring presidents and presidents alike. Was Abraham Lincoln interested in sleeping with black women, as Stephen Douglas alleged? Did Grover Cleveland have a child outside of wedlock? Did John F. Kennedy have more mistresses than there are stars in the sky? Such questions have been the very fabric of American public life.