From: barry@netcom.com (Kenn Barry)
Subject: Re: Peeking through the curtain
Date: Thu, 09 Apr 92 17:59:58 GMT
Organization: QQQCLC

[]
	I'm going to mostly abandon the antiphonal response business,
because this time it's leading away from what I want to talk about.

	I don't generally approve of secret infidelities, Fred; that's not
where our disagreement lies. I do think you're complicating the moral
question needlessly, though. Try this idea on, and see how it fits:
instead of drawing a hypothetical causal chain of affair --> divorce
(which is exceptional; most affairs don't result in divorce) in order to
show how the third party has a moral responsibility to someone they've
never even met (their lover's spouse), why not take a simpler approach?
The better question is to examine that third party's moral responsibility
to their (married) lover.

	I think this is a more sensible approach. First, the moral
responsibility is clear: if you don't have the best interests of your own
lover at heart you're sleazy; doesn't take any abstruse arguments to show
_that_, right? Second, our third party has something to go on, some real
information from which to decide if the affair is a good thing for their
lover. They know their lover, know something of their situation and their
personality, and something of what this affair probably means to them.
The effect on their lover's spouse, by contrast, can only be guesswork.

	In the typical case this may well leave some onus of blame on the
third party, but you really have to decide on a case-by-case basis. What
is also interesting is to reexamine who the victims are in an affair. When
an affair works out badly, know who is most often the biggest victim? The
third party. To repeat, most affairs don't end in divorce, and even when
they do, it's not common for the cheating spouse to end up staying with
their lover.

	Your archetypal affair seems to be some sleazy back door man who
spots a confused, unhappy wife and uses her confusion to get into her
pants. We agree he's a sleaze - he's mistreating his lover, so he's
immoral by my logic, too. But let's expand the possibilities, using
your own interesting anecdote:

In article <1992Apr9.020355.20800@mks.com> fredw@mks.com (Fred Walter) writes:
>I once lived (platonic
>room-mates) with a woman who seemed to only date married men. She never
>knew they were married when she first met them, but she eventually figured
>it out.

	This is interesting already. So far it sounds like she'd get a
clean bill of moral health from you, Fred. She was lied to, she didn't
fool around with married men intentionally.

>And she usually got back at the men by trying to give the wives
>involved a nervous breakdown.

	OK, still with you, I think. She's getting back at the men for
lying to her, claiming to be single in order to get her in bed. Can I
assume we agree she has cause to be PO'd, or is there something I'm
missing?

>It was all a game to her. She had a blast.

	Now, here's where I get confused. You're clearly grouping her with
the "assholes", those that don't respect others' marital vows, but why??
What did she do? By your own description she got involved with these men
without _knowing_ they were married. And while you don't give the
timetable, you imply that turning these men in to their wives is virtually
the first thing she does when she discovers they _are_ married.

>I remember one phone call she made. She called up the guys home, and asked
>for him. She knew he had moved out on the wife, so she knew he wouldn't be
>there. So, the wife goes "He's not here right now, who's this ?" and Judy
>goes "I'm his girlfriend, who're you ?". And the wife proceeds to have a
>nervous breakdown. Right after this call, she called up a girlfriend of hers
>and repeated both sides of the conversation. Just part of the game to her.

	What game is she playing, Fred? She sounds like a victim to me.
She was lied to and seduced, and when she discovers this she takes
revenge. You've given me more reason to believe she was hurt and angry
than that she's playing a game. Why do you feel it was a game?

	You say the husband had moved out? They were separated? And you
still think it's immoral for a third party to become lovers with either of
them? I'm having more and more difficulty relating this anecdote to the
subject we were discussing.

	And, finally, the matter of informing on the cheating spouse. I'm
curious, Fred: if someone's spouse is cheating on them, do you think it's
better if they know, or are in the dark? I think it's better they don't
know, and I don't approve of what your former roommate did, but I wonder
what you think?

>Kenn and some of the others here sound a lot like her to me.

	Not to me, but I'm still unclear on what you blame her for. Is it
the informing on her lovers? We agree that's wrong. But if not that, what?
What did you leave out of the story? Why is she not the victim the facts
suggest her to be, but the villain your summary of her character
portrays?

-  nothing fails like success  -          Kenn Barry
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