Let me get this straight. Weiner admits to sending lewd photos...but not to actually having [View All]

extramarital sex. Right?

I know this whole thing must be intensely frustrating for many of you because I saw you all working so hard to prove that Weiner was telling the truth and his Twitter account had been hacked. And now all of a sudden, whoops, turns out that really was him.

And I thought what you all are thinking: what a MORON. Does this idiot really think that any "tweet" is a private communication? Does this guy not understand about how in our digital world today any image you put into the series of tubes can be duplicated infinitely in less time than it takes to change your underwear?

But the fact is that many of us put stuff out on the 'net that we don't necessarily want coming back to us. Most of us don't get burned only because nobody out there cares enough to burn us. To have a meaningful internet life means making yourself vulnerable, to some extent, to total strangers. I understand how, believing that he really needs this internet life, a guy might talk himself into believing in more confidentiality and privacy than his internet self can actually have.

It's also quite likely that Weiner was using these "illicit" cyber-encounters as a substitute for actually having sex, figuring that it was less risky. More chance of discovery, but the crime itself is less severe. Embarassing, sure, but not career-ending material.

And the crazy thing is, he'd have been wrong. It now costs, apparently, just as much if you send someone an inappropriate image as it does if you are literally having hot torrid extramarital sex with someone.

I find this very strange. One can make the argument, and I have, that as long as this hot torrid extramarital sex is between two adults free to consent to relations with each other, then the only person who ought to be truly concerned about this is the injured spouse and any children who may be facing an infidelity-related parental divorce. Still, I guess I am old fashioned enough to believe that there is a difference in kind, and not just in degree, between cheating on your spouse with a flesh and blood being and cheating on her with pixels.

Every time something like this happens (*cough* Edwards *cough*) I go on this internal rant about why people can't "keep it in their pants." But we don't (yet) have any evidence that Weiner _didn't_ keep it in his pants. I mean I suppose he had to take his pants off to take the photo of his underwear (oy gevalt). But my point is that the internet age has, apparently, lowered the bar for infidelity. Now you don't have to have had inappropriate sexual relations with an intern to be keelhauled. It is enough that you caused an inappropriate image to materialize on the monitor of someone you've never met and may well (indeed, after this, probably will) never see in person.

Sure, it's creepy. I would certainly freak out if I found such a thing in my inbox, and probably want nothing further to do with whoever sent it. But to me, anyway, doing such a thing in person is whole googleplexes creepier. And yet, in conversations I see about this, the distinction between virtual and sexual misbehavior seems to have evaporated.

I'm not standing up for Weiner. I have nothing personally invested in him and my patience for the antics of straight men who think that strange women are dying to see their dicks is short. I'm just noting what appears to be a seismic shift in our understanding of what counts as a sex scandal. And it does make me almost feel bad for the guy. I mean if you are going to go down in flames, do it over something that's gonna matter to you--not over some tweet you sent that maybe made you chuckle in a creepy kind of way for a couple seconds and that was about it.

yeesh,

The Plaid Adder