Monica Lewinsky rethinks consent with Bill Clinton in light of #MeToo movement

Two decades after her extramarital affair with former president Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky is rethinking the issue of consent.

In an article for Vanity Fair, Lewinsky wrote she now realizes that her relationship with Clinton "constituted a gross abuse of power." This is a profound shift from the position she took in a June 2014 piece for the same magazine.

"Sure my boss took advantage of me, but I will always remain firm on this point: it was a consensual relationship," Lewinsky wrote in 2014. "Any 'abuse' came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position."

Lewinsky says she now sees that her relationship with Clinton was full of "inappropriate abuse of authority, station, and privilege."

"Now, at 44, I’m beginning (just beginning) to consider the implications of the power differentials that were so vast between a president and a White House intern," she wrote. "I’m beginning to entertain the notion that in such a circumstance the idea of consent might well be rendered moot."

More: The #MeToo movement didn't begin with Harvey Weinstein. And it won't end there

Lewinsky says the fallout from her relationship with Clinton left her with post-traumatic stress disorder and that in light of her trauma, she might never have changed her thinking on the subject were it not for the #MeToo movement and society's sudden reckoning with issues of sexual misconduct.

More: So what is this sexual harassment 'reckoning' everyone is talking about?

Lewinsky credits the #MeToo movement, "not only because of the new lens it has provided but also because of how it has offered new avenues toward the safety that comes from solidarity."

"I — we — owe a huge debt of gratitude to the #MeToo and Time’s Up heroines," Lewinsky wrote. "They are speaking volumes against the pernicious conspiracies of silence that have long protected powerful men when it comes to sexual assault, sexual harassment, and abuse of power."