The Monica Factor
It was 11 years ago in midtown Manhattan, I walked into a pizza place around 10 p.m. on a chilly night. My almost-raspberry beret covered my long dyed-black hair and a bulky black pea coat covered everything else. A couple of the guys in the kitchen looked at me and exchanged grins and whispers and uttered the name, “Lewinsky!” Their smiling eyes made me wonder if I was being mistaken for Bill Clinton’s intern/mistress/presidency-defining squeeze.
Thankfully the moment blew by. It was obvious that I was not she, but for a split-second, I got a taste of what it would feel like to be known for the blowjob heard round the world.
“I don’t know whether I’d want to be famous for that or not,” I told a friend.
“You would,” he said.
Actually, I still don’t know. On one hand, the ability to provide such great pleasure that most powerful man in the world thought it was worth the risk is kinda spiffy. On the other, if you Google the phrase “oral sex history” you get a list of alternative searches that includes “Bill Clinton oral sex,” “Monica Lewinsky oral sex,” and “syphilis oral sex.” The only time you want your name listed with the word “syphilis” is if you’re the person who invented the cure for it. (That was Paul Ehrlich, by the way.)
Now that the whole sorry mess is dust in the wind, it’s hard to even remember what a big deal it was. The mainstreaming of going down forced people to consider and possibly even talk about this particular sexual act with members of their family, which a lot of people found more perverse, weird and uncomfortable than anything Bill did to Monica with a cigar.
Ken Starr, independent counsel of the eponymous report has said that he was sorry about the whole event. “Who is not sorrowful for the entire chapter in American history? But the law is the law, and no one is above the law.”
(Yeah. I don’t know where he’s been lately either).
Thankfully the moment blew by. It was obvious that I was not she, but for a split-second, I got a taste of what it would feel like to be known for the blowjob heard round the world.
“I don’t know whether I’d want to be famous for that or not,” I told a friend.
“You would,” he said.
Actually, I still don’t know. On one hand, the ability to provide such great pleasure that most powerful man in the world thought it was worth the risk is kinda spiffy. On the other, if you Google the phrase “oral sex history” you get a list of alternative searches that includes “Bill Clinton oral sex,” “Monica Lewinsky oral sex,” and “syphilis oral sex.” The only time you want your name listed with the word “syphilis” is if you’re the person who invented the cure for it. (That was Paul Ehrlich, by the way.)
Now that the whole sorry mess is dust in the wind, it’s hard to even remember what a big deal it was. The mainstreaming of going down forced people to consider and possibly even talk about this particular sexual act with members of their family, which a lot of people found more perverse, weird and uncomfortable than anything Bill did to Monica with a cigar.
Ken Starr, independent counsel of the eponymous report has said that he was sorry about the whole event. “Who is not sorrowful for the entire chapter in American history? But the law is the law, and no one is above the law.”
(Yeah. I don’t know where he’s been lately either).
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