Sexual Addiction

WHEN you melt away the practiced iconoclasm, the predictable liberalism, and the pure arrogance of President Clinton’s defenders in the culture industry—almost all of which has now weighed in on the scandal—you are left with an irreducible core. When Clinton defenders say it’s “all just about sex,” they are almost right. It is all about sex, but not “just.”

Something remarkable has happened to the cultural Left in the 1990s. Sex is everything. Sexuality has become the linchpin of human identity, replacing race as the chief source of activism and passion in discussions of civil rights, politics, and public morality. In a calculated maneuver, the Left has decided to brand Clinton’s sexual behavior with Monica Lewinsky private—despite all of the evidence that Clinton dragooned the country into the most public illicit affair in modern history and then compounded his misdeed with other crimes. Yes, the affair was metaphysically tacky and bordered on the deviant, but the more unconventional the expression of sexuality, the more comfortable the Left is in defending it.

About the Author

Jonah Goldberg

Jonah Goldberg is a National Review contributing editor.

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WHEN you melt away the practiced iconoclasm, the predictable liberalism, and the pure arrogance of President Clinton’s defenders in the culture industry—almost all of which has now weighed in on the scandal—you are left with an irreducible core. When Clinton defenders say it’s “all just about sex,” they are almost right. It is all about sex, but not “just.”

Something remarkable has happened to the cultural Left in the 1990s. Sex is everything. Sexuality has become the linchpin of human identity, replacing race as the chief source of activism and passion in discussions of civil rights, politics, and public morality. In a calculated maneuver, the Left has decided to brand Clinton’s sexual behavior with Monica Lewinsky private—despite all of the evidence that Clinton dragooned the country into the most public illicit affair in modern history and then compounded his misdeed with other crimes. Yes, the affair was metaphysically tacky and bordered on the deviant, but the more unconventional the expression of sexuality, the more comfortable the Left is in defending it.