In a new essay for Vanity Fair reflecting on her relationship with then-President Bill Clinton — and everything that followed from it — Lewinsky wrote these two striking paragraphs:

“Just four years ago, in an essay for this magazine, I wrote the following: “Sure, my boss took advantage of me, but I will always remain firm on this point: it was a consensual relationship. That hardening only worsened that fall when independent counsel Kenneth Starr, initially charged with looking into the Whitewater real estate deal, released his findings about the intimate details of Clinton and Lewinsky’s relationship and outlined the case for Clinton’s impeachment. Now, more than 20 years later, Lewinsky is able to reflect on the “gross abuse of power” in the sexual encounters, as Clinton was her boss and 27 years her senior. She Has Been Diagnosed With Post Stress Disorder

About midway through her essay to Vanity Fair, Lewinsky reveals she was diagnosed with PTSD “several years ago.” She says the ordeal is the result of having been “publicly outed and ostracized back then.” Lewinsky describes her trauma as “long, arduous, painful and expensive.”

Later in the essay, Lewinsky addressed the current #MeToo movement in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein allegations. “It was a consensual relationship, but he was the President of the United States and she was a 24-year-old intern — that is taking advantage of a power dynamic on a historic scale.”

Lewinsky’s essay will be available in the March 2018 issue of Vanity Fair, available on newsstands nationwide on March 6. Any ‘abuse’ came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position.” 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.”

“I’m beginning to entertain the notion that in such a circumstance the idea of consent might well be rendered moot,” she continued. In a powerful new essay for Vanity Fair, Lewinsky (now 44) wrote that she is now beginning to “consider the implications of the power differentials that were so vast between a president and a White House intern.”

“Until recently (thank you, Harvey Weinstein), historians hadn’t really had the perspective to fully process and acknowledge that year of shame and spectacle,” she wrote.
Monica Lewinsky questions whether her relationship with Bill Clinton was consensual, saying the Me Too movement forced her to reconsider it. [https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/26/politics/monica-lewinsky-me-too/index.html (CNN)