She wrote, “Yes, my boss did take advantage of me. But I will never forget this fact: It was a consensual relation.” “Any abuse occurred in the aftermath when I was made to scapegoat by my boss in order for him to keep his position.”
Reflecting on those words in a 2018 Vanity Fair article, “I see now how problematic it was for us to even get to a point where consent was required. However, instead, there were many instances of inappropriate abuses of power, privilege, and station. (Full stop.)
At 44 years old, I’m starting to think about the impact of the vast power disparities between the White House intern and president. “I’m starting to think that consent may be lost in this situation.
However, she did not discredit her agency. She maintained that, in her decisions-making moments and sexual encounters with Clinton, she desired it to occur. It’s just that the fact that it happened at all was also evidence of the age-old discrepancy between what’s right and what’s so unfortunately common.
Take all that you can. that—the abuse of power, the betrayal, the scapegoating, the gaslighting, the humiliation and psychological abuse, the media hysteria and, yes, the two articles of impeachment filed against President William Jefferson Clinton—and you’ve got an American crime story.