Adultery Acquittal

March 1999

The adultery trial of William Jefferson Clinton is mercifully over. Television and newspaper pundits tell us that although Clinton was acquitted, his sexual shenanigans brought shame on the presidency and that his legacy will be forever compromised. Congressional Democrats join in the condemnation chorus: Clinton should be ashamed though not impeached for his cheating. The public is told to be glad that a "sorry chapter" in American history is now finished.

But there is another, more optimistic way to look at this failed attempt to punish a sexual rule-breaker. The Republican party is in the hands of rabid theocrats who believe that any sex other than a husband's penis in his wife's vagina attempting to conceive a child is against God's plan; they see themselves as divine agents in preventing sinful sex and criminal law as their God-given tool. And they understand correctly that any successful challenge to narrow sexual boundaries invites others. If perversions like blow jobs, "oral-anal contact," and cigars-as-dildos no longer brand one as indecent and unfit for office, then Bible-thumpers risk losing one of their most potent instruments of social control. And they are not going to give up that weapon without a fight.

But this time, anti-sex zealots have over-reached. Until recently, their wrath had focused on the sexual sins of more politically marginal groups: teenage mothers, homos, those with HIV, prostitutes, and the dreaded "pedophiles." But by now adding adulterers to the list of those to be stoned, they have alienated most Americans. And since their ideology does not permit any sexual transgressions, Republicans cannot retreat. They will enter the 2000 elections under the banner of the repulsive Ken Starr. They will learn that extramarital oral sex and rimming and sex toys now subjects for living room conversation thanks to their impeachment of Clinton aren't hot buttons for most people. Railing on about "morals" and "family values" will only remind voters of their frighteningly sweeping view of condemnable perversion. And they will lose.

We can hope that Republican defeat next year will allow us to pressure Democrats into being something more than "not Republican." We can also hope that a political drubbing of sexual reactionaries will lead to a rebirth of non-theocratic Republicans who content themselves with their traditional role of pursuing tax breaks for the wealthy.

But the greatest potential gain from the Republicans' failed adultery trial is that our culture will increasingly question the wisdom of having criminal law intrude into citizens' sex lives. Thousands of Ken Starrs inhabit police and district attorneys' offices across the country, investigating and prosecuting sex crimes without victims. Of course, their targets don't have the President's legal resources and aren't able to generate spin to counter contemptibly self-serving and sensationalistic press coverage. Let us hope, though, that for more and more people police entrapment sweeps through cruisy parks or prosecutions of boy scout leaders for orchestrating circle jerks will conjure up images of Ken Starr an uptight busybody bent on punishing the sex he isn't getting.

Sexual prosecutors, special or ordinary, do only harm. If Clinton's ordeal can help people to that realization, he will have ironically and unintentionally done us all a wonderful sexual favor. **

Pasted from <http://guidemag.com/magcontent/invokemagcontent.cfm?ID=E0BE24A7-C7B8-11D3-AD8E0050DA7E046B>