Nah Uh. Nope. No. Net. Nahīṁ. Mba.
Monica Lewinsky who has been silent since the scandal 16 years ago (except her recent feature in Vanity Fair, which of course, I also blogged about). She was at the 30 Under 30 Summit held at Forbes in Philadelphia two days ago giving her first speech, and of all things to talk about, she chose cyber-bullying because according to her, she was Patient Zero, the first victim of cyber-bullying. Let’s talk about some of her talking points.
1. “Sixteen years ago, fresh out of college, a 22-year-old intern in the White House — and more than averagely romantic – I fell in love with my boss in a 22-year-old sort of a way. It happens. But my boss was the President of the United States. That probably happens less often.” – I don’t know what it means to fall in love with your [married] boss in a 22 year old sort of a way. Is this different from when a thirty year old or a forty year old or a fifty year old falls in love with her married boss? Because I’m thinking that in all cases, she’s still the morally bankrupt side chic.
2. “But back then, in 1995, we started an affair that lasted, on and off, for two years. And, at that time, it was my everything. That, I guess you could say, was the golden bubble part for me; the nice part. The nasty part was that it became public. Public with a vengeance.” No, Monica, the nasty part was that he was someone else’s husband. Would the golden bubble have continued if it didn’t become public?
3. “Overnight, I went from being a completely private figure to a publicly humiliated one. I was Patient Zero.” – Stretch the word as you see fit, but there is absolutely nothing private about secretly sleeping with the President of the Free World.
4. “Let me tell you about being publicly separated from your truth. And I mean publicly in the broadest sense, because we all have our publics.” – The truth, Monica, is that you slept with a married man. You don’t get to sleep with a married man and then turn around to try and convince us that that part of your life actually isn’t your truth. We don’t care about YOUR truth. We only care about THE truth.
5. But these are all just words. What does it actually feel like? What does it really feel like to watch yourself – or your name and likeness—to be ripped apart online? Some of you may know this yourself. It feels like a punch in the gut. As if a stranger walked up to you on the street and punched you hard and sharp in the gut.” – Yes, let’s all gather around and think about what it felt like for you. Who cares about the wife who was cheated on? Or the child who had to watch television everyday and hear how badly her father hurt her mother. But please, tell us again how you felt.
6. “We are all vulnerable to humiliation, private and public figures alike. (I’m sure Jennifer Lawrence would agree with that. Or any of the 90,000 people whose private Snapchat pictures were released last week during “the Snappening”)” – So you’re comparing yourself to people who were minding their business when hackers came and exposed their personal information?
7. But there are those who say, Monica, why don’t you just shut up? Why don’t you just go away? They said it in June, after a piece I wrote in Vanity Fair, my first public words in over ten years. And they will say it today after this one, my first major public talk, ever, and they will say it tomorrow and the day after that. “They” never shut up.” – No, Monica, it’s not THEY that never shut up. It’s YOU.
If I sound like I’m judging her, it’s because I am. She keeps saying she was 22 as if 22 years olds have no thinking faculties. She was an adult, and she made the conscious decision to sleep with the married President of the United States. This is the problem today: we are eagerly ready to accept anyone and everything, all in the name of not hating, and being human, and being American, but there is right and there is wrong, and what Monica did was damn wrong.
While she was sucking him (and saving her sperm-stained dress), was she thinking about the internet or the people on it? No, she was not. She liked the sex and she swallowed all she could, but God forbid we dare to talk about how messed up her actions were? Did she think about Hilary? Did she think about how destroyed she would be when she finds out? Okay, then.
Just to be clear, the person with the biggest blame in all of this is Bill Clinton. I don’t even care to know what was happening or not happening in his marriage. I don’t care if Hillary wasn’t giving it to him good or if she refused to go down on him, he was still married. He had no business having an affair with anyone. I cannot imagine the backlash and disgust if he were to decide to show up now to tell his story?
Monica wants us to forget the reason why we even know her in the first place. The different between her and Bill Clinton is that even before the affair, we knew him as our President. At the most, we knew Monina as a White House intern — we started knowing her as the girl who sucked the President. But she wants us to forget that and focus instead on her being a victim of cyber-bullying. While I am all for the stop-cyber-bullying cause, Monica, in my opinion is doing the cause a huge disservice. We can’t focus on cyber-bullying when Monica Lewinsky is speaking.
If she wants to start/support a cause, she should consider a 12 step program (or a support group) for Side Chics Anonymous. I know I ranted. I just get so irritated by things like this.
Read the entire transcript on Forbes.
Lol Vera….I am still trying to get the sexual innuendo out of my head. Urgh! In any event, what I find very interesting is that she want people to pity her but she keeps, not only talking about it, but making money off of all the speaking engagements, magazines, etc. If you want to move on from it, you wouldn’t make it a career. So no, no pity for you. Admit your fault, move on and get a job doing something else then you might be forgotten.
Adabeke, that’s what I’m saying oh. She keeps talking about it and then telling us to move on. She’s speaking from both sides of her mouth. *hiss*
Yes, she had an affair with a married man, yes, the man happened to be the president, and yes, she made the conscious decision to sleep with him. Yes, she made a mistake. That does not make it ok for her to be cyber bullied.
I’m not justifying her actions, but in affairs of this type of nature, the more powerful party controls the affair. (Re: Ese Walters saga). We all seem to give Bill Clinton a pass, “yes he was totally wrong, blah blah” and that’s it. Nobody is stalking him online and bullying him- because they can’t. At best, he walks away with a slap on his hand.
What’s even more hypocritical is that every Thursday we watch Olivia Pope’s character with gusto when she’s doing the same thing -if not worse.
All comes down to this: the fact that Monica Lewinsky is an imperfect victim doesn’t make her advocacy less meaningful. You sound like only saints should advocate against cyber bullying.
i beg to disagree.
1st, monica lewisky did not make a mistake. she knew exactly what she was doing. why do we women do this? totally wanna absolve ourselves from all blame. she claims she was in love with him, does that sound like someone who made a mistake to you?
2nd, victim? victim of what excatly? adultery? she exposed the relationship, granted interviews and almost broke up a home. what was her grand plan? she was the schemer. maybe she felt exposing the affair woild break up the marriage and have Bill marry her?
if tomorrow Olivia Pope comes out and say she was a victim when we can all see that she is a very willing participant, then your anology will hold. until then, no correlation. people have affairs. its norm. coming up years later to claim victim and innocence is immature and attention seeking. young women frolicking with married men, catch feelings and start forming true confessions later on. abeg joor. Ese Walters tried that route and realised it wasnt gonna work for her and so she rested. married her husband and i assume living happily. lets own up to our mistakes. as for the man not getting a flake, as my people will say ‘no be today’…. hes a man. sadly, its still a man’s world.
ps- Myne, you say you salute Monica? for what exactly?
pps- read this post since aftrenoon, didnt have time to comment properly and i wanted to give it my best shot. 😀
ppps- sorry for my extra long comment
Deevagirl,
Thank you for your long comment. Love it!!!!!!!!!! And I completely agree with you. Like you rightly said, we (women) do shit like this and try to absorb ourselves and say that we were taken advantage of. What 22 year old does not know that sleeping with the married President is wrong? And when she was presenting the dress with the President’s sperm, what was the plan? Monica saying she was a victim is as ridiculous as Bill Clinton coming out today to claim that he was seduced.
Bumight, when you get married and someone sleeps with your husband (or your husband sleeps with someone), then you should defend her online.
I do not support that anyone should be cyber bullied but I don’t believe that Monica was cyber bullied. What happened was that people went online and made their opinion known on the dirty thing that Monica and the President did. What did you expect people to say??? Were they going to go online and pat her on the back?
Per Scandal, it’s television. It’s not hypocrisy to root for Olivia because Olivia is a character that we were/are made to love. It’s like when you watch a movie or read a book and you root for the good bad guy. Like when you root for a vampire or a witch or a hired assassin.
what Monica did is wrong but what Bill did is worst cause he was the married one,but what we didn’t see is Bill and his wife talking about it,was it because they were not buloied? No! But they just took the low profile method,someone should please counsel Monica to stop talking about it and making money from it if she want us to stop talking about it!
Peejay,
I’m with you, too. And I mentioned in my previous post that Bill takes most of the blame because he was married. Monica wasn’t married.
Oh please!!! Monica needs to SHUT UP. SHe is so stupid, to even have the effontery to keep speaking up on stuff like this. So what if she was bullied? I think the biggest problem in this world is that we like to absolve ourselves of responsibilities. Just look at how she casually mentioned that she was just a 22 year old in love with her MARRIED boss? Like is this woman crazy?? You slept with a married man, his wife still gets humiliated till date because of it but no, we should throw all our pity on you.
And of course, this is America, where everyone wants to be politically correct, and so shy away from the truth. I wonder how Chelsea takes all of this. Because if there is a victim, it is Chelsea. To have the world see how much your father hurt your mother and to be on a ‘stage’ while the world watches your family almost get destroyed. I would be so hateful if a woman tried to break my family, not to talk of if she did so while the world was watching. I mean, look at Monica insinuating that, if they weren’t caught, she would have continued. WHat?????! This woman was morally bankrupt sixteen years ago, she still is. No ma’am, Monica got what she sowed. I don’t care that the President isn’t given as much blame as necessary. I am slightly happy that Monica got as humiliated as she did. Yes. I am evil. If possible, I hope she continues to get just as humiliated. And she dared compared herself to people who have been genuinely cyber bullied. I am pissed.
And same for Ese Walters. That pastor was useless, we all know that. But Ese told that story completely absolving herself of all the responsibilities and blame and laid ALL the blame on the man when they both had consensual sex. For real though, what in the world is wrong with women. You know a man has a family and you spread your legs, then turn around and blame everyone but yourself for your irresponsibility. These side chicks have no sense. I would dive into Bill Clinton’s irresponsibility too but I may have over done myself and comment limit on Vera’s blog.
Again, dear Monica, shut the heck up and get a life. Oh crap, you already have one; making money off being ‘cyber bullied’. Mshewww.
Ife, I love you. You have spoken my mind. Bill’s wife and daughter are probably still battling the demons of what Bill Clinton did, but let’s focus on how poor Monica feels. She’s ridiculous!
Lmao! Vera just had to emphasize the suckig and swallowing.
Tunde, yes, I had to oh. Cause while she was doing that, she didn’t think of the repercussions. Two years of sucking the President’s dick — and now you want to claim being young? Bullshit.
Bumight has said most of what I wanted to say as I read. Vera, abeg chill for Monica. Some say she should get a job, who will employ her? Cyber bullying is wrong and nothing justifies it. I salute her for her courage in keeping her head up. I saw SVU last night and the choice of the character made me cold. If Monica had decided to become a high class escort, she some people will now be happy to be justified in calling her slut? Let those without sin continue casting stones.
Myne, I can never, ever chill for Monica. As long as she keeps spitting nonsense from her mouth, there’s nothing to chill about. This is so disrespectful to Hillary and Chelsea. I’m not saying she owes them anything, but if she chooses to come out and talk about this situation again, then she has to be ready to face the music.
Please, be adults. Have you any idea how many couples cheat each other or how many relationships break, because of adultery. It’s just something that happens. Period.
Bill Clinton was and probably still is a womanizer, he have had several affairs before Monica, even though we don’t know the names. We don’t have to, because we know the type. A man with his age and experience, who cheats with an 22-year-old intern doesn’t do it for the first time. Cheating is not acceptable in American society, but can you Vera imagine that there are couples who actually can tolerate it in their own life? Have you ever thought that probably Hillary and Bill weren’t facing this problem for the first time. She knew who he was and had decided to stay with him. Maybe she had affairs of her own. She could have had. It’s quite common, that couples stay together for other reason.
What comes to Monica, she was too young, too naiive, and she fell in love. And what she got was hell amount of shit for years and years. For doing basicly the same thing that many people do. They fall in love with a wrong person, a taken one. That’s common. That’s ordinary. That’s not a reason for bullying a poor girl for years.
Ida, I really think that this “bullying” word is being highly overused and misused. I keep asking, how exactly are people supposed to react? Just because many girls fall in love with a taken man does not ever, ever make it right. And Monica didn’t fall in love with John from the block (in which case, no one would have cared – except his family), but she fell in love with the freaking President of the United States. Consider all the Americans as their family and they just found out that their father screwed up big time with this woman. What is the reaction that you expect?
“That’s common. That’s ordinary.” Ida its common but its not right
“What comes to Monica, she was too young, too naiive, and she fell in love.” Ida she was 22 years old that’s not young.
Sharon, I agree with you. It may be common, but there is nothing right about it. Lol. When I was 22 (and even younger), I did not sleep with any married man, and it wasn’t for lack of opportunity.