Redress For Monica Lewinsky

It is nice that Monica Lewinsky has been able to rehabilitate her self esteem and is working very hard to do the same for her reputation. It is true that she was the victim of the artifices of a powerful man. What is not true is that the shaming she was subjected to was undeserved. She was naïve and taken advantage of by a predatory powerful man. But she knew he was unavailable to her her, even if accessible at the time. There was no chance of them having a relationship or starting a life together. She was a woman who was old enough to know better and smart enough to have walked away. That she chose not to was an indication of her own moral failing at the time. She chose to conduct a dalliance, and then compounded that error by boasting about it to a friend. A friend who it turns out was disreputable and untrustworthy. 

These errors might have been youthful indiscretions but they do show a certain lack of concern and judgement that was likely a prevalent characteristic of hers at the time. And her actions did threaten to bring a lawfully elected government down. All things considered the intense scrutiny she was subjected to was warranted. She needs to distinguish between unfair intrusion of being the subject of revenge porn and the massive ramifications of being caught up in a presidential impeachment. If she does she might realise that when she chose to keep that dress she set in place a chain of events that was inevitably bound to thrust her into the public eye. She might have known that whatever unravelled in the future was always going to leave her raw and exposed. It isn't quite clear if she cared or thought so much about that at the time.

Monica Lewinsky's stand against cyberbullying is creditable but I am not sure her situation is the best study in bullying to promote it. I don't know whether she is trying to redeem herself or yet again exploit her notoriety. But her story isn't one of an innocent soul used and abused by a savage press complex. It is more a tale of a person who made bad decisions that forever marked and marred her life, and who is trying to make others understand the dangers and pitfalls that lie along the path she took. If that's the story she's telling then I'm all ears.