Greetings USED KARMA readers - and those of you who access this column through John Derrickson's PsyPlan(tm) site (http://www.psyplan.com). Congratulations to publisher Tony Dickey on USED KARMA's return to cyberspace. Welcome back, USED KARMA! And just in time, too. Things are moving so fast in 1998 that it is impossible to predict what the world will look like in a month. Since I write this column one month in advance (on the new moon preceding publication) I am righteously amused by the speed of developing events. Who knows what the media will be hysterical about next month?
Given this month's worldwide media hysteria over the Clinton sex scandal, I simply couldn't resist adding my two cents. After all, I owe it to the world of alternative media to espouse a different viewpoint, right?
Despite the tawdry nature of the whole sordid mess between President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, there are actually some positive things emerging from the debacle. The entire incident is forcing parents to speak frankly to their children about such issues as sex and marital fidelity. Many children around the world have been asking their parents what oral sex is, what adultery is, and why President Clinton does not believe that oral sex constitutes adultery.
This is a good start toward healing the profound societal dysfunctional that results from American repression of sex. Advertisers use sex to sell everything from toothpaste to toilet paper, yet frank discussions of sex are still largely taboo in this country. Recall the horrors of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), and the free speech violations it contained that ultimately led to large portions of it being overturned as flatly unconstitutional. The basic policy behind the CDA, protecting children from pornographic and otherwise inappropriate and/or harmful material on the Internet, was a noble one, but its execution was highly flawed from a civil libertarian viewpoint.
Of course, the real issues involved are not directly addressed by the mainstream media. The first is that parents - not schools, not Congress, not public media - are the ones who should be educating their children about sex. The reason this does not occur in many American homes is because our society is so sexually repressed that most parents are not comfortable with speaking frankly to their children about sex. Sex is something that, in our society, is frequently hidden from children in the home, yet they are bombarded with it on television, in the movies, and in advertising in all forms of printed and electronic media. Children are titillated with sex, yet it is not explained to most of them.
Unfortunately many parents are uncomfortable discussing sexual issues with their children because they are so uncomfortable with sex themselves. Then there is the issue of sexual fidelity in marriage and in relationships. Infidelity is so widespread in our society that many people, teenagers included, when polled about their feelings regarding the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal replied that infidelity is something "everyone" does, so why make a big deal about it?
The "big deal" about sexual fidelity in marriage and committed relationships is an energetic and spiritual issue. Sexual energy is not clearly understood in our culture, and this lack of understanding leads to its misuse. Sex in our culture is used as a power tool, a medium of manipulation and exchange. For example, there are too many men in our culture who believe that if they buy a woman dinner she is obligated to have sex with them afterwards. Sex is viewed as a mere physical experience, with sexual desire based on physical beauty and/or expensive attire.
What gets lost in all this is the fact that the sexual energy is the primary creative and procreative energy. It is the sacred energy that gives rise to great physical and emotional pleasure (when performed properly) and to new life (at least in a heterosexual context). Due to the divine nature of sexual energy, sexual relations ought to take place in the context of mutual love and emotional intimacy. I believe that sex without love, not acquisition of knowledge, is original sin.
When two people become sexually involved, there is a special energetic connection in their auric fields. This is due to the special nature of the sexual energy. When two people who are emotionally committed to each other become sexually involved, they create a special energy connection. If one partner engages in sex with a third party, the sexual energy between them is irreparably damaged. Thus the true reason for fidelity in marriage and emotionally committed relationships is spiritual - the preservation of a divine energy connection.
The media attention given to the Presidential sex scandal is forcing parents all over the country to explain sex and marital fidelity to their children in plain terms. The fact that oral sex is involved means that parents must explain that there are different types of sex. It is important for children to know that sex, while not appropriate for children, is something wonderful and pleasurable for them to enjoy when they are adults, not something dirty and shameful that they must talk about in dark rooms behind closed doors.
The online community of privacy advocates has been having quite a chuckle over another interesting side effect of the Clinton sex scandal. Clinton's presidency has been an absolute nightmare to the civil libertarian community on the subject of privacy. Remember, Clinton is the president who tried to subjugate the American public with the Clipper chip. The Clipper chip, as you may recall, was a device that would allow the law enforcement community to eavesdrop on all - ALL - domestic electronic communications. The initiative failed on technical grounds, but it would surely have failed on constitutional grounds. The Clinton administration keeps trying to reincarnate the Clipper chip idea in new forms, but fortunately these efforts have not yet succeeded.
So here we have a president who wants to deprive every American of privacy in electronic communications, yet he has fiercely guarded his own privacy as no other president in history. Bill Clinton is the first American president to have banned the Secret Service from the residential quarters of the White House. This was always rather ironic in light of his Clipper chip proposals. Yet now that the President's sex life is the nightly subject of jokes by late-night talk show comics (was it Chris Rock who said the Lewinsky incident gives a whole new meaning to "head of state?") perhaps Mr. Clinton has suddenly developed more sympathy for the privacy advocates' point of view.
There are serious implications here regarding the invasion of Monica Lewinsky's privacy. Linda Tripp broke Maryland state criminal law by taping her conversations with Ms. Lewinsky without the latter's consent. Yet Ms. Tripp claims to have done so to not only to defend her own credibility (which had been previously and wrongfully attacked by members of the Clinton administration), but ultimately to help Ms. Lewinsky. Ms. Tripp was not willing to lie under oath, as Ms. Lewinsky was. Ms. Tripp tried to convince Ms. Lewinsky that the truth was her only salvation. Yet Linda Tripp has been vilified by the press almost as much as poor Monica Lewinsky.
The American public is far more willing to forgive possible marital infidelity on Bill Clinton's part than they are to forgive him for lying about it. Having an extramarital affair is not a felony under federal law, but perjury is. After all, it was not the Watergate break-in that brought down the Nixon administration - it was the cover-up. Let's hope that another positive result from this whole mess is that the President will have a change of heart on the importance of protecting privacy rights in America.
Regular readers of this column may recall a column in the summer of 1996 that discussed President Clinton's Chiron return. Chiron is the asteroid of healing. It takes 50 years for Chiron to circle the Sun, so Chiron return occurs around age 50. Chiron return is the third of the three major astrological life transits. The first is Saturn return, which occurs around age 29. The second is Uranus opposition, which occurs around age 40 (and is frequently referred to as "mid-life crisis") and the third is Chiron return around age 50. 1
Basically these transits are designed to wake us up. If we are walking on our right paths and are living our lives according to spiritual principles, these transits are energizing experiences. If we are not living authentic lives, then these transits augur difficult and painful experiences to force spiritual and emotional growth. People can be very famous and successful in life without having learned the lessons of Saturn return and Uranus opposition. However, these people cannot escape the trials of Chiron return.
Clearly Bill Clinton is a person who, despite having acquired fame and success, did not learn the spiritual lessons of his first two major astrological life transits. People in his position who miss Chiron's lessons find themselves losing their most trusted friends and advisors. The only people who remain are the sycophants. When Clinton turned 50, I pointed out that he had lost several of his most trusted friends and advisors - Webster Hubbell, Vincent Foster and David Gergen, to name a few. Clinton's chief sycophant, George Stephanopolous, was still on the scene and has since departed. And Dick Morris, Clinton's former chief spin doctor who left Clinton's employ in disgrace over extramarital adventures with a prostitute (to say nothing of his foot fetish!) was hired back to help spin the Lewinsky story - until he inserted his cherished feet into his own mouth with potentially true but totally inappropriate remarks about the Clinton's sex life. 2
The Monica Lewinsky episode is one more chapter in the story of Bill Clinton's Chiron return. As Gennifer Flowers so artfully expressed it, "That boy didn't learn his lesson."
In closing, I would urge you all to have compassion for Monica Lewinsky in all this. Clearly she is a troubled person who got way in over her head and may be paying for her youthful errors in judgement for the rest of her life. One can only speculate on the karmic lessons she needs in order to have attracted all this. Let's all pray for everyone involved in this miserable situation to grow, heal, and move with their lives in a meaningful and productive way.
Copyright 1998 Marcy J. Gordon. All rights reserved. The author wants you to know you are free to copy and distribute this article for noncommercial purposes, provided you reproduce it in its entirety and credit the author. For quotation permission, please contact the author at mgordon@pipeline.com.
1 For an excellent reference work on this subject, see Barbara Hand Clow's book Liquid Light of Sex: The Key to Understanding Your Key Life Passages.
2 It was Dick Morris who tried to explain the President's infidelity away by suggesting that the First Lady is a lesbian. Rumors of the First Lady's lesbianism have abounded for years and may be true, but that doesn't change Dick Morris' stupidity in saying such a thing publicly about his (now twice former) employer.
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