I prefer the gender neutral term “kids”.
And of course everyone knows that in the legal sense she was an adult, but come on, 22 is damn young, and given the insane situation its no wonder she made a bad choice. We all did at 22, only she was globally vilified for hers.
Something, something DOMA? (which, now I read about it, was introduced by former Libertarian presidential candidate, and chief impeacher of Clinton, Bob Barr (also an adulterer, allegedly?)).
If I were Clinton, I’d be delighted that the scandal I’m remembered for is this, which most people are ambivalent about, and always were, as opposed to, say, Whitewater.
My general impression of Clinton (and I think this is the majority view of him from abroad) is that he was a good President, a very charming politician and a pretty icky person.
Well, I personally am EXTREMELY grateful that my choice of sexual partners in my 20th and 21st years are not matters of public record, nor are they the way people currently define me. Because that would really not be a good thing in any way.
Anyone who is both over 21 and did not do something really stupid when they were 21 should now leave the judgement room and move directly into the Mind Your Own Damn Business room and leave the woman alone. It was a long time ago.
Had she been trying to bribe him, far fewer people would try to shame her.
‘slut shaming’ is … what, a real thing?
How completely dick.
The only reason it was a big deal was because the Republican controlled congress was looking for something that they could impeach him on. This was the Newt Congress and one of the earliest examples of the scorched earth policy that the Republican party has taken since.
There are people right now digging as hard as they can to find something, anything, that they can use to bring up impeachment action against Obama. This is why you see such uproar over Benghazi or Obama’s easing of a couple of the Obamacare mandates. People are calling congressmen regularly asking what they are waiting for, why isn’t the president impeached yet?
This is the point I was trying to make. And I used girl advisedly. One cannot hold an intern and the President of the United States equally culpable. This is called a power imbalance.
If you want to thin slice it, yes, obvious power imbalance is obvious. The scandal, taken as a whole, was several different power imbalances. The whole thing was out of whack, and the media itself was the largest player in her exposure.
The fact that the theocratic shitbags of the R-persuasion tried to criminalize a blowjob at the end of the 20th century is as important as their reliance on slutshaming to try to keep this non-event in the news. And for the most part, they were successful at slutshaming. The gender power dynamics were an issue, but the biggest issue for the media at the time was to keep the story alive and sell ads.
So yes, the president took more heat than Lewinsky did, but the heat Lewinsky took had a purpose: use conservative hatred of women to keep a bullshit investigation going, keep a string of bullshit headlines going, and give the world of religious bullshit the idea that they might be able to claw back some losses.
It’s about time. His behavior fully revealed once again the U.S. inveterate nature as a hypocrite who has deceived and mocked mankind with all sorts of gimmicks.
And supposedly Johnson had a bad case of Jungle Fever. Bush41 supposedly had mistresses, but as former head of the CIA I’m sure he knew all about keeping people hidden.
Well, when you have only done one thing in your life worthy of international headlines, yeah, that is the first impression that everyone in the world is going to have about you. First impressions matter, even it it isn’t your fault at all.
What’s so awful about it? How would you feel if it was a male intern and a female politician. Actually, how is that even important? Who gives a shit what people do with their naughty bits? How is it anyone’s business but the two or more people doing the deed? Why are you so busy with your condemnation? Don’t you have something better to do?
It helps that Whitewater wasn’t actually a real scandal. More like a proto-Benghazi.
I don’t think anyone ever thought that.
Also, I was still doing pretty stupid shit on a regular basis when I was 22, as were a lot of my friends. Almost all of us have moved on to doing less stupid shit, less frequently, in the intervening years.
I find it difficult to muster sympathy for her when she decries the public attention while posing on the red carpet like a celebrity through the years.
I’m sad for her that being famous for what she’s famous for has ruined her life (to paraphrase this VF piece), but she’s continued to make decisions to keep her name and image famous (including exclusive interviews prior to this and book on the same subject).
“ain’t nobody’s business except for Monica and the Clintons.”
I thought the airing of the laundry was done by Lewinsky herself, in conversations with Linda Tripp. One could argue that Tripp was a poor friend and poor human being, but if Lewinsky wanted to keep her business private, she should have kept it private.
Well, if you take that part of my comment out of context, I sound like a monster. 
Since you seem to be hellbent on missing my point, let’s look at my original comment, shall we?
I agree with you. It was a (heh) dick move. And if that’s what she’d been shamed for, I’d agree somewhat. But if anything, she was shamed for giving a blowjob, and if you can find me a guy who would go on record as turning down a good blowjob, I’ll show you a damn liar.
Since it seems to have snared at least one person, here’s what I meant by that: she was shamed for giving a blowjob, rather than for giving a married man a blowjob. In my estimation, it’s one of the most popular sexual acts there is, aside from PIV sex, but people acted like it was a horrible, despicable act that would only be performed by the lowest of the low. And yet, 63% of men polled say they’ve received oral sex.
I thought that, despite infidelity being a touchy subject (and I agree, it is shameful imho) I’m absolutely baffled at the faux outrage that happened back then.
I’ll pass on this link even though it seems to be extremely heteronormative.
The takeaway is that oral sex is fairly popular and common, but from the reaction we saw after the controversy blew up, you’d swear that it was absolutely unheard-of.
I may have paused inappropriately when I read this, I’m sorry
I don’t know, I didn’t read it as victim blaming, more of a rhetorical device to show that there is an imbalance of power at work, because Clinton is still the honorable ex-president and she’s still “just a slut”.
But sometimes I’m dumb like that.
Monica Lewinsky on why the fuck am I still reading about this irrelevant shit 16 years on?
I actually couldn’t give any less of a fuck if I tried.
