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Six Degrees from Makin' Bacon Kenneth Starr insists his report is about the Whitewater scandal, the presidential abuse of power, perjury, subornation of perjury, and the Constitution. But to the millions of Americans who are getting his report on the Internet, it's obviously about sex. Before the wired citizen even accesses the document--where he or she quickly finds that a keyword search reveals three matches for the word "Whitewater," and dozens of matches for "penis," "orgasm," or "thigh"--it becomes clear that the Starr Report is a work of pornography. Every search engine looking for "Kenneth Starr" or "Monica Lewinsky" leads the Websurfer to the raunchiest avenues of the Internet, revealing the dark compulsions driving Starr's investigation, as well as the kinky underworld of American culture. On a Yahoo search for the heroine of our current American tragicomedy, the very first result to appear is a site called Monica Lewinsky Ate My Balls!. The homepage is only slightly raunchy and only slightly funny, but contains a link to a "free Monica Lewinsky XXX picture gallery"--which of course is not free and of course contains no XXX pictures of Monica, but does feature the stuff that fills 60 percent of the bandwidth on the 'Net. Another link on page one of the Yahoo search results, titled with only her name, leads only to a cartoon kaka-joke that even fans of South Park will find disturbing, and many normal people will find repulsive (while involuntarily chuckling). Two clicks into Yahoo lies the porn-Starr jackpot, which boldly bills itself as The Best Monica Lewinsky Site. This site is replete with the whistles and bells smutsurfers have come to expect from their content providers, who lead the Internet industry--in technology, user-numbers and dollars--by a factor of ten. Here, an organization calling itself Cyberpimps displays a believable PhotoShop job rendering the stars of the Starr Report in flagrante delicto, as well as a fine Java animation of the president, wherein his nose performs an impersonation of Pinocchio and John Holmes simultaneously. "The Best" also includes a link to Clinton's Love Missile, where, until last week, fans of electronically-enhanced politics could jump to a dirty arcade game at a site dubbed "cumonmonica.com". The site, kind of a shooting gallery with a figure in a blue dress and the president's ... well, you get the picture ... became so popular, its creators are now selling it on CD-ROM. During what may prove out to be the biggest week in its short history, the Internet demonstrates its entrepreneurial zest, with The Official Monica Lewinsky Kneeling/Mousepad, and Anka--Monica's dress stain remover (Kills DNA!). The Excite search offers a comment on the deception involved in this sordid affair along with the sleaze. One site promises "Monica Lewinsky--sex pictures, live sex shows, interactive, beautiful girls, hardcore, blondes, brunettes, big tits, fetish," and leads to a commercial Web page for Catalog Mart (tm), a site pushing catalogs for clothes, seeds and other non-prurient stuff. Another site, boasting The Most Popular Domain Name in the World--www.monicalewinsky.com--turns out to be some schmo trying to sell the domain name itself. ("It's up for bid," he shamelessly brags.) We can hope that most Americans find this money-grubbing to be gross. Just as it's a let-down to arrive at the scene of a traffic accident and find that the mangled bodies have already been hauled away, these bait-and-switch gimmicks leave the sordidly-fascinated feeling disappointed. After them, another site looks suspicious--the folks at Excite label it as follows: "An alleged copy of Monica Lewinsky's own homepage. "Summary: This is a copy of Monica Lewinsky's home page (entitled "Monica's Place") that was originally on AOL." The site certainly looks real, and contains links to both Greenpeace and the National Right to Life Campaign. Whether this is the creation of Monica herself or some bored nerd looking for anonymous glory, it offers a cultural insight both touching and pathetic. Speaking of nerds, further down on Excite is Mr .T. vs. Monica Lewinsky which is to Webpage design what Beavis and Butthead is to animation. Infoseek, normally the best engine for raw, unmediated data, yields oddly few pervert sites with a Monica search. Three clicks in, however, we find another installment of "Monica Ate My Balls." This site, which may or may not be related to the one found on Yahoo, contains two Sexgate jokes which are so bad, they cry out to be told: Q: What's the difference between Watergate and Zippergate? A: This time, there's no doubt about the identity of "Deep Throat." A: Bill Clinton could be the first President to be literally "blown" out of office! Ha! Two clicks from the first page on an Altavista search leads to Heaven's Gate. This looks to be another premium porn site, and contains the inevitable cigar photo. Yes, it's a photo, and the cigar is lit. Two more clicks lead to the inevitable Clinton/Lewinski-in-the-oval-office photo and "proposed changes to the presidential seal." All in all, the stuff on the "Gate" page is almost as smutty as the Independent Counselors prose. Another site with a name too rude to mention here promises pictures of Monica performing all kinds of unmentionable stuff for free, but offers instead a bunch of other women doing unmentionable stuff, and requires a credit card. Similarly, Bill Clinton Monica Lewinsky Hillary Sex Scandal Nude Pics Naked Oral Sex Blow is pure trash masquerading as commentary on politics, just like ... well, you get the picture. It is likely that more Americans will use the Internet this week than at any time in its short history. This event taps into the Internet's potential to link the nation in a way that none has before. What does it say about our culture, our technology, our politics and our system of law that we go together this week into the realm of the bizarre and the ridiculous? Were we led here by our over-sexed president, or by the fundamentalist prosecutor who probed so vigorously into one man's darkest secrets? Eric Johnson [ Metro | Metroactive Central | Archives ]