Granted, the best way to keep something secret is to tell no one, but to tell someone, does not mean to tell everyone either. Iwould think Linda did the airing while Monica did some confiding.
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Probably saved you from skipping over the âasâ.
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It was a bit more complicated. He wasnât impeached for the bj. He was being sued by Paula Jones for harassment. During the deposition, he was asked about Lewinsky ⌠and lied. The impeachment trial was for perjury.
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no, iâve never heard that angle before and hadnât even considered it. hearing it now, i think itâs a ridiculous excuse at best.
The world? In these parts it was mostly âAmericans are sure nosy. Why do they act as if they had any stakes in what two consenting adults do.â
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Iâm not sure where you live but I was in Australia for most of 1998 and I can assure you there were no shortage of Lewinski jokes to be heard there at the time. Some were obviously made for a non-American audience, like âshe was hard of hearing, he actually said to hold his calls and sack his cookâ (an American would say âfireâ instead of âsackâ). So it might not have literally been âthe entire worldâ but it went well beyond Americaâs shores.
Yes. It is a terrible thing to do to someone.
Bear in mind, though, that the only reason she was the centre of attention at a live taping 3-years after the event was because of said blowjob. I mean, itâs not like she was the worldâs greatest ever intern, or that anyone was there waiting for pearls of wisdom on the correct way to file cabinet papers to drop from her lips.
Call it âslut-famingâ, if you like. Lewinsky was/is famous because of the BJ, not in spite of it.
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It was not complicated at all: the legal issue with the least-terrible traction was perjury (NOT HARASSMENT, FFS, YOU JUST SAID THIS) about a private matter that had nothing to do with his office. The legal precedent was pretty clearly against pursuit or conviction on that charge. The only reason the case went as far as it did was the political need to find something, anything, to nail on the target in the media and during the '98 midterm election. They didnât find much, so instead of falling on their face before the election, the Rs held their little show trial in the House a month after the election.
Also, they kept the story alive with slutshaming and trying to trying an adultery case in the media. Very simple media-campaign-garbage which punished two people for consensual sex.
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Like, what is she supposed to do? Go live in a cave for 5, 10, or 15 years until everything had blown over and she could do anything in public, and get a job, without all sorts of people dredging up her past? Or does she only deserve sympathy if she suffered nobly instead of trying to make lemonade from her lemons? I find it hard to blame her for trying to get something good out of the terrible situation she was in, and Iâm pretty darn sure that if she had the option to exchange those red-carpet visits for a life of anonymity she would take the latter.
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And Marilyn Monroe is known to have been involved with KennedyâŚ
The simple fact is that when you have an affair with a figurehead as famous/influential/powerful etc⌠as the POTUS, thatâs probably going to be the âbiggestâ thing youâve ever done. People arenât just going to forget it and say âwell, it was 16 years agoâŚâ.
Now if Monica figures out an effective Ebola Vaccine or something else, sheâll be famous for something much more important than a BJ, but until thenâŚ
Adult society is no better than elementary school in this respect. Do something âbigâ and notable, and thatâs going to be what youâre known for. Crap your pants at an assembly? Youâre the pants crapper. Bj to someone behind the bleachers? Youâre the BJ queen. That is, until you do something bigger and more notable (which IMHO Monica has not done to date).
Maybe she would have preferred to have a chance to make a name for herself in another way without being burdened with a name that has become synonymous with âblowjob intern.â Maybe she never sought to be famous for anything and just wanted to pursue a nice quiet life of public service.
Either way, once she was dragged into the public eye as the young woman who fellated a President then ânot being famousâ was no longer an option.
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Not get off track, but Wikipedia keeps a useful tally of Federal Political Sex Scandals in the United States. The record goes back to 1776. Iâm mentioning it because it helps to put into perspective the (quite large) number of sex scandals we have involving our leaders in this country all the time.
It also includes (correctly) the useful reminders that:
⢠Bill Clinton wasnât impeached for his sexual relationship with Lewinsky, but for perjury. (Something people often forget.) He lied when he was under oath and said, âI did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.â That was in 1998.
⢠That same year, Newt Gingrich (who drove the attack against Clinton) was forced to resign from the House. His own scandal broke during the Clinton impeachment, and it involved him having an affair with HIS intern while married to his second wife. (Try to name that intern without looking her up. Betcha canât!)
Socially, conservatively, speaking:
Men are often forgiven for their foibles when it comes to sex, possibly because theyâre perceived as the sex that has less control over their passions. Women are supposed to be âless interestedâ in sex or if they are interested, it should only be with their one, partnered man. A woman who will sleep with another womanâs man knowingly or several partners, is considered to be a very bad thing: A âslutâ.
At the time the scandal broke, Lewinsky gave a 20/20 interview where she apologized to Hillary and Chelsea. Hereâs that clip. She acknowledged her role in the affair, and said it was consensual. I think her statement that she was a willing participant is a part of why people have held such resentment toward her for so long. She didnât lie and say, âThat powerful man simply overtook me.â Instead she said (seriously paraphrasing here), âWe had an illicit affair and both enjoyed it, and I apologize for any pain Iâve caused.â
Sheâs suffering from the same controversy as Sandra Fluke.
Both women (horrors!) enjoyed sex - voluntarily.
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Sure it is. Continuing to give interviews about it, 16 years later, is her choice, her option.
She should never have been shamed in the first place. That was disgraceful, and is completely on the Republicans. But that the story continues to have legs? Yeah, sheâs not completely innocent there.
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Who? Seriously, Iâm drawing a blank here (that I do not intend to fill in by googling) ⌠which probably doesnât help the point youâre trying to make.
ÂŻ|__(Ú)_/ÂŻ
Fluke is the law student that Rush Limbaugh railed against on the radio calling her a âslutâ and a âprostituteâ when she said that insurance should pay for female oral contraceptives. He also said that she was having âtoo much sexâ to pay for the contraceptives herself, thus displaying a complete misunderstanding of how they work, and also any consideration for, oh, all females.
P.S. She was talking about medical uses of the drugs.
P.P.S. He lost massive amounts of advertising backing due to the story.
EDIT: I originally wrote âSheâs a lesbian.â in my P.S. and that was my mistake (itâs often conflated). Fluke is straight, and is a good friend to the LGBTQ community. When she first wanted to speak to Congress it was partially to discuss her college friends (many of whom are lesbians, and only need medical uses of contraceptives), but she is not gay herself. (She was not there to talk about sexual uses of oral contraceptives. Limbaugh forced that issue.) I would never intentionally âoutâ someone or make a false claim on their sexuality, so Iâm happy to fix this!
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Perhaps the English speaking world. In my experience the views on sexes and nudity (or the lack of distinction between these two) are very much the same in countries settled by the British.
Ok, soooo, I remember her now. The reason I said I wouldnât google her is because I didnât want to define her by whatever it was that youâve defined her by.
Limbaugh is an utter shitbag, but you let him define Fluke by their shared interaction. And youâve just rebroadcast that interaction to anyone besides me whoâd forgotten about it.
Actually, no I didnât. Fluke was still in the press in the U.S. as of January this year, when she considered a Congressional run - her story is not ancient history, and neither is she.
What I said was that Lewinsky was seen as a problem because she admitted she liked sex. (Which is a false double standard applied to women.)
Fluke also said she liked sex, and said that she wasnât going to claim that oral contraceptives should only be available for medical reasons, but that sex was a perfectly acceptable reason to make them available (as a lesbian, she herself didnât need them for that purpose).
You might have bothered to look this up first.
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My wife (Monika) came from the US to study in Germany in 1998. It may be a common name in Germany too, but it took a while for her to get over the âMonika from Americaâ stigma.
I remember the background very well, although Iâd broken the mental link between her name and her story. Is that a good thing? I donât know. But if Iâd met her in the street, the first thing flashing through my mind - until an hour ago - would not have been âlesbian slut.â Which is exactly the association I was attempting to avoid. It probably would be now. So ⌠thanks for that. I guess.
To rewind, for those playing along at home.
- I said Lewinsky was milking her fame. So as well as being unjustifiably and wrongly slut-shamed, since then sheâs also partaken in a bit of slut-faming.
- You said, no sheâs just getting picked on for enjoying sex, like Fluke.
- I pointed out that I couldnât remember who Fluke was, as a way of illustrating that - at lest in this little back water - Fluke continued shaming isnât working. And I was happy with that.
- you filled me in on the details, so that continued shaming of Fluke has made it here now too. Good work.
