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Ultimately, our species despite our intellectual denials, is driven by primal instinctual needs to procreate and the ramifications of this base line concept are overpower. The President of the United States, the most powerful nation in the world, economically, militarily and culturally, a man in his fifties, did willingly use his position to obtain sexual gratification from a woman in her early twenties. She willingly participated in the situation driven by the basic instinctual and biologically established principles of finding a mate who could provide her with protection and give her offspring elevated above all. (Desmond Morris’ Naked Ape deals with the mating practices of humans in an understandable manner, it is worth considering this issue in the light of human species needs.) When he spurned her, she resented deeply the rejection and this drama, in the history of the United States, is the result of her emotional reaction and disappointment.

The outcome of the Lewinsky - Starr - Clinton scandal of the late 1990s is not the main event. Clinton’s continuance as president, his resignation, or impeachment, matters little. It is the process, the recognition that species taboos and established mores are in effect at all levels of society and that our collective awareness of these is being reinforced. The personal conduct of the individuals in Western Society is being put to the test, are we all living lives befitting a television soap opera, or do we expect more of ourselves and our conduct, in terms of sexual conduct and marital fidelity. Adultery is a reality, the promises made in a marriage ceremony are done before others and witnessed by them as a testament to the importance we place on this concept. The bond of a promise in marriage is considered a contract. The President’s wife (right), who supports her husband publicly, does not have the right to dismiss her husband’s promises and though she may forgive him for his indiscretion, this case is hinged upon the marriage promises and they are more important in the mind of the public then the legal utterances of innocence under oath.

All across America families, husbands, wives, children are engaging in a dialogue about the President’s conduct but in reality, because of the personal nature of the circumstances, they must bring the issue home and apply it to themselves. The question of what is acceptable behaviour, responsible sexual conduct, a caring relationship, what is love, the limits of power, position and authority, the propriety of worker employee relationships, all of these and many more are being openly debated. People are talking about things that matter. Some intellectuals have criticised this event for distracting government from the “real” issues those of the economy, world peace, national progress and so on, but the interaction of men and women is far more important, deserving international debate and widespread consideration.