萊溫斯基復出演講：我是網絡欺凌受害者

13年的“銷聲匿跡”之后，萊溫斯基近日突然公開露面發表演講。從28歲到41歲，她談到了這些年遭遇的種種輿論暴力，稱自己是網絡欺凌的首位受害者（patient zero），并表示希望能夠幫助那些同樣的“屈辱游戲”的受害者們找到出路。

?My name is Monica Lewinsky. Though I have often been advised to change it, or asked why on earth I haven't. But there we are, I haven't. I am still Monica Lewinsky. Overnight, I went from being a completely private figure to a publicly humiliated one. I was patient zero. The first person?to have their?reputation completely destroyed worldwide via the Internet. When I ask myself how best to describe how?the last 16 years have felt, I always came back to that word: shame. My own personal shame, shame that befell my family, and shame that befell my country, our country. When the report was released online on Sept 11, 1998, I was holdup in a New York hotel room, staring at the computer screen. I spent the day shouting "Oh my God" and "I can't believe they put that in", or "that's so out of context". And those were the only thoughts that interrupted?a relentless mantra in my head: I want to die. There was a rotation of worsening namecalling and descriptions of me. I would go online, reading the paper,or see on TV, ?people refering to me as tramp, slut, whore, tart, bimbo, floozie, even spy. The New York Post's page 6 took to calling me almost daily the portly pepperpot. I was shuttered. I lost my reputation. I was publicly identified as someone I didn't recognize. And I lost my sense of self. Lost it, or had it stolen. Because in a way it was a form of identity theft. Today, I think of myself as someone who, who the hell knows how, survived. Believe me, denial can be pretty useful still. But these days, I need it less and less, and in smaller and smaller doses. But having survived myself, what I want to do now is help other victims of?the shame games survive too. I want to put my suffering to good use and to give purpopse to my past.?