The Clinton Legacy?

Bill Clinton has spent the past few years looking for his legacy. I think we may have found it:

CHICAGO (Reuters) - One in five U.S. teenagers say they have engaged in oral sex, an activity that some adolescents view as not sex at all and certainly less risky than intercourse, a report released Monday said.

The survey of 580 children with a mean age of 14-1/2 found 20 percent said they had engaged in oral sex, compared to 14 percent who said they had engaged in sexual intercourse.

In addition, one-third of the multi-ethnic 9th graders surveyed said they intended to have oral sex within the next six months and nearly one-fourth planned to have intercourse during the period. It was more common for boys to have performed oral sex on girls than vice versa, the report said.

Previous studies and numerous campaigns aimed at deterring teenaged sex have focused on intercourse, but as many as half of adolescents experience oral sex first, the report said.

The risk of transmitting infections, including HIV, is significantly less with oral sex than with intercourse but is likely underestimated by teenagers, said the report in the journal Pediatrics.

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After all, Bill Clinton said, "I did not have sex with that woman".

From a 1998 study involving college students:

This study was conducted in March, 1998. On January 26, 1998, President Clinton addressed the nation to quell rumors that he had had an affair with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern. In a much-quoted statement, he said, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" (Shogren, Willman, & Cooper, 1998). By August, the press had reported details of the President's relationship with Ms. Lewinsky (Baker & Hams, 1998), including the fact that the two had engaged in oral sex (Broder, 1998; Janofsky & Van Natta, 1998). The national debate that arose as to whether oral sex was sex, and whether the President had been telling the truth when he denied having a sexual relationship with Ms. Lewinsky (Fisher, 1998; Kuczynski, 1998), received media attention in late 1998, when the President's lawyers argued that he did not perjure himself when he denied having a sexual relationship with Ms. Lewinsky because having oral sex does not constitute a sexual relationship (Gerstenzang & Shogren, 1998).(emphasis mine)

They found:

Not surprisingly, vaginal and anal intercourse were rated as more likely than oral intercourse to be considered sex. This finding is consistent with the results of Sanders and Reinisch (1999)

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So Kennedy had the Cuban Missile Crisis; Reagan had the fall of communism; Carter, the Middle East peace agreements; Bush I & II war leadership; and Clinton? The Lewinsky.

No wonder this guy liked Clinton so much.