Salon | Newsreal: The lady is not a tramp

T A B L E+T A L K
After the killing of Karla Faye Tucker, isn't it time to put capital punishment to death?

R E C E N T L Y
The roots of the Clinton smear
By Gene Lyons
How Gennifer Flowers and other fast buck artists spawned the Clinton smear
(02/05/98)
Men in black (robes)
By Bruce Shapiro
Looking for an anti-Clinton arch-conspirator? Try the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
(02/04/98)
Subpoena me? Subpoena you!
By Jonathan Broder
Trying to turn the tables, the president's attorney gets legal on Kenneth Starr
(02/03/98)
Tonya's trials
By Jane Meredith Adams
How Tonya Harding went from skating champion to video poker addict
(02/02/98)
Application to Have Sex With the President
By Charlie Varon and Jim Rosenau
(01/30/98)
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THE LADY IS NOT A TRAMP | PAGE 2 OF 2
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Lewinsky and I are days apart in age. I attended her college graduation at Lewis and Clark, where a close friend of mine was graduating. Although I haven't met Lewinsky, I'm familiar with the sexual mores of her age group, even of her fellow graduates. Let me clue you in to some shocking news from our generation: Sleeping with an older man, even a married one, is regarded as a triumphant rite of passage. My college friends berated me for passing up the "opportunity" to date a teacher 16 years my senior. For us, handcuffs were merely a milestone on the road to liberated sexuality, along with girl-girl experimentation and anal sex.
When I was 15, my friends and I passed around a well-worn copy of "The Sensuous Woman," lingering over the explicit oral sex instructions. By 20, we were making lube runs together (showing a level of self-awareness our parents never seemed to reach). As for openly discussing sex, even with mere acquaintances? Lewinsky and I came of age in a decade when Liz Phair's explicit lyrics -- "Every time I see your face, I think of things unpure, unchaste/I want to fuck you like a dog, I'll take you home and make you like it" -- were blasting from dorm rooms across the country.
Sure, the White House and the Pentagon are hardly your local college pub, and Lewinsky would have been wise to have paid better attention to protocol and kept her wide lips sealed. But a naive lack of discretion hardly deserves the kind of roasting she's getting. If she's a "tramp," as Fox News so indelicately put it, then find me a 24-year-old woman (or man) who isn't, given the press's puritanical and outdated standards.
More relevant to the scandal at hand is Lewinsky's apparent obsession with the president and her generally flirtatious behavior, which the press has chewed away at with unwavering glee. I'm hardly an expert in the cult of White House interns, but from what I hear from friends in Washington, there's a veritable fuck-fest taking place on Capitol Hill. And I suspect quite a few interns fantasize frequently about getting it on in the Oval Office, with the president or with each other. Lewinsky was hardly the first young woman to get mesmerized by proximity to power, and she won't be the last.
The press also seems to have forgotten the polls a few years ago that showed that a large percentage of American women found President Clinton to be sexy and had fantasized about sleeping with him. Hell, I've even considered it. Seriously, if you're given the chance to have sex, oral or otherwise, with the most powerful man in the world, someone who could obliterate a country with the press of a button, wouldn't that produce some kind of rush? I mean, give the man a good orgasm and cancer-research funding might be increased due to the man's suddenly sunny disposition.
But to entertain such ideas might dampen the shock value of the current "scandal." As long as the press can convince us that Lewinsky is either a victimized Mia Farrow figure who didn't know any better or a brazen hussy who tried to suck her way to the top, they can continue to hype the story. To present a more nuanced picture would be too complex. Handcuffs and "sex addiction" are ratings winners -- Jerry Springer has proven that. So what we have is a bunch of prurient baby boomers punditing away as if their own sexual revolution never occurred. To them I say: Grow up.
SALON | Feb. 6, 1998
What do you think of the way the media have characterized Monica Lewinsky? Discuss it in Table Talk.

T A B L E+T A L K After the killing of Karla Faye Tucker, isn't it time to put capital punishment to death? R E C E N T L Y The roots of the Clinton smear By Gene Lyons How Gennifer Flowers and other fast buck artists spawned the Clinton smear (02/05/98) Men in black (robes) By Bruce Shapiro Looking for an anti-Clinton arch-conspirator? Try the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (02/04/98) Subpoena me? Subpoena you! By Jonathan Broder Trying to turn the tables, the president's attorney gets legal on Kenneth Starr (02/03/98) Tonya's trials By Jane Meredith Adams How Tonya Harding went from skating champion to video poker addict (02/02/98) Application to Have Sex With the President By Charlie Varon and Jim Rosenau (01/30/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
		THE LADY IS NOT A TRAMP \| PAGE 2 OF 2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Lewinsky and I are days apart in age. I attended her college graduation at Lewis and Clark, where a close friend of mine was graduating. Although I haven't met Lewinsky, I'm familiar with the sexual mores of her age group, even of her fellow graduates. Let me clue you in to some shocking news from our generation: Sleeping with an older man, even a married one, is regarded as a triumphant rite of passage. My college friends berated me for passing up the "opportunity" to date a teacher 16 years my senior. For us, handcuffs were merely a milestone on the road to liberated sexuality, along with girl-girl experimentation and anal sex. When I was 15, my friends and I passed around a well-worn copy of "The Sensuous Woman," lingering over the explicit oral sex instructions. By 20, we were making lube runs together (showing a level of self-awareness our parents never seemed to reach). As for openly discussing sex, even with mere acquaintances? Lewinsky and I came of age in a decade when Liz Phair's explicit lyrics -- "Every time I see your face, I think of things unpure, unchaste/I want to fuck you like a dog, I'll take you home and make you like it" -- were blasting from dorm rooms across the country. Sure, the White House and the Pentagon are hardly your local college pub, and Lewinsky would have been wise to have paid better attention to protocol and kept her wide lips sealed. But a naive lack of discretion hardly deserves the kind of roasting she's getting. If she's a "tramp," as Fox News so indelicately put it, then find me a 24-year-old woman (or man) who isn't, given the press's puritanical and outdated standards. More relevant to the scandal at hand is Lewinsky's apparent obsession with the president and her generally flirtatious behavior, which the press has chewed away at with unwavering glee. I'm hardly an expert in the cult of White House interns, but from what I hear from friends in Washington, there's a veritable fuck-fest taking place on Capitol Hill. And I suspect quite a few interns fantasize frequently about getting it on in the Oval Office, with the president or with each other. Lewinsky was hardly the first young woman to get mesmerized by proximity to power, and she won't be the last. The press also seems to have forgotten the polls a few years ago that showed that a large percentage of American women found President Clinton to be sexy and had fantasized about sleeping with him. Hell, I've even considered it. Seriously, if you're given the chance to have sex, oral or otherwise, with the most powerful man in the world, someone who could obliterate a country with the press of a button, wouldn't that produce some kind of rush? I mean, give the man a good orgasm and cancer-research funding might be increased due to the man's suddenly sunny disposition. But to entertain such ideas might dampen the shock value of the current "scandal." As long as the press can convince us that Lewinsky is either a victimized Mia Farrow figure who didn't know any better or a brazen hussy who tried to suck her way to the top, they can continue to hype the story. To present a more nuanced picture would be too complex. Handcuffs and "sex addiction" are ratings winners -- Jerry Springer has proven that. So what we have is a bunch of prurient baby boomers punditing away as if their own sexual revolution never occurred. To them I say: Grow up. SALON \| Feb. 6, 1998 What do you think of the way the media have characterized Monica Lewinsky? Discuss it in Table Talk.