Adapted from an article by The Washington Post’s Lindsey Bever.
Lewinsky writes about how she had come to view her affair with Clinton as “a consensual relationship” — and how all the women (and men) now speaking out about sexual misconduct have given her a “new lens” through which to see her own story.
She talks about how now, it’s easier for the public to see that her relationship with Clinton was a “gross abuse of power.” She was in her early 20s and a White House intern. He was more than twice her age, serving as the 42nd president of the United States.
“Given my PTSD and my understanding of trauma, it’s very likely that my thinking would not necessarily be changing at this time had it not been for the #MeToo movement — not only because of the new lens it has provided but also because of how it has offered new avenues toward the safety that comes from solidarity,” she writes.
Four years ago in another Vanity Fair essay, Lewinsky had said any “abuse” she endured from her relationship with the president “came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position.”
Thanks to the #MeToo movement, her views have evolved.
“I now see how problematic it was that the two of us even got to a place where there was a question of consent,” Lewinsky says in her new essay. “Instead, the road that led there was littered with inappropriate abuse of authority, station, and privilege. (Full stop.)
“Now, at 44, I’m beginning (just beginning) to consider the implications of the power differentials that were so vast between a president and a White House intern.”
Layers to consent
Lewinsky notes that “the dictionary definition of ‘consent’ ” is “to give permission for something to happen.”
“Yet what did the ‘something’ mean in this instance, given the power dynamics, his position, and my age?” she writes in Vanity Fair. Although she wanted the sexual and emotional intimacy at the time, Lewinsky says, she had a “22-year-old’s limited understanding of the consequences.”
Meanwhile, Clinton was her boss, and the “most powerful man on the planet.” When their relationship became public in early 1998, her life was turned upside down, and she has felt isolated every since, Lewinsky says.
“Yes, I had received many letters of support in 1998. And, yes (thank God!), I had my family and friends to support me. But by and large I had been alone. So. Very. Alone. Publicly Alone — abandoned most of all by the key figure in the crisis, who actually knew me well and intimately. That I had made mistakes, on that we can all agree. But swimming in that sea of Aloneness was terrifying,” she says.
“Isolation is such a powerful tool to the subjugator,” Lewinsky writes. “And yet I don’t believe I would have felt so isolated had it all happened today.”
While Lewinsky accepts responsibility for her actions and meets “regret every day,” she is still reevaluating the situation and what happened to her. For that, she has those who have spoken out to thank, Lewinsky wrote:
“They are speaking volumes against the pernicious conspiracies of silence that have long protected powerful men when it comes to sexual assault, sexual harassment, and abuse of power.”
