DEVOTEES of Monicagate will know that Bill Clinton鈥檚 complicated
understanding of the word 鈥渋s鈥� can be rivalled only by his legalistic notion of
what counts as sex. But Clinton鈥檚 view of the sexual universe may not be as
freakish as we thought. According to a study published this week in the
prestigious pages of The Journal of the American Medical
Association, some 60 per cent of college students in the Midwest seem to
share his belief that 鈥渙ral sex鈥� is a contradiction in terms (JAMA, vol
281, p 275).
The American Medical Association has taken a dim view of the timing of the
paper. They have sacked the journal鈥檚 media-savvy editor of 17 years, George
Lundberg, for 鈥渋nappropriately and inexcusably interjecting JAMA into a
major political debate that has nothing to do with science or medicine鈥�. Some
might mutter about editorial freedom and protest that Lundberg is guilty of
little more than doing his job with flair. But what else could the AMA high-ups
do? God forbid that when all those sombre senators pronounce Clinton鈥檚 fate the
purity of their reasoning should be sullied by a few statistics in a medical
journal, still less by the idea that sex is a biological and social activity
worthy of academic study. Sex, as we all know, is simply an instrument of party
politics.