poison ivy

I call bullshit… This is obviously a marketing scam for an upcoming book or movie. It is just too complete… from the initial mentions of how her best friend and husband get along so well and she loves that they do, to the relatively infrequent posts that went from the intial post until the youtube video of her "cheating husband." The only interesting aspect of the blog is that she seems to be a narcissistic white woman who believes she is entitled because her husband started banging someone else (see the pilates newbie posts).

The thing is, sites like this are a dime a dozen. I mean, i’ve come across sites of disgruntled men who supposedly post pictures of their girlfriends/wives naked after they "discover" that the love of their life is cheating. There is a growing allure of public shaming that strikes me as overly misguided. The idea that getting back at a spouse, sig other, friend, random stranger through the internet is appealing because it allows for relatively instant feedback, but fuck… at what cost to your own morals and dignity?

I would imagine public shaming sites (like don’tdatehimgirl.com) are becoming popular because not everyone is technically savvy enough to design and maintain their own vengeance web site. Of course, just because you’re a moron doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be allowed to publically shame the object of your ire. How long before sites like this start charging these morons to post their vitriolic diatribes? (hmmm… note to self, secure domain and bandwidth for a commecial shaming site)

The above mentioned site, one that allows disgruntled women to post pictures and details about men who have cheated on them, is quickly becoming a hotbed of controversy… one of the men featured therein is suing the domain owners for allegedly erroneous information. This is interesting because never before has a webmaster been held accountable for the content of their site. If the site propogates misleading information knowingly though, perhaps they should be held accountable. What is to stop some woman from posting outright lies because she was turned down for a date? The problem with a site like this is that there is no oversight that allows for a cooling off period before content is made available for public consumption.

But, back to the intial reason for this post… cheating. Honestly, when someone cheats, it is simply because one person is trying to find something outside the relationship that they can’t get inside of it. No one is cheated on because they are fantastic, caring, sensitive, sharing, loving, athletic, healthy, emotionally stable, interesting people. There are usually three main reasons why someone cheats… they want more/different sex than their sig other is willing/able to give them; their sig others are either intellectually, romantically or socially unable to satisfy them; or finally, they simply don’t function well within a monagamous relationship. In every instance, the warning signs are their long before the person cheats though. The idea that publically shaming them on some web site will bring them satisfaction isn’t unusual or even misguided, but the idea that such behavior empowers them is.