While all high schoolers will not remember a time before scandals were revealed on the weekly in the era of a Trump presidency, the 90’s were a less political corrupt time (or at least what we know). Just after America winning the first Gulf War in mere days, the country couldn’t be happier with the government; electing a younger, more handsome president that plays saxophone on MTV caused presidential approval rating to be staggeringly high.
That’s when Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern in her 20’s, came forward saying that the president had an affair with her. This scandal rocked the 90’s harder than Nirvana, leading to the loss in trust in government we see today. But now almost 20 years later, as the #MeToo movement brings awareness to sexual assault, Lewinsky now questions if the affair was consensual in the first place.

“I am in awe of the sheer courage of the women who have stood up and begun to confront entrenched beliefs and institutions. But as for me, my history, and how I fit in personally? I’m sorry to say I don’t have a definitive answer yet on the meaning of all of the events that led to the 1998 investigation; I am unpacking and reprocessing what happened to me,” Lewinsky said recently in an essay in Vanity Fair.

After Lewinsky’s affair with Clinton was made public—which caused the president to be impeached, but not removed, for lying under oath—she emphasized how the interaction was consensual, but didn’t address the dynamic of the consent, saying,  “I now see how problematic it was that the two of us even got to a place where there was a question of consent. Instead, the road that led there was littered with inappropriate abuse of authority, station, and privilege.”