New York City Mayoral Candidate Anthony Weiner is requesting privacy to address his online cheating.
By Tammy Nelson — Written on Aug 01, 2013
Mayoral candidate for the city of New York, Anthony Weiner, admitted Thursday last week to having three online affairs, after he quit Congress for being caught sexting naughty photos of himself and his, forgive me, his weiner, to what he admits now are anywhere from six to ten women.
Having three online affairs sounds a little more serious than sending photos of himself and his penis to over half a dozen women, and in fact, at least one woman has come forward and allegedly claimed that Anthony told her he loved her and she says he should stop lying to his wife and come clean about his problems with sex and his cheating behaviors.
Weiner, in a press conference where he and his wife read pre-prepared statements, insisted that he does not believe he has a sex addiction and he claims he is working with people (which sounds like he is in therapy), although he did not admit to being in any type of treatment at this time. He and his wife claim to have gotten help in the past for their marital crisis and Weiner assured the press that they are working on their marriage in this very personally troubling time. He seemed to imply that the greatest damage is done, and asked, "cant we all just move on?" He then asks for a, "modicum of privacy" so that he and his wife can deal with this issue.
How does a man announcing his candidacy for Mayor ask for privacy? He is running for a very public office, where it is expected that he will be publicly dragged through the proverbial mud. He has put up dozens of naked photos of himself online, in a very public domain, (The Dirty, a website that helps people sext to one another is only one example) where anyone can have access to them at any time.
Is Weiner entitled to privacy? His exhibitionistic behavior online would say that he wasnt interested in privacy when he was sending photos of himself to anonymous women. Yet now he wants privacy to deal with his marital issues, at the same time that he is putting himself in one of the most public and transparent positions in America. One might say that Weiner has some boundary issues.
Does he have the right to privacy? Because he asks the press and the public to give him time to deal with the fall out from his behavior should the potential voters put aside his questionable judgment and focus on his potential as a candidate on his platform only? How can we ignore the history of a man whose whole sordid mess of a marriage has been front page news in the past and is now in our face, once again? Is he purposely dragging his wife through more humiliation only to take a chance at the possibility of being in public office? Does he need the money that badly?
If Anthony were our friend, and he and his wife were at our dinner table, I think most of us could be generous. We would sympathize with his wife, we would shake our heads and pat him on the shoulder and maybe pull him aside with some well intentioned advice that started out with:
"Dude, what were you thinking?"
And we might hand him a card for a really good therapist,
"Hey, here is Dr. Tammy Nelson's card, she is amazing, and she can help you and your wife pull through."
And if he were to ask, humbly, for us, as friends, to give him some time to work on his issues and to focus on his marriage, well, then we most likely would. Of course we would. But if he told us he was running for mayor, and that he was putting himself out there again, and oh, by the way, more photos and sexting and a few more affairs were going to come out, and it could get ugly....well, we might not be so sure that he was really ready. We might pull him aside and say, with all due respect,
"Dude, what are you thinking?"
Read more: Anthony Weiner falls in the polls as he admits to 3 online relationships after exit from Congress
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