I tried. God knows I tried. I told myself I wouldn't do it anymore. I promised my wife
and family. I even told all my friends I wasn't going to do it. But I just couldn't help
myself.
I read the Starr Report.
Highly appropriate that it first appeared on the Internet, isn't it? I mean, Congress got
all exercised a few months ago regarding indecency on the 'net, and then they go and
publish a set of stories one might expect to find at www.slutpuppy.com. We got oral sex.
We got phone sex. We got stained dresses and cigars inserted in places where cigars don't
usually go. Well, speaking as a highly trained member of the legal profession, with the
big thick books in the library and everything, all I have to say is: Bleccch.
Well, maybe not ALL I have to say. First off, my regular readers (both of you) may
have noticed that I conjectured a couple of weeks ago that Bill and Monica didn't indulge
in regular types of sexual behavior. I was, depressingly, correct. Pardon me if I don't
dance for joy, because the truth is even more twisted than even I imagined, and that is
saying a lot.
From reading the Starr Report, there are a couple of conclusions one can come to,
which are not mutually exclusive:
1. Monica Lewinsky is not telling the truth.
2. Bill Clinton is one sadly twisted individual.
Here's why: Monica describes, according to Starr, ten sexual encounters with the
President. Eight--eight!--of those encounters, according to Miss Presidential Kneepads,
were halted by Clinton before, shall we say, the finish line was reached. The reason he
gave was--get this--"he didn't know her well enough or he didn't trust her." I read this and
went, "Whoa. Hold the phone a minute here."
Okay, help me out here. A man is engaging in pleasurable activity with a woman, or,
more accurately, she with him. She expresses a willingness--nay, an eagerness--to carry
said activity to its natural culmination. (sorry for the pseudo-Victorian language here, but
it's the easiest way to get the point across without getting this column cut to ribbons.
Besides, it's kind of fun). He stops her because he doesn't know her well enough yet?
Please. He's a GUY. Men, does this make sense to you? Ladies, does this fit with what
you know about the male of the species? You cannot possibly expect me to believe that
any man would get halfway down the road to Happytown and then jump out of the truck.
It also doesn't fit the pattern of a guy who was so out of control that he dropped his pants
in a Little Rock Hotel Room and asked for gratification from the pre-makeover and
pre-nosejob Paula Jones. This noble and self-sacrificing "No, I can't But if Monica is telling the truth, the alternative is too depressing to think about. It does
fit a pattern which shows possibly the most disturbing thing about Bill Clinton.
Think back on our history with this guy for a minute. He smoked pot, but he didn't
inhale. He enjoys cigars, but never lights them. He engages in pleasurable sexual activity
but never reaches those mystic transports of ecstasy which are the inevitable goal and
joyful consequence of such activity. (Doggone it, I'm doing it again.) Putting it plainly,
he sins but he doesn't even have fun doing it.
Now that is just sad. It's pathetic. But you know what? It's so American. We're a nation
of guilty hedonists. We love our pleasure, but we love to feel guilty about it, too. How
else do you explain phenomena like bulimia? How do you explain Lite beer? Half the
time, we're chowing down on Double Quarter Pounders with cheese and the other half,
we're on the treadmill, walking to nowhere like white mice on an exercise wheel.
Love him or loathe him, folks, Bill Clinton continues to strike a chord in the American
people. I think he got elected twice because he's our very own funhouse mirror. We look
at him, and we see ourselves writ weird. He's one of us. Horrifying, isn't it?
1998 Jerry D. Rhoades, Jr.