At some point it isn't about the (virtual) sex

[cthulu2016]

Compulsive behavior *in the face of consequences* is a very unattractive trait. Like driving home drunk from your DUI court appearance.

I take a back seat to few in not caring about the moral dimension of people's sexual amusements, assuming consenting adults. I really don't care.

And I am not even so concerned with the hypocrisy of bible-thumping pervs, which is actually quite consistent with their religion. (Many Christians are not Christians because they are so good, but because they are so riven by temptation, a state which Christianity as all about.)

But I do have qualms about people who feed millions of dollars into slot machines, who do drugs while in rehab, who shoplift from the same store where they've been caught three times already.

It's not the immorality specific to the act, but rather the monumental lack of self control and internal honesty implied. That's why the consequences angle matters. If you've just been caught and forced out of congress (and one guesses just gone through some unpleasantness with your pregnant wife, though I don't know whether they have a cyber-open relationship and thus cannot really say, of course) and you just keep right on going it suggests things about a person that really and truly are not about the sex.

If someone was paroled from a life sentence with the one requirement that they not own a gun and they head right for the gun-store, at risk of their freedom forever, it wouldn't be about the gun. It would be about a pathological irresponsability... a lack of normal actions/consequences thinking.

So yes... Weiner has me weirded out a little.

And it really isn't about the sex. I am weirded out the way I was weirded out by Bill Bennett losing millions playing slots. It isn't the gambling as a moral issue... it's the picture of a man who simply cannot stop putting money into slot machines.

[msongs]

1. maybe weiner is trying to undermine his wife as he envious of her superior job nt

[localroger]

7. He should have signed on as a spokesman for Viagra then. /nt

[Nay]

2. Yeah, this is my take on it exactly. Anyone who is unable to modify his behavior despite

being caught once and the inevitability of getting caught again is someone who shouldn't be put in charge of anything bigger than a lawn mower.

[Cali_Democrat]

3. "Like driving home drunk from your DUI court appearance"

I didn't know some courts serve alcohol.

[cthulu2016]

4. You've never known someone with a bottle in their car?

I have. Several of them, unfortunately.

[arely staircase]

5. that was very eloquent. nt

[corkhead]

6. I'm just thankful it got us off the subject of royal vaginal emissions

Nobody's perfect, and if we try to hold everyone to an unrealistic standard of perfection, we chase away good people and we're stuck with self-righteous, lyin' pricks like most any "successful" politician you can name.

[Skittles]

9. is it too much to expect a public official to not wave his penis around on the internet?

[corkhead]

10. I would like for it not to be - I am just being pragmatic.

[Skittles]

11. opps; I meant to reply to the OP

[fried eggs]

8. It's a trait of addiction

He is addicted to... exhibitionism?? I've never heard of that, but I guess it's possible to get addicted to just about anything!

[etherealtruth]

12. Compulsive behavior *in the face of consequences* is a very unattractive trait.

Thank you for calling it what it is!