Partisan Sex

Sex, politics, and the law characterized the Clinton era, which began with the emergence of Bill Clinton as a presidential candidate with a train of sex scandals and ended with the attacks of September 11, 2001. The Monica Lewinsky affair was the climax of the phenomenon, and the resulting scandal had far-reaching effects. Politics became the language and the means for battles over sex. Sex and politics became metaphors for each other as American society struggled to come to terms with its sexual and political anxieties. Partisan Sex: Bodies, Politics, and the Law in the Clinton Era explores the high-cultural anxieties of the left and the masculinity hang-ups of the right, the exploitation of romance imagery and hot sauce bottles, the obsessions with Hillary Clinton’s breakfasts, and the rise of a society of voyeurs.