Anthony Weiner: Part 1

Of course, the Weiner Scandal broke while I was in Israel - and in a certain way, I was relieved, because it saved me the effort it would have taken to blog all my thoughts about it. But I will share some brief thoughts now: 1. Officially, Weiner left to pursue therapy. I think he needed therapy to deal with the way his world was being torn apart. However, the implication both in his official "I am leaving" speech and in the media, was that he was leaving to seek treatment for his R-rated behavior. Sending kinky texts and phone-photos may be unsavory behavior, but it is not a mental illness. Plenty of people lead happy lives while doing so. If those texts had been between Weiner and his wife, would the public have been as outraged? Was it the behavior itself, or its extramarital nature that was so upsetting? The question should not be whether or not the behavior was extra-marital, but rather, whether or not it violated the rules that he and his wife set for their marriage. It is true Weiner is a man of power, but the women he sent the texts to were not women he was in a position of power over: There would have been no discernible negative consequences Weiner would have been able to cause them had they said no.

Many men (and women) have the desire to cheat, at times. From Weiner's perspective, the text-messages were likely a way to get turned on and feel the sexual adrenaline of a forbidden encounter, without "really" cheating. He was trying to get out the desire to cheat, without physically being with another woman, because he did not want to wrong his wife - perhaps the texts wronged her as well, but even within the realm of "wrong", there was a line he would not cross. For that, I admire him.

I think the Weiner case showed two things:
1. Psychology can be used as a means of controlling society. Someone who is out of bounds, who breaks the rules of society, is locked away in a psychiatric facility. (Foucalt - "Of Civilization and Madness".) This idea also appears in the works of R.D. Laing, who questioned the idea of "madness", which may be a social construct - but this is hearsay from a TA I took a psychology course with - I have yet to read Laing's work.*
2. Men and women (or even two different individuals of the same gender) often have different definitions of cheating. Therefore, it can lead to much pain, if official definitions of cheating are not discussed and agreed upon by the different parties in the relationship, before a gray-area situation arises.

* Also, kudos to the TA for coming out to me. Many people are afraid to come out in their work place - for understandable reasons. So coming out to me took cunt. (This is a phrase I use to describe brave women that is the female equivalent of "He has balls.").