# Monica Lewinsky...The Price Of Shame **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 24, 2017, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monica-lewinsky-the-price-of-shame/791991 "2017-07-24T00:56:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2017, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monica-lewinsky-the-price-of-shame/791991/41 "2017-07-25T23:22:49Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > As far as I know, she never made any vows this would be in violation of. I don’t know if that qualifies a person as a bimbo or not (it’s not a word that I define at all, it not being a word I tend to use), but I would not despise someone for not respecting other folk’s silly-ass vows and promises. Not her responsibility. I might have some caustic things to say about her judgment… > Structurally and situationally, Lewinsky was in a situation where she was at risk of sexual exploitation, which is _why_ we don’t approve of supervisors getting it on with the people they supervise. No (to answer what may be your question) I do not think it likely that she was coerced or pressured, but that’s not really the point. **She may have even come gunnin’ for him. But unless we have reason to think she fully comprehended everything she was getting herself into (and I doubt that), it remains his responsibility to remain sexually uninvolved. As for her, willing-and-perhaps-enthusiastic participant or not, I do consider her a victim.** Agreed. (Bolding mine) ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monica-lewinsky-the-price-of-shame/791991/42 "2017-07-26T18:10:07Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > You can’t imagine why being the other woman in perhaps the country’s most notorious sex scandal ever might limit certain professional opportunities? Really? Well we’ve gone from “severely curtailed” to “might limit certain professional opportunities” so we’re making progress. But no I really can’t imagine that. Are there that many people who would be gunning for her 10 or 20 years after the fact because she had a high profile affair? She’d be working among other educated professionals on one of the coasts in a presumable blue liberal state. I don’t see her being blackballed. I’m a professional. If you’re part of the solution, you can be on the team. There is much more of that in America than there is let’s screw her for something completely unrelated to me. > [@Acsenray](#): > > And perhaps she tries opportunities like having a fashion line because it’s a way to make money. How is that having your cake? Presumably the people who call her a bimbo aren’t among her best customers. That’s 1,000% fine. If you want to profit from your notoriety, go ahead. The having your cake part comes in when you bitch because of the issues your notoriety causes, you but you refuse to get off the stage for any length of time for your notoriety to ebb. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monica-lewinsky-the-price-of-shame/791991/43 "2017-07-26T22:18:43Z")
Ascenray wrote: "Whether or not she was a victim of Bill Clinton is a completely different question of how she was later treated by the press, the public, and individuals who were completely outside her relationship with Clinton. " The degree to which she was victimized (IE: _made_ a victim) is the degree to which that was accomplished by Congressional Republicans and Ken Starr who did everything but make her reblow Clinton in front of a congressional committe. ---
**Author:** ![Poysyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Poysyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poysyn)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monica-lewinsky-the-price-of-shame/791991/44 "2017-07-26T23:03:56Z")
God forbid I was limited by my bad choices in my late teens/early 20s. Yes, she made mistakes. She was young, and she was an idiot. She has tried to pursue other employment, using her degree and work experience, but is pretty clear that she is not able to get a job offer. Using her experience as a pariah to maybe offer some encouragement to someone else going through an experience of isolation and scandal is an excellent fit. Like it or not, she survived (and continues to survive) a level of judgement and scrutiny I don’t think many of of would get through. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monica-lewinsky-the-price-of-shame/791991/45 "2017-07-26T23:26:10Z")
I had no idea so many people hated Monica Lewinsky. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2017, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monica-lewinsky-the-price-of-shame/791991/46 "2017-07-27T00:30:27Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > As they should be. She was victimized in the scandal, but not by the shaming, she has to deal with the consequences of her actions. If someone were pursuing her after it was all over it would be a different story, but she’s the one keeping it from being over. She’s not some kind of hero, **nobody secretly recorded her,** this story is only known because she couldn’t keep her mouth shut after she had it open in the oval office. If she’s using the name she’s known by professionally that’s just stupid, nobody is obligated to forget about her, and they certainly won’t if she keeps herself in the public eye. Them’s the breaks, life ain’t fair, and if you mess around with public figures you should expect that you might have to deal with that for the rest of your life. … Yes, somebody did secretly record her. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2017, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monica-lewinsky-the-price-of-shame/791991/47 "2017-07-27T02:41:24Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > It brought down Clinton. Unless you mean “brought down” in the sense of “really bummed out,” no, it didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2017, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monica-lewinsky-the-price-of-shame/791991/48 "2017-07-27T14:02:53Z")
Do people hate Bill Clinton as much as Monica Lewinsky? I hope? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2017, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monica-lewinsky-the-price-of-shame/791991/49 "2017-07-27T14:56:04Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > Do people hate Bill Clinton as much as Monica Lewinsky? I hope? I don’t _hate_ either one of them, but I’ve been pissed off at him over this pretty much in perpetuity. It was a time when expanded social awareness and legal protections for sexual harassment in the workplace was a potential and could have done a lot of good. No way was Clinton, or the Democratic Party nationally, going to raise that issue for a while after this shit hit the fan. Thanks, Bill. I’ve already expressed my general attitude towards Lewinsky as a victim, up above, but a corollary of that is that this liaison didn’t boost my opinion of our President’s tastes in such matters. (Now _that’s_ a subject for which the baseline has gone places I never would have dreamed possible… but I digresss…). I recall thinking I’d be much happier if he’d been caught having a romp with Benazir Bhutto, even given the implications of compromised national-political loyalties. Ultimately, I suppose that shows an elitist streak within me. I didn’t exactly conceptualize her as trailer trash but it nevertheless didn’t seem like he was comporting himself with equals. They were both victims of the “Peephole Magazine” phenomenon. I wish I could recall who it was who said that a “profile” used to be an assessment sketch of a person, by analogy to an image taken so as to show the nose from the side; but that nowadays a profile’s angle is better understood by analogy to a photo taken from below, showing the nose from immediately below the nostrils. We’ve become a culture that dearly loves to sniff the dirtiest of the dirty laundry of anyone who has become a known figure. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2017, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monica-lewinsky-the-price-of-shame/791991/50 "2017-07-27T15:24:20Z")
Spice Weasel: > [@](#): > > Do people hate Bill Clinton as much as Monica Lewinsky? I hope? People hated Bill Clinton before Monica Lewinsky was ever publicly known to exist. I think it’s safe to say that if people didn’t hate Bill Clinton, George W. Bush never would have become president (or at least not in 2000, but as political parties tend to not re-nominate their losers, probably never). ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2017, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monica-lewinsky-the-price-of-shame/791991/51 "2017-07-27T15:38:03Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > I don’t _hate_ either one of them, but I’ve been pissed off at him over this pretty much in perpetuity. It was a time when expanded social awareness and legal protections for sexual harassment in the workplace was a potential and could have done a lot of good. No way was Clinton, or the Democratic Party nationally, going to raise that issue for a while after this shit hit the fan. Thanks, Bill. I find him rather disgusting myself, but that’s more based on allegations of sexual assault and lying under oath combined with some terrible policy decisions. I don’t really feel anything toward Monica Lewinsky, though, other than a general agreement that public shaming is out of control. The level of vitriol against her genuinely surprises me, especially from people that I doubt have that much vitriol toward Clinton. It almost seems as if some people blame Monica for what happened, instead of Bill. I’m not at all bothered by her being in the public spotlight. She was dragged into it rather abruptly, in a situation that was out of her control, so if she’s found a way to manipulate it for her own gain I can’t say I fault her for that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monica-lewinsky-the-price-of-shame/791991.md?page=2)