comment on a short part of this story

this is the story I'm reading. Disappearances by J.K Orr, winner of BBC awards 2016. I can't understand what the author means by the phrases that I put between **. if you already studied this, you can help. but if not, the context is a plastic surgeon narrating his acquintance with a maid girl, an ordinary woman. this part is refering to his past:

I thrived. It didn’t matter who was in charge – throughout the decades, through all the ins and outs, the various shenanigans our country went through.* While the leadership had wives and mistresses I was in demand*. And while I have never possessed matinée idol looks, I flatter myself that I was their Hephaestus – *these women love being done by an ugly man if he is craftsman to the gods.*