One year later, we're still here. Thank you, Seattle, for your resilience and readership throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Contributions from our readers are a crucial lifeline for The Stranger as we write our new future. We're calling up legislators, breaking down what's going on at Seattle City Hall, and covering the region's enduring arts scenes thanks to assistance from readers like you. If The Stranger is an essential part of your life, please make a one-time or recurring contribution today to ensure we're here to serve you tomorrow.
We're so grateful for your support.
Comments are closed.
Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.
Sign up for the latest news and to win free tickets to events
Buy tickets to events around Seattle
Comprehensive calendar of Seattle events
The easiest way to find Seattle's best events
All contents © Index Newspapers LLC
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
Comments
I am one of these people, and I do not condone cheating. Bad behavior does not justify bad behavior, something Savage uses to demonize Gawker while defending the phrase in saying it is okay for some people to cheat on their spouses. You can't have it both ways. If outing and doxxing cheaters is bad, then cheating is also bad. If cheating is okay under certain specific circumstances, than so in theory would be outing and doxxing cheaters.
Which is it Dan? Let's cut through the "It's complicated" BS and strike right to the heart of the issue. Is what is good for the goose also good for the gander, and if not specifically why not? I haven't seen you this upset when Republicans are outed as gay. Why the double standard?
Nice work, shitheads!
"I think there's a right to privacy. But the right to privacy should not be a right to hypocrisy. People who want to demonize other people shouldn't then be able to go home and close the door, and do it themselves."
Translation: Good Thing.
As society begins to step away from the straight-jacket of "monogamy is the only type of sexual relations we are allowed to have" your argument that sex lives are personal may swing back into effect, but for the time being ignoring men in power having affairs should be considered a regression to "monogamy is for women only" rules.
I also notice you dodge the heart of the question rather handily. Rather than cut through the faux nuance, you instead increase its level. You almost seem to mock the entire question by using a quote from a man embroiled in sex scandal himself. I'm not sure how the hypocritical words of a hypocrite do anything to support your position. In fact, I think they show exactly what kind of tortured double standard one has to use to support the position you do here.
He's not dodging. You're being obtuse.
This Ashley Madison thing could be a big fucking deal! I'll bet a lot of those 40 million users just got a membership for a little while, looked around at profiles, fantasized, and never ended up cheating. But now they'll have to explain themselves to an emotionally shattered - and humiliated, because the list will be public - spouse. This hacker is a complete and utter ghoul, and all these moralizing assholes need to get off their smug f*cking high horses and realize that they are cheering for heartbreak and broken families.
Dan rarely responds directly in his columns, almost never more than once, so let me tackle the ‘why is it bad to out gay conservatives who publicly push for anti-gay measures?’ question.
The hypocritical words of a hypocrite support Dan’s position, which is also my position, for the same reason that conservatives who campaign against abortion but order their mistresses to get abortions when knocked up, should be outed (and also support that position.)
If you’re a private individual, your actions related to views on monogamy, abortion, or any number of things, have a relatively small impact. If you’re a politician, and in a position to affect the laws that govern many, your actions on those views (whether you abide by them or not) stand to affect quite a few people outside your own relationships. If you act on your (public) views by passing laws restricting those things, it not only sucks for the people at large, but is something you yourself will never have to suffer for. That’s why you should be publicly exposed for your hypocrisy in those situations, because you’re not just telling but compelling The Little People to live by restrictions that’ll never apply to you.
If the Man in Power is a politician who gets to draft laws, or Henry Ford demanding that his workers keep to a moral code or they don’t get the $5/hour, I fully support outing.
Not sure what the Sex At Dawn /men until relatively lately had pieces on the side has to do with this; Ashley Madision is (was?) a site for both men and women; either sex can be driven to seek relief outside the marriage for the reasons listed. People are having a good laugh picturing the middle-aged guy with a gut and combover who was hitting on his Hooters waitress last night getting busted, but Dan has run plenty of letters over the years of women who need a release valve in their relationships..
There aren’t 37 million ‘Men in Power’ who are going to get their comeuppance from this outing, if it ever happens. Men In Power will have a minimal bump, like Newt Gingrich, and like it or not they’ll have a line of women ready and waiting to help them cheat some more. The people who will be affected - Some good, some bad, and it’ll be both genders. And their relatives, bosses, co-workers, future employers...This was not a crushing blow against The Man/The Patriarchy.
Finally, Dan imagining that all other men want to suck cock, would be ‘projecting.’ Wishing that others would live by your own personal code of conduct is something that more of us do than do not.
And for what it's worth, @2 "If outing and doxxing cheaters is bad, then cheating is also bad" is dead wrong. Orgasming isn't bad. Someone else putting details of your last orgasm up on the internet, without your consent, is bad. Do you really not know what privacy is, or that people have a right to it?
Sadly, this kind of too witty by half logic that tortures and strains the English language is becoming more common here. Between the "New Column" and one of the new reporter's journalistic "style", it is becoming nigh impossible to tell where the sarcasm begins and the story ends (and vice versa). To that end, the story is rapidly becoming little more than a canvas for the "journalist" to vomit up his predispositions upon. The news is taking a back seat to the prima donna attitude, and now we're seeing this embraced by Mr. Savage.
Gawker has done some interesting things. Going union for one.
But then they kept scum bag shit piles like Max Read and Jordan Sargent around to mine literally the worst natures of the internet rumor-sphere. And now they face the blow back. Hopefully they'll fire Sargent and signal they really are trying to be journalists.
Unless of course the sole purpose of the hack was to destroy Ashley Madison and its related companies. I believe when the breach was reported in the media this morning, the CEO of the parent company expressly indicated there was evidence this was an "inside job", so probably a disgruntled (possibly former) employee seeking revenge, in which case some form of blackmail isn't entirely out of the question, and the moral equivalence may in fact be even murkier than you surmise.
The question ( I believe) that you want answered is, if cheating is bad, isn’t exposing cheating good? The answer is, what the Church/Paper of Record/Your Grandma calls ‘cheating,’ is not all the same. People make deals with their SO’s, overtly or implicitly, or they make arrangements to stay in the relationship where leaving isn’t an option, and yeah, sometimes they’re what Dan calls CPOS’s.
All these situations are individually different, and if what you do in your relationship doesn’t affect me, my interest in involving myself in your affairs is low. If your overt actions affect others, my interest goes up.
If this is true, #17, then we should all just stop breeding and let our failure of a species die a kind death. The true measure of a human being lies in their ability to both have a personal code and to not demand that others live by that code. The last thing in the world I want is for someone to live by my code. My code was forged in over a decade of PTSD causing abuse in a redneck, racist part of his state. I have spent thousands of dollars reforging my personal code. Why in the world would I ever want to burden anybody (including myself) with views that come from the sum of my childhood?
Wishing that others would live by your own personal code of conduct is inhuman, and a sign of an ego run amok. Human beings wish that others would give them space to live by their own personal code, and wish to give that space to others. You have embraced the same hypocrisy that Dan has. You have made yourself judge, jury, and executioner in your own world and mind and try to convince others of the validity of your sentencing. Were I to speak plainly and cruelly, my recommendation would be to get over yourself.
I agree some people's cheating is not others. But Dan supports cheating in certain situations, by his own admission. This is cheating by the judge's declaration. We're not talking about poly, or open marriages, or anything like that. We're talking about one partner going out without the other's permission to have sex. In sexless marriages, Dan supports this, even as he demonizes people like Max Read, who respond in a manner consistent with Dan (acting as sole arbiter of truth) but to the opposite conclusion. I'm not sure how one cannot see the hypocrisy inherent in this tactic.
Many of the same moral arbiters that condemn AM and affairs (even the affairs which also personally sicken me) likely also condemn other things that they lump together in a big old Sin Pile, like being LGBT, having premarital sex, or enjoying porn. Do we really want people with hacking skills to assume the right to decide which activities are so shocking to them that those who participate in them must be publicly shamed (and, by default, their loved ones embarrassed, too)?
A lot of the people crowing about how wonderful it is that millions of people will be 'exposed' need to keep their eyes on their own damn papers.
Hey, Tom of Finland, Please, don’t be even more plain and cruel, you’ll make this drink shoot out my nose. Jeez, you sound like a pirate threatening a captive crew after too many elocution lessons, “...and as i was pressed aboarrrrd as a lad, by inhuman scalawags such as yourself, who set yourselves as judge and jury..Fie, fie, we should all just die and leave the earth cleaner!".
The signs of ego run amok are indeed fearsome to behold.
By ‘code of conduct,’ what I, and most people mean are the basics such as live and let live, Golden Rule, let old ladies go ahead of you in line, stuff like that. When you’d tempered your steely Code, what was in it, exactly, that you’d be against others adopting? Do you always get to pick the Redbox movie and pizza toppings now, or what?
Then why aren't you criticizing the hackers? That's exactly what they're doing, demanding that others live by their moral code.
As for my personal code, I'd be against others adopting my nonconscious racism (that I received as a direct result of growing up in a racist community) and the negative life lessons I learned from prolonged abuse. Lessons like "you physically beat the people you love" (thankfully I worked that one out while barely more than a toddler).
That however, is not the code I tempered. That is the code given to me by my upbringing. That is the code I temper to remove the impurities from. In that way, I become more than just the sum of my upbringing. In that way, I put aside my ego and the demonic tutors of my past, a tool/lesson that apparently many more people need in their lives.
Like, thanks, man.
#30 - Exactly. Though I’m a bit apprehensive on what the Forged Code will turn out to be, something's telling me it won’t involve being clean, thrifty, reverent, rest of the Boy Scout stuff.
I will point out though, that the hacker "logic" is at least consistent. My issue is in Mr. Savage's inconsistencies.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Never be the same. Is cheating permissible, under some circumstances. In the case of the guy who decided after five yrs he was done with sex, then yes. He broke the contract.
Dobbing in a cheat. To one's best girlfriend, maybe, if you know her husband is doing the dirty on her. To do it to total strangers, what an intrusion.
Dan's code also says that people may be outted under certain very limited conditions (the person being outted has public influence and secretly engages in the behavior that they condemn in others). No one else should be outted. That also seems pretty easy to understand and in no way conflicts with Dan's code regarding cheating.
It is worth noting that Dan's code lacks the force of law and is just one man's attempt to influence the society in which he lives. Dan's fame and ability to influence society is a direct result of his attempts to influence society and does not come from some other source - that is, Dan is famous because of his views rather than using his fame to push his views onto others. You are perfectly free to accept or disregard Dan's code as you wish - Dan has no ability to force his code on to you.
Some of the people who are registered at Ashley Madison were only curious or engaging in a fantasy. Others may have intended to cheat but not yet found a partner. There is the possibility that a few of the people registered at Ashley Madison may have done so with the full knowledge and consent of their spouse. If the hackers make good on their threat to expose the registrant's financial information both the cheater and the innocent spouse will be harmed. Therefor the Hacker's demand is equivalent to Gawker's actions.
Is that too hard to understand?
Exposing that all these people signed up for a cheating site simply shows they signed up for a cheating site. There is no filter of truth. If they want to tell their loved ones they were just looking -- that is for them to do, but if the partner didn't already know, why is that?
Nobody makes cheaters not communicate. Makes them cheat. Esther Perel is a cheating apologist with made up credentials. All cheaters are not in "sexless marriages" to harridans. They just feel entitled to taking abusing the trust of their partner.
And I am not saying monogamy is for everyone, but if you committed to it, and your partners trusts that that represents your understanding of your relationship -- then you owe them a conversation that you have changed your mind on this before you start endangering their health and gaslighting. If you don't do that, why? Because you want what you want you you don't think your "partner" deserves the same...
I see questions. One is how to care for people who don't give their partners good cause to cheat. First instinct is that this would seem to require retention of the CPoS label as perhaps the only possible salve for a genuine victim of an affair. Another is how to deter people from acting a good deal worse than they would otherwise. If "staying married and sane" were universally accepted as entirely sufficient grounds for cheating, then even Claude Erskine Brown couldn't find a way to bungle 90% of his cases if that defence were a near-automatic winner.
What might be most interesting would be to see Mr Savage back this up with some action and start an agency of his own through which he would facilitate sanity-saving affairs for those whose circumstances met his own personal standard for good cause.
If the spouses are no longer having sex, the question is easier to answer than if they're having sex once a month while one partner wants it every day. In the latter hypothetical, an affair might be almost ethical if the cheater pushed for condoms during those monthly marital sex sessions and got tested every couple of months. Not ethical, but your kids might understand and keep you in their lives after it all comes out.
It's this morality play that is used to repress mostly women, and rarely men.
@21: Fair point, that would not be surprising.
#38 "All other cases of people (male or female) having extramarital sex without the knowledge or consent of their spouse makes the cheater as CPOS. That is simple enough to understand."
Is it really? Why not all cases? Why does the exclusion of sex (or intimacy for that matter) automatically make cheating okay? Why do loveless marriages get this magic pass?
I think at this point you are intentionally avoiding the key point here. Outing under limited conditions is fine. Cheating under a broad catch-all category is fine. One is a nuanced position, the other a blanket assertion. These two separate thoughts do not seem to be coming from the same skull. They speak to an internal inconsistency. A hypocrisy, if you will.
That Mr. Savage uses his position as a bully pulpit to push his own agenda rather than doing his job as a journalist only underlines the hypocrisy. This isn't an editorial. This isn't an advice column. This is supposed to be news, not what Mr. Savage wants to thrust upon us. If this was a Savage Love response, or if "Editorial" was at the top as opposed to "Panic - News - Sex", I wouldn't have bothered commenting. That would have been the proper place for such a singular attempt to use one's power and influence to impact society.
The formatting looks fine, save for the preview.
Savage isn't reporting the news, he's commenting on someone else's news. As this is Slog and not the News section, this should not be surprising to you. Fuck off.
To me, here's the difference.
Ashley Madison's entire reason for existence is to promote cheating, lying and emotional abuse of one's partner. That's the upfront stated purpose of the creators of the site.
By choosing to participate in Ashley Madison, you are financially supporting a business whose goal is to wreak havoc on individual lives. Even if YOU have a specific arrangement with your current spouse that makes your participation at AM different than the 99.9% of those who are using it to actually cheat, you are choosing to support a business that is fundamentally at odds with any coherent view or moral ethics.
To that end, if you choose to participate in that activity by financially supporting the business, I care not whether your information is outed.
Most people I know who are in open/poly or other non-traditional marriages eschew the ethics of cheating and sites like Ashley Madison.
In summary...I think you participate in the degradation of honesty through support of Ashley Madison, you have compromised my care about your anonymity.
Savage is reporting the news. If he wasn't, this would be in the editorial section. Even here on Slog, stories titled "News" are indeed news. Up until now/recently, that is.
Have a nice day. With levels of invective like that, clearly you need one.
So, let me get this straight (because you sound like an AM user)...
You're upset with AM for not keeping their stated covenants?
That's rich...
My way of analogy: it's understandable why I might yell at my spouse in a particular instance, and we may even have some arrangement where we have a Festivus-like "airing of grievances" now and then. But a website that charged users to discover new ways of belittling their spouses would be worthy of contempt.
And here's the distinction: we don't know whether any particular affair is the least-bad option for that marriage. But we do know that in the aggregate, there are a whole lot of affairs facilitated by Ashley Madison that are terribly destructive to a whole lot of marriages. In fact, I'd venture to say that most of the AM-enabled affairs are destructive, and thus AM has an overall negative effect on society. This is basic statistical theory: uncertainties disappear once you gather enough data points.
Does the hacker 'code' extend beyond AM? Plenty of people with spouses and partners are on traditional dating sites looking for something extra, as well as hook-up sites like Tinder and Grindr. Hell, they're on JDate and whatever Christian sites are out there, too. Should we send in those who feel its their job to police everyone's morals on there, too, ferreting out the coupled up from the singles?
I'm not saying I don't think think there are a hefty number of CPOS on AM, as well as other sites, but I don't think my disapproval of what they are doing entitles me to their VISA card number, and a ringside seat to their trip to the public stockades.
It's funny that you should accuse Dan of being inconsistent when everybody here gets what he says, but we're all struggling to understand where you're going.
And Chase @ 51 is right: this is Slog, not the news section.
"Ashley Madison's entire reason for existence is to promote cheating, lying and emotional abuse of one's partner. That's the upfront stated purpose of the creators of the site."
um, nuh-uh. here's let's restate your ridiculous notion as a mission statement:
"At Ashley Madison, our mission is to promote cheating on, lying to, and emotionally abusing your partner!"
does that sound sufficiently silly to outline the nuance for you?
You weren't just on a website, looking to cheat or not, you were Degrading Honesty. In caps.
Dan, level with us, did you piss off a bunch of your old theater buddies? 'Cause people are writing in, like William Shatner doing the St Crispin's Day speech.
Timmeh, you kind of slipped from cheating to 'emotional abuse' without putting on a condom, there, stud. And you're implying that your own internet history, all the sites you've visited and things you've written for, say, the last ten years, could withstand scrutiny from the public at large.
Any guy who includes “I care not..” in his screed, if he's not wearing a period wig, has something rattling around in that closet.
Let me guess. Your real name isn't Timothy, it's John Snow, and you have a lovely devoted wife, but we can't hear from her, because she Lives North of the Wall.
And your many, many, poly friends...how would they like being outed? Not doing anything wrong, are they? So they're not worried about their relatives, landlords, or bosses knowing that they're drinking from many cups, are they?
I don't like the whole AM thing, either. In a perfect world, people going outside their current relationships would use other means. But once you sign on to peoples' private shit being outed, your private shit is included.
I think I most agree with #56 and #41. I'm not cheering on the hackers or anything but...eh...I think the number of sad mommies with disabled babies on there is being greatly exaggerated.
In other words I kinda accept the concept of cheating to stay sane but I don't see why you can't just be honest and say "I'm a living breathing human being who needs sex, from someone else if not from you", and then not going on some sleaziod site that makes money catering to CPOSs to do it.
We all get to take moral and ethical stands. That's all I've done here. I haven't advocated that the hackers should have a legal right to hack the system, though I'm probably not far removed from support of the idea that if you inflict intential emotional harm on a person through cheating, at the very least there should be potential for civil litigation.
All I'm saying here is that people who are in the specific acts of betraying contractual and personal agreements with the people in their lives get just about zero sympathy from me for anything that may result from their particiaption in those activities.
Further, of course there are people on OK Cupid and Tinder and Grindr who are cheating...but I find there's a fundamental difference in their support for a site whose sole purpose is to promote betrayal of the most intimate of human relationships. And honestly, I value the commitments made in those instances more than I value their economic right to a private credit card number. I know that's a radical position to take, and I don't expect many to agree with me here. Somehow we've concluded that business must be protected at all costs. I just give no fucks for the contractual protection of those whose intent is to break a contract.
Do some research on the founder of AM; I stand by my statement about the sleazy and unethical behavior of that as a business. You clearly disagree. Fine.
I actually care about integrity and moral ethics. Many people do. If you don't, you don't. But belittling me for caring about the ethics of a business is not really an argument that I take seriously.
#60, How am I a troll? Who have I baited? Who have I flamed? I've taken more flaming than I've dished out. Objectively, I am more likely trollbait than a troll myself. Then again, speaking truth to power tends to have that effect.
Wow, you 'care about integrity and moral ethics?' Besides the slight redundancy of that last one, wow, that's like summiting K2 on the Polish line! You're in exclusive company! You might schedule a meeting with Libertine, who appears to believe she was the first to take in some bad shit as a young'n, then change her mind. She tends to change the focus of her argument, like a child cheating at Battleship, though, so guard yourself.
As SuperChicken used to say, you knew this job was dangerous when you took it, Fred.
I'm not 'belittling you because you care about ethics,' I'm belittling you because you write like a young teen impersonating an English accent from his basement in the flyover 'burbs, plus I'm over 45, and I've heard your rap a million times before, mostly from guys whose personal record was less than sterling, and I have some understanding of human nature from Shakespeare and Somerset Maugham, and the story of the traveling preacher who seduces the housewife is old news.
Newt Gingrich did a previous version of your act, and when he was outed for pontificating about morals while cheating on his wife, it didn't blow my mind, because I never figured he had standards, besides 'act superior' and 'don't get caught.' These people tend to either get caught with the poolboy, or frantically paying off the maid to get an abortion.
And plenty of emotional damage will be done in those marriages where the spouse did not know. Heck, even where the spouse did know, there will be the embarrassment that comes when friends, neighbors, family, etc. find out. You can't hurt only the cheater with this scheme.
It does not matter whether you think Ashley Madison is bad or good, revealing the financial data is against the law and I hope the law comes down on these hackers like the proverbial ton of bricks.
"On Friday a post was deleted from Gawker over the strenuous objections of Tommy and myself, as well as the entire staff of executive editors...”
Editor indeed!
While I am firmly against posting the names and information of AM customers, I can't agree that there are times when cheating is justified. I know many cheaters *feel* justified, sometimes for the reasons cited by Dan, sometimes for reasons that are less extreme, but choosing to compound existing relationship problems with lying and unilateral non-monogamy, discreet or not, strikes me as disrespectful to a partner who should be aware of the true state of their partnership and sex life.
I think sometimes people rationalize "discreet" cheating by telling themselves their actions will only cause pain if the monogamous partner discovers the infidelity. While I think there may be some monogamous partners who are okay with discreet cheating, I think that particular rationalization is frequently employed by CPOSs who wish to keep their partners monogamous while playing the field themselves.
I can see advantages to eliminating social disapproval of cheating or spouse-poaching (if it's acceptable to combine this with Mr Savage's decreasingly anti-CPOS assessment of spouse poaching situations on the grounds that maybe the marriage or relationship was already basically over and it was just a case of being a bit premature), but it's not a complete benefit all around if it gives cover to people who just want to act badly or even feel less disinclined to do so because there won't be any negative consequences.
On the actual case of the post, I'm inclined to agree with you.
Should they post my name, I'm not at all concerned about how my wife will respond. We each gave as good as we got during that period, and we came out the other side. Those experiences opened us up to a new level of intimacy and a whole host of new problems to argue about. Yeah, she'll roll her eyes that I checked out such a dumb site, but that's all.
What I do worry a little bit about is what everyone else will think. My parents, people on Facebook, job interviewers. The hidden Timothies in my life: The self-righteous types who will see a name on a list and concoct some bullshit story about what I did so they can feel morally superior. Now, I can feel morally superior to them right back; but practically speaking, this will be a stain I'll have to get used to.
It makes me reflect a little on all the stains I could find myself explaining one day. Fetlife, porn, The New York Times, my humiliatingly large collection of Kindle self-help books.
Anyway, I'll be curious to see what happens. I hope not too many outed people kill themselves.
Best line of the match. Errm, thread.
Personally I think actual cases of justified cheating are exceedingly rare (and becoming more so) and exist mostly for the sake of argument. The stronger argument I think against the public exposure of affairs is the damage that would be done to the innocent party in the affair. If A cheats on their partner B, B is the only victim, so B is the only person who has a right to know. Which is why the hackers are wrong.
We have no idea that this executive was lying to anyone. What we do know is that the escort was committing a felony by extorting his john, and Gawker played along. The escort violated every unwritten rule about client privacy and confidentiality. If anything, HIS name should have been publicized, but not his client's. And let me repeat, the escort was committing a crime. A very serious crime. A felony for which another escort, Jarec Wentworth, was just convicted and faces up to 9 years in prison.
I find it highly improbable that it's mere coincidence that this particular client just happens to be an executive at a media company in direct competition with Gawker. If he instead was an exec at IBM or Google or Bank of America or Boeing or Chevron, would Gawker have even bothered? Especially running a story that publicizing the john's name while keeping the felonious blackmailer's name private? I sincerely doubt it.
Dan, I have a lot of respect for you, and I know that there are writers who were on The Stranger staff who ended up working for Gawker Media at some point or other, but I can't help but disagree. The number of times that Gawker and its affiliated sites have been caught doing things like publishing totally unconfirmed rumors as fact, failing even the most cursory investigation into spurious claims, having double standards for the sake of scandal, doing their best to throw someone, anyone under a media bus for the sake of making a story out of nothing, is legion. Gawker is the poster child for the worst that online media has to offer, and as much as they would like to call that journalism, they are by no accounts held to any kind of a higher standard than anonymous hackers, a fact which they time and time again have proven by posting "leaked" material regardless of whether or not the content is worthy of being leaked.
That being said, this article was a breath of fresh air among many voices who just take it on faith that each and every one of these marriages has been deeply violated in some way by people who, horror of horrors, actually want some physical intimacy in their brief time here on Earth. If anyone ought to be ashamed, more than merely the people who actually leaked this information as if that isn't bad enough, it's the people who feel perfectly justified in giving no thought at all to whether or not marriages are more nuanced than two people being basically "locked in" with one another forever. People change, needs change, life changes, that's no reason to punish people for acts which might not have had a shred of malice or even neglect behind them. It isn't really a surprise that we still hold monogamy to be in some way magical, that there is some special quality to it that makes it oh so much better and more meaningful than polygamy (perhaps, for some, because it's something to be overcome, or some indicator that someone has a higher tolerance or a stronger capacity for a relationship they don't want, and I say that as someone who is and wants to remain pretty much monogamous--within reason. Who can say?). But it is disappointing to see a lot of people coming out of the woodwork to finger-wag and say "tsk tsk tsk, well you shouldn't have cheated" without knowing anything else about these relationships. That in itself is shameful.