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Telegraph | Expat | Sex, power and the Monica factor
"Sex, power and the Monica factor
By Abbie Finfrock
(Filed: 26/04/2005)

Seven years on, Washington interns are still struggling to shake off the Lewinsky tag, finds Abbie Finfrock

It is 11am in Washington DC. Here I am, an ingenue 20-year-old intern, sipping my coffee and desperately trying to figure out how my tape recorder works so I can accurately cover an event at the American Enterprise Institute think-tank, when a man in his late fifties walks over and offers to help.


Abbie Finfrock: 'constantly propositioned'

I think to myself, 'Wow, this is a nice gesture, what a cute old man.' We start chatting about how one of my college professors works at the same think-tank. He then asks me if I'd like to attend a 'conference' with him, and slips me his business card. The cute grandfather act has vanished.

'Call me, any time,' he says, with a mischievous smirk.

Later that day, two other middle-aged men try the same pick-up routine. In my four months working as an intern at The Daily Telegraph's DC office, I have been constantly propositioned by middle-aged men in bars, train stations, and in various work situations.

Each year, between 20,000 and 40,000 interns flock to the American capital with hopes of meeting Washington big-timers and stuffing their resumes with professional experience. Each year, some end up having not entirely professional relationships with elected officials. Some liaisons remain secret, while others have far reaching consequences: the fallout of Monica Lewinsky's affair with Bill Clinton threatened to bring down the President.

Yet, seven years on, each new crop of eager and wide-eyed interns arrives like fresh prey for the city's political predators. Far from dampening the instincts of the political classes, the Lewinsky scandal appears to have egged them on. Monica has given us a bad reputation.

Mary Ryan, the president of the Washington Internship Institute, says: "Interns are the backbone of the Washington workforce, they are the unsung heroes. But they need to learn more about the ways of working life."

Some of us need fewer lessons than others. In Washington, playing the role of the gullible intern is an effective way to move up the ladder. One intern on Capitol Hill says that everyone should understand the relationships between older men and young women in Washington - the women use the men to "work their way up". And if they have to use sex, that's a fair tactic.

According to another intern, there is a certain type of young woman in town who wears tight-fitting, cleavage-baring shirts and inappropriately short skirts, and who creates situations where a man is compelled to ask her out on a date. More subtly, she may be required to work late with him at the office after everyone else has left, as Monica Lewinsky often did.

"Girls who fall for that stuff have to know what's going on and want it," she says. "There's a difference between looking stylish and attractive, and advertising sex."

"It's all about the power," says a third intern. "Everything is strategic here; if I do this, then I get this. I mean, who wouldn't want to sleep with the president?"

Of all the interns I've spoken to, every woman has stories about being harassed by men who could be their fathers. One, a shy 22-year- old, was sitting at a congressional office wearing her daily business attire, when a congressman in his late sixties walked over and asked her out for dinner.

"I really can't, I have a very serious boyfriend, but thank you," she said, nervously.

Prior to coming to Washington, my 50-year-old father warned me of the mischievous older men I would most likely encounter here. Refusing to believe him at first, I have been proved wrong. I hate it when parents are right.

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