The bad news for Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo just keeps coming. After news that at least two women were claiming Lugo fathered children with them, the latest gossip leaking out is that there is a third woman about ready to do the same and more may be on the way:

Newspapers and TV programmes have been dominated by stories of women coming forward to claim they had a child with the former Catholic bishop.

This “political soap opera”, complained one of these reports, is “paralysing the government”.

Three women have made allegations so far and there were reports in the Paraguay media that there may be more claims to come.

It has been a testing time for a man who was elected proclaiming the virtues of honesty and ending corruption.

One of the women has alleged she was 16 when the relationship began – making her under the legal age of consent of 17 – and a public prosecutor is now considering the implications of that claim.

Another said she turned to Mr Lugo as a bishop for help when she had been abandoned with a new born child, but he abused his position in the Church to exploit their relationship, and a year later she was carrying his child.

You know, although I’ve made several jokes about this whole mess, reading about the experiences of the women Lugo was with is actually quite disturbing to me. Women believed him, they loved him, they opened not just their hearts to him, but their bodies. Which says that this man is a skillful manipulator–nothing new for a politician–but maybe something we need to stop excusing when it comes to women?

I don’t really care if Lugo wants to have sex and impregnate every woman in Paraguay–but is it really ok for him to be using his position of power to better manipulate women into doing what he wants? Is it ok to leave women to deal with the stigma and economic difficulties of being a single mami?

When do men ever have to accept responsibility for *their* actions?