Social Networking and Plain Old-Fashioned Sexual Infidelity

By TRB

Looks like the Emperor will never get his clothes back now. And a lot of people will lose their's too. Rep. Anthony Weiner, probably one the closest to being a true "progressive" in the Congress was caught in some lies he told regarding a "cyber sex" experience he was having using nude photos of himself delivered over the social networking system, Twitter.

What is "cyber sex?" Cyber sex is sex on the internet. It could be just an exchange of photos of the participants nude or partially in the nude. It could be dirty talk. It could all begin and end right there in cyber-space without one person ever touching the other. Or it could turn into a full physical affair.

The congressman didn't get that far. But he was far enough for some to be asking for his resignation for lying about it. He was also in cyber sex relationships with more than one person. Others want him out for the cyber sex alone. So is cyber sex cheating, if one or both of the individuals has a lover or spouse? That is a good question. But more and more relationship experts are coming around to the idea that it is in fact cheating.

It is taking time and attention away from your wife, husband or lover and spending it with another person and without your actual partner's knowledge.

Could this kind of cyber affair be used to obtain a divorce? Many legal experts believe it could be. Many of these cyber affairs take place on the more popular social networks of Facebook and Twitter. Could evidence be obtained from these parties for use in a divorce? Most lawyers believe it could. It is after all public knowledge in such cases.

And so we have 150,000 years of people taking advantage of one another, fighting wars, creating Holocausts, cheating on their partners and just being everything you would expect the ethically frail human to be. Then along comes social networking and that big dark cloud comes out of the closet.Yes, we have always been like this.

Imagine John F, Kennedy in a social networking environment. Seriously. Imagine it. How long would he last? We are all flawed in some way or other and the internet is bringing those flaws to the surface in a very public manner. This has been possible for only two decades. And look at the parade of politicians and celebrities who have been revealed as unpleasant people by the internet. They number in the hundreds.

So it is not that humans are becoming less ethical or moral. It is that social networking is revealing the extent of duplicity that has always existed in our world and our relationships. Some even say social networking encourages infidelity, simply by making it easier than it was in the past. This might even be true to a degree. The decision to have a cyber affiar, however, is still a human-made decision, and Facebook can not be accused of ruining your marriage.

But some social networks are not as benign. Take AshleyMadison.com for example. They specialize in making it easier for married couples to have affiars, even hooking up the couples. They bill with an address that looks like it might have come from a hardware store. They openly admit to helping the cheaters in their duplicity. In this way they are enablers in the affiar.

In a way the technology of the social network itself can be seen as an enabler in that its presence might encourage others to have affairs, thinking of the immediacy of the network and its size. It is those two things that allow for a sense of false security.

The social network is so big you could get "lost in it." The exact opposite, of course, is true. The social network is actually so well organized with the information it has collected that most of its participants can be easily found.

The level of surprise as shown by the news media and social critics when told of cyber sex affairs like Weiners,' has got to be an affectation. It can not be regarded as serious. People have been having affairs probably since people have been declaring vows of lasting love.

The social network is proving to be perhaps the most available place for cybersex. At the same time, however, it is also proving to be the most public.