It has reached the stage where afternoon TV programmes are giving warnings that what follows is not suitable for children. Then the pundits get down to discussing whether the Bible supports President Clinton's alleged view that oral sex is not adultery.
Ms Monica Lewinsky's claim that she had "phone sex" with the President is also gleefully kicked around on the chat shows. A New York Times columnist is referring to "Oval sex".
Despite Mr Clinton's denials of any improper behaviour with the former White House intern, salacious details are constantly being aired on the Internet and the media, obliging her lawyer, Mr William Ginsburg, to confirm that the FBI has taken away some items of his client's clothes from her Watergate apartment for DNA testing of semen stains.
As TV viewers absorb these details, they are then shown pictures of Mr Clinton and his wife going to church, he with Bible in hand, as the media pack shouts questions about his alleged affair.
Television clips are aired over again of the President hugging Ms Lewinsky as his staff welcomed him back to the White House following his re-election victory in November 1966.
Did they exchange meaningful glances? Maybe, maybe not.
The Sunday papers have pages of coverage, ranging from transcripts of Ms Lewinsky's conversations with her friend, Ms Linda Tripp, about the alleged sexual affair with Mr Clinton to in-depth psychological analyses of whether he is pathologically addicted to sex.
Washington is also buzzing with rumours that another White House woman employee is going to go public about an affair and that the President and Ms Lewinsky were caught in an intimate act by someone.
As opinion polls reflect the damage done to the President, his wife and his close aides are fighting back. Mrs Hillary Rodham Clinton is said to be in "battle mode" as she rounds up support for her husband from the Democrat ranks.
But some erstwhile supporters are hanging back. Mr Clinton's former chief-of-staff, the widely respected Mr Leon Panetta, has strongly disagreed with the decision of the Clinton lawyers not to allow the President address the American people now to try and kill the damaging rumours, but to wait until they see what he is up against on the Lewinsky tapes.
Mr Panetta says Mr Clinton should go to the people now and that if the allegations turn out to be "baseless charges, it will be OK". But if the allegations are true it would be better for Democrats if the Vice-President, Mr Al Gore, "became president and you had a new message and new individual up there". This coming from Mr Panetta was chilling for the beleaguered White House.
Former senior aides such as Mr Mickey Kantor and Mr Harold Ickes are being recalled under Mrs Clinton's urging for this battle for survival. Ironically, Mr Ickes left the White House last year bitter at being passed over for the top post.
But the Clinton aides have one hand tied behind their backs because of legal constraints. The aides who are being sent out on the TV talk shows to defend Mr Clinton merely repeat his earlier denials and refuse to answer detailed questions. They admit that they cannot even talk to him about the accusations because they could then be hauled before a grand jury. Instead, they employ expensive attorneys to advise them what to say.
Other presidential aides are discreetly sounding out some supporters as to what would be the effect if Mr Clinton admitted that he had had some intimacy with Ms Lewinsky short of a sexual relationship. The feedback is said to have been depressing. The message back is that any admission of a close relationship with the 24year-old woman would be seen as disastrous.
The President's fate is being decided in the secret negotiations between Ms Lewinsky's lawyer and the independent counsel, Mr Kenneth Starr, over a deal on immunity from prosecution for perjury. She is apparently ready, in return for total immunity, to admit that her affidavit swearing she never had a sexual affair with Mr Clinton is untrue.
This would open the way for her to tell a grand jury that what she says on the tapes about a sexual affair with Mr Clinton is the truth. He has sworn an affidavit there was no such affair, so Mr Starr could then start investigating Mr Clinton on a charge of perjury.
Mr Starr would then have to inform Congress of the result of his inquiry, and it would have to decide whether to begin impeachment proceedings.
Meanwhile, the President is trying to carry on regardless. He is working on the important State of the Union address to the joint houses of Congress scheduled for today. He has also been discussing plans for a major military strike against Iraq following President Saddam Hussein's continued refusal to allow UN weapons inspectors access to certain sites. Iraq is now saying that Mr Clinton might unleash an attack as a way of diverting attention from his present crisis; however, such a plan has been on the cards since the inspectors were first obstructed last November.
By coincidence, a film called Wag The Dog has just been released, in which an American president caught up in a sex scandal is urged by media advisers to attack Albania as a way to distract the public's attention.
Republicans in Congress are in fact urging Mr Clinton to go ahead with a strike against Iraq while wondering if he can survive the present crisis. The Republicans are also said to be in two minds about the political effects of an eventual Clinton resignation.
In a year of congressional midterm elections, it could suit the Republicans better to have a scandal-stricken President staggering on and doing huge damage to Democrats up for re-election, than to have them rallying under President Al Gore with the Clinton scandals just a bad memory.
Reuters adds:
An NBC poll has shown Mr Clinton's popularity plummeting, down 15 percentage points since the scandal broke last week. In addition, 70 per cent of those surveyed did not believe the President had been candid or open.
A Newsweek poll said 49 per cent of Americans favoured Mr Clinton's impeachment and removal from office if the charge were true that he told Ms Lewinsky to lie under oath.
In an ABC survey, his favourability rating dropped to 51 per cent on Saturday from 59 per cent last Monday, which the network said was the worst rating of his Presidency.