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 THE LURID COVERAGE OF MONICA LEWINSKY'S SEX LIFE TELLS US MORE ABOUT AGING GEEZERS IN THE PRESS CORPS THAN IT DOES ABOUT A YOUNG WHITE HOUSE INTERN. BY JENN SHREVE | Which of the following do you think better describes Monica Lewinsky: An average girl who was taken advantage of, or a young tramp who went looking for adventure and thrills? While you're contemplating an answer, note the answers of 702 registered voters who responded to this Fox News opinion poll last week: Fifty-four percent said the lady is a tramp, 21 percent rated her average and the remaining 25 percent simply couldn't say. Perhaps, like me, you're stuck on the question: When did the word "tramp" come back in vogue? And since when is the search for adventure and thrills anything other than average? Even the spokeswoman from Fox News, who provided me with the precise wording of the poll question, was tripped up by it. In fact, she expressed shock that they'd asked such a thing. "That doesn't seem right," she said, barely audibly, over the phone. Perhaps it's no surprise that a media outlet owned by Rupert Murdoch, he of tits-on-Page-3 fame, would come up with such a poll. But it also reflects the quaintly prurient coverage of the Lewinsky affair provided by the more "respectable" press corps, too. Thirty years after free love counterculturalists and bra-burning feminists supposedly liberated female sexuality from such archaic constraints, America's aging, mostly male media hacks continue to fall back on the tired old virgin-or-whore model to explain it all. Instead of settling down to the serious questions of Lewinsky's sworn testimony and what influence the president might have had over it, reporters tut-tut about her tight blouses, come-hither looks and the apparent enthusiasm with which she discussed her sex life with friends and acquaintances. Once the thrill of saying "blow job" and "oral sex" in "serious" news reports wore off (thank you, Ted Koppel), the media lingered in earnest over the public confession of Andy Bleiler, the drama teacher who felt impelled to tell the world of his five-year affair with Lewinsky, coldly dismissing her as a "sex addict." Also deemed newsworthy was ex-boyfriend Adam Dave's confession that Lewinsky was known to favor handcuffs. Big whoop. Amidst fevered talk of who Lewinsky bedded and how, only her lawyer, William Ginsburg, has suggested that Lewinsky's sexual past is normal. I'd say, compared to most of my female friends her age, it's rather bland. Among my contemporaries, it isn't all that shocking to sleep with three different partners in a weekend, not all of the opposite sex. And for parents outraged at a 50-year-old man "taking advantage" of a girl not much older than his own daughter, then I'd say you don't know very much about your own daughters. N E X T+P A G E+| Handcuffs? Child's play