REVOLUTION'S RESULTS; SCANDAL IS SYMBOL OF SEX FREED FROM LOVE.

Byline: Jane Birnbaum

In the Clinton fiasco, the so-called sexual revolution has reached a predictable outcome, bringing the greatest nation on the planet, the United States of America, to its knees, so to speak, at a time of global economic meltdown when our leadership is desperately required. Instead, we are agog, consumed with the presidential equivalent of a Penthouse letter.

The frequent reference to the Starr report as pornography is apt because the hallmark of the affair between Clinton and Lewinsky is sex without love. That's what porn is - objectified sexuality, divorced from the foundation of a caring, loving relationship that comes from not sexual contact, but the rarest of friendship - the friendship between a man and woman.

The so-called sexual revolution, as conservative columnist Midge Dector tried in vain to warn women so many years ago, was not begun as a favor to them. Oh, yes, it was right that we women should make our own choices, I can't argue against that. But any girl who lacked the guidance of a mature mother, as seems to be the case with Monica Lewinsky, was headed for trouble because, for most women, sex without a relationship - from the contempt of the uncommitted post-coital male to the heartbreak of infertility-causing venereal disease - is the definition of pain.

In Los Angeles, the divorce of sexuality and love was final so long ago that it has settled into the fabric of our culture, from the obvious Hollywood depictions of women as prostitutes to our obsession with style as encouraged by the so-called fashion police. Yes, we had a sexual revolution in the 1970s, and all of us, women and men, lost more than we know.

It was love, agape, friendship, the infinity of character as opposed to the finiteness of thing. We elevated the pornographic, abusive spirit of Don Juan.

To me, Monica Lewinsky is a Los Angeles victim of cultural sexual abuse. As a child, she attended weight-loss camp. As a teen, she appears to have been zaftig, not fat, but probably endured enough humiliation regarding her less than ``perfect'' body that she had to flee Beverly Hills High School for a small private school. After graduation, she was already lost to the sexual revolution, conducting an affair with a married drama teacher (a teacher!), who, with his wife by his side, actually wandered into the television camera lights this year, announcing it was his ``responsibility'' to disclose what he knew. What I know is he had taken sexual advantage of a lost young woman.

And so it wasn't much of a step to Washington for Monica, with her ``presidential kneepads.'' One of the hallmarks of a victim of a sexual abuse is she first throws her body into the fray, never understanding that is the last way she will ever find the love she craves. There is the alpha, Monica lifting her jacket to show the president the strap of her thong underwear, and the omega, Monica rejected and hurt, just one of hundreds and, heaven help her, ``in love.''