By Jan M. Faust
ABCNEWS.com
Jan. 26 - It's a locker-room debate that's suddenly been
forced into the bright light of scrutiny. Does oral sex count
as sex and could the president's denial of a sexual
relationship with Monica Lewinsky hinge on his opinion
on the matter?
"There was only oral sex. We never had intercourse,"
Monica Lewinsky reportedly said in a secretly taped
conversation with Linda Tripp in which she describes an alleged
affair with President Clinton.
Further, according to sources who have heard the
still-unsubstantiated tapes, she reportedly says that the president
has said that oral sex does not constitute infidelity.
Is It Legalese?
Those watching the story unfold have questioned whether
Clinton, a lawyer, is using narrow wording to deny broad
allegations. "The relationship was not improper," Clinton stated
in an interview with Roll Coll in his third interview on Jan. 21.
His response to the follow-up question: "The relationship was
not sexual."
It hearkens back to
another vague yet pointed
denial, offered in 1992. "The
allegation is false," candidate
Clinton told CBS' 60
Minutes, when asked about
reports of an affair with
Gennifer Flowers.
Yet last week, reports
surfaced that the President
testified under oath at a
deposition for the Paula
Jones lawsuit that he did have
an affair with Gennifer
Flowers. The president has
never said this publicly.
Suddenly semantics are
on everybody's lips. What is
sex? What is adultery? And might different people perceive
them differently?
The Experts Speak
It's not the first time the notion that oral sex should be viewed
separate from sex has been linked to President Clinton. In sworn
affidavits produced for a 1993 Los Angeles Times article, two
Arkansas state troopers related that then-governor Clinton had
told them that the Bible held that oral sex with a woman other
than your wife was not adultery.
But dodging the question of infidelity by claiming that only
oral sex occurred wouldn't hold up in
most courtrooms, legal experts agreed.
Marna Tucker, a divorce lawyer in
Washington D.C., sometimes referred to
as the "grand dame of divorce,"
dismissed the notion of one not being a
subset of the other in an interview with
ABCNEWS.com.
She said that she has never used that
difference in a divorce case.
Legally, intercourse outside a
marriage is considered adultery, and
classic law has defined intercourse as
penetration. But, Raoul Felder, a New
York City divorce lawyer, told ABCNEWS.com that "case law
has developed that says oral sex is adultery too."
Splitting Hairs
This question was broached before in 1995 when a married
volunteer working on Newt Gingrich's failed 1976
Congressional campaign claimed that they had had an affair.
"We had oral sex," Anne Manning told Vanity Fair
magazine in a 1995 article. "He prefers that modus operandi
because then he can say, `I never slept with her,'" Manning
added. Gingrich denied the relationship, and called the
allegations "hateful."
That scandal slipped from the public's radar not long after.
And in 1994, Virginia Democrat Senator Charles Robb used
a similar defense against allegations of infidelity when he
admitted to receiving a "nude massage" from a woman, Tai
Collins.
"I haven't done anything that I regard as unfaithful to my
wife, and she is the only woman I've loved, or slept with, or had
coital relations with in the 20 years we've been married."
When pressed about whether he had other kinds of relations
outside his marriage, Robb only commented that he had chosen
the words of his statement deliberately and carefully.
Aside from providing occasional grist for his political
opponent's mills, that gossip faded away too.
The Gender Divide
Some looking at the way language is being used have commented
that the distinction, if there is one, breaks down gender lines,
with men regarding oral sex more cavalierly than women.
"In terms of infidelity, many, not all men, would believe that
if they didn't have intercourse they didn't cheat on their wives,"
offered Bob Berkowitz, author of His Secret Life: Male Sexual
Fantasies, in an ABCNEWS.com interview.
"But I think this is a mistake; oral sex is sex, fondling is sex,
passionate kissing is sex," Berkowitz continues, "to a man's wife,
anyway, that's sex."
Felder also reinforces the gender distinction. "Over the
years, I've learned that many men do not consider oral sex
adultery; I've had a number of them over 40 years who felt that
way."
Shirley Glass, Ph.D., a marital counselor and author of the
forthcoming book, Treating the Trauma of Infidelity cautions
that all generalizations are dangerous, but concedes there is a
pattern. "Men, much more than women, have the capacity to
compartmentalize their sexuality," Glass said. They can, she
continues, see intimate relationships "almost as something
separate from their primary relationship, something on the
order of skiing or racquetball."
America meanwhile holds its breath, waiting for the
president to admit or deny the affair in plain, indisputable
language. |
