They say adultery is a dicey business, even if you’re not technically calling it sex; so it takes a risk-ready woman to have the inbuilt chutzpah to try it out on the President of the United States, however willing a participant he might have been. This is not left-wing libel in defense of a lascivious libertine, but simple astrological observation.

The most accident-prone, risk-inclined combo in the planetary arsenal are Mars and Uranus together in hard aspect. That’s the first thing you notice in Lewinski’s chart, with Uranus rising conjunct the Ascendant in manipulative Libra sparked by hot Mars in its own sign of Aries opposite on the cusp of her seventh house of partnership. That would make anyone more inclined to rush into hazardous liaisons with hardly a second thought, a born adventurer. Lots of people have fun with that all the time, but in this case the opposition is square the Midheaven (public image, career), inclining any rashly committed acts to attach themselves to her reputation with ill results.

One of the things you don’t do in an affair is talk about it, particularly when it could get you into serious trouble. But Lewinski’s Mercury square Mars filling out the T-cross just couldn’t help it. Squares have a repetitive, diminishing returns effect, so not only did she mention what she was doing, she kept on mentioning it. Maybe not just because of the T-square, but also a Moon square Jupiter tends to push feelings out and overblow their meaning so that she really felt there was a genuine love affair going on. It was a shipwreck waiting to happen, geared for the task. All that was required was the right timing to make the worst of it.

Beginning the liaisons on her progressed Full Moon in 1995, all seemed well, fulfilling, exciting. But transiting Saturn was around the corner, headed for her seventh house (her partner) and her progressed MC was about to change sign, falling onto her Pluto. When all that hit in 1997, the cat was out of the bag and the scandal had begun. Yet, she survived it better at the time than Clinton did, perhaps because of not only a tough Leo Sun (like him) but a strong, durable Taurus Moon (like him, but not square her Sun — she got her story straight, he didn’t). And, with her only water that Mercury in Cancer, it didn’t really hurt that much inside, but it made a great melodrama for her public persona, both at the time and since.

Current events: The seizure of sexual propriety that gripped at least the uniquely prurient part of America has since given way to far more serious business, but the parties involved are still around. Although she turned her knitting habit into a handbag company, she hasn’t stopped mining her adventure. In fact, she just got a degree in it. In December 2006, Lewinsky graduated with a master’s degree in Social Psychology from the London School of Economics where she had been studying since September 2005. Her thesis: “In Search of the Impartial Juror: An exploration of the third person effect and pre-trial publicity.”