If you care either about Politics or about ex-president Clinton's sex life, you'll want to read the Starr Report.  It's a blow-by-blow account of the activities in the Oval Office from late 1995 through 1997.  One very interesting part of the report is in the Narrative, Chapter I, Section C. Sexual Contacts in which the president seems to interpret the definition of "sexual relations" to mean that receiving oral sex does not constitute "sexual relations".  Here's the definition:

A person engages in "sexual relations" when the person knowingly engages in or causes . . .  contact with the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks of any person with an intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person . . . "Contact" means intentional touching, either directly or through clothing.

By that definition, receiving oral sex involves the touching of a person's lips, and lips aren't on the list in the definition!  Key to this interpretation is the first instance of "any person" in this definition -- to the president, it means "any other person".  By interpreting these definitions with such semantic precision, the president has been criticized for splitting hairs.  The president counters that criticism by saying he considered the definition "rather strange," and at one point he spoke of "people being drawn into a lawsuit and being given definitions, and then a great effort to trick them in some way."  Another time, the president complained, "I feel like a character in a novel. I feel like somebody who is surrounded by an oppressive force that is creating a lie about me and I can't get the truth out.  I feel like the character in the novel Darkness at Noon."   Poor pitiful me.

The president's hair-splitting must have really set Starr off, because he uses it as the reason (Clinton says excuse) for all the graphic detail he included in the report -- details such as a reference to the email Ms. Lewinsky brought the president about how Altoid mints can be used in oral sex.  A quick search of the Internet turned up this phony email, which must have been similar to if not the one in question.

My Life, by Bill Clinton, published in 2004

The Lewinsky - Clinton Book Club

Here are some of the books Lewinsky gave Clinton:

1. Leaves of Grass.
2. Oy Vey! The Things They Say: A Guide to Jewish Wit
3. Vox, a novel featuring phone sex,
4. The Presidents of the United States
5. The Notebook

Plus one book that reminds Clinton of the oppressive forces trying to trick him with strange definitions of sex:

1. Darkness at Noon

Amazon.com, bless their hearts, have emailed me to make sure I'm aware of the following Starr-related hot-sellers:

1. Video of The Grand Jury Testimony of William Jefferson Clinton: August 17, 1998
2. The Starr Report: The Findings of Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr on President Clinton and the Lewinsky Affair
3. The Starr Report: The Official Report of the Independent Counsel's Investigation of the President
4. The Starr Report: The Independent Counsel's Complete Report to Congress on the Investigation of President Clinton

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