I’ve seen few issues over which there was more confusion than the recently sprouted one of inappropriate sex in Washington—and certain related outposts as well. Lumped together in the furor are minor matters such as a bottom pinch (not that that’s a nice thing to do) and allegations of far more serious forms of harassment. Also conjoined are the ostensible and the actual reasons for expelling a member of Congress over varying degrees of sexual aggression. A sorting out is in order—as is a grasp of reality.

Washington has all the ingredients for inappropriate sexual adventuring. For one thing, it’s full of lonely people—in particular men disconnected from their families. We owe this to Newt Gingrich, who upon becoming Speaker of the House in 1995 told incoming Republican freshmen to leave their families back home so that the members could concentrate on their jobs in Washington. Washington is also full of ambitious people—young things (male and female both) setting out on what they hope is an ever-rising path to more important jobs, whether it is the lobbyist who sets his sights on becoming head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (I knew one who did, but he didn’t make it), or the lowly congressional aide who longs to one day take the seat of the congressman or senator whom he or she is currently serving. Washington is the land of opportunity for sexual conquest, with members of Congress working late nights (yes, they often do) or traveling with aides on supposedly essential business. And, finally, it’s a city stuffed with people who have power over others.

Mixed with a healthy—or unhealthy—libido, this heady brew of loneliness, ambition, power, and opportunity leads to extra-curricular sex of various types, and of various degrees of seriousness. The same holds true in news media companies where the main on-air man has power over the entire staff.

Affairs can and do happen anywhere. And if somewhere in America a dentist pinches his assistant’s bottom, is that as serious as a senator pinching the butt of women who posed for pictures with that senator at a state fair? To be precise, if it happened, as two women have claimed, Al Franken’s problem is that what he apparently considered playful isn’t enjoyable for his pinchees. But those are the only untoward acts that Franken has yet to be blamed for as a senator. (Former members of Franken’s Senate staff as well as 26 former colleagues at Saturday Night Live have signed letters saying that he consistently treated them with respect.) So crazed have we become by the flood of accusations, that serious Washingtonians have engaged in debate over whether a photo shows a grinning Franken actually fondling the breasts of a sleeping television host while the two were traveling for the USO to entertain U.S. troop stationed in the Middle East in 2006, when Franken was a well-known comedian, not a senator.

For what it’s worth, this writer sees him as cupping his hands over her breasts, not even necessarily touching them. His entertainment-tour partner also complained that Franken demanded that a certain kissing scene be rehearsed and in so doing stuck his tongue down her throat. And his co-entertainer forgave Franken after he apologized.