Thread: 'Personal' Life - When It No Longer Is

The guy you're talking about is Anthony Weiner. No shit. That's actually his last name. He's the Democratic representative for New York's ninth district which includes parts of Brooklyn and Queens. Given the margins by which he wins his reelections he's a pretty popular guy. It's generally sixty percent or more of the vote against two or more other representatives. The girl who received the lascivious photo is a twenty-one year old college student who, though a self proclaimed fan, declares she's never met the guy. If he did in fact tweet his junk concealed in boxer briefs the guy had a moment of really poor judgment. However, not to be too profane, hot ass can make most anybody stupid. Especially after they've been drinking. Should that kind of judgment have an effect on his career? I think not. If this woman had been, say, his aide or someone employed by him or parallel to him--a coworker--then it should effect his career. Why? Sexual harassment. But that would only be if he in fact sent the photo in question. Since this incident is outside of his career path it should be outside of the public light. It does not show poor judgment on the job, were to have in fact tweeted the picture in question. However what this does show is politics as usual. Just think of it like that. The personal lives of politicians are routinely made open for public fodder because it suits the needs of their opposition in its multifarious forms. The USA is a society based upon a literally Puritanical value system. Though that value system is shifting slowly and sometimes with shocking speed, it shifts at different rates for different rates of the populace. Take my grandmother for instance. Was she rabidly homophobic and racist ten years ago? Yes. Is she still rabidly homophobic? No. She no longer cares. Is she still appallingly bigoted? Yes. Will that ever change? I doubt it. Personally, I believe that people should only have their personal lives exposed where it has directly intersected their public life. As much as it pains me to say this, the whole Monica LewinskiBill Clinton thing is a great example of this. Would it matter to me if he was hooking up with some random lady? No. Would it bother me if he was hooking up with the intern? Greatly. It shows very poor judgment about the appropriate way to work with your staff. That is your public life. How you interact with your coworkers, superiors and subordinates is inherently public. Another example is Michael Steele and the bondage club. Did it matter that he was into the BDSM scene? Not one single whit. Did it matter that he used money put together by the GOP to finance his sex dungeon fantasies? Very much so. That is a public matter because that GOP fundraising cash is a public thing. Here's an example of a witch hunt that never should have happened Ted Haggard. Should it have been a big deal that this popular televangelist--in his own time, in his own space--got handjobs from a meth dealing male escort by the name of Mike Jones? Not to the public. To the wife and kids? You betcha. Meth's bad. But he ended up resigning all of his leadership positions--keep in mind, congregation of twenty-two thousand--and underwent counseling by four other evangelical ministers to cure him. They pronounced him completely heterosexual. Only in January--this all happened in 2006--did he come out as bisexual. That whole thing was completely unnecessary. So what if Mike Jones approached the press? It had nothing to do with his work life. His own time, his own needs and wants. Still, crystal meth is bad news bears. As far as companies are concerned about social networking sites, I kinda get it. If you say you work for so-and-so on your profile and it's public then chances are for the sake of being professional you should not mention them. Period, good or bad. When I joined the company I work for now I had to sign a social media agreement which basically boiled down to, Please refrain from publicly mentioning us. If you have to, please don't reflect badly on us. That still meant there could be pictures of me, I don't know, shooting heroin as long as I wasn't saying, Heroin after a long day of working for so-and-so, just what a growing boy needs! It is a dicey, very gray area for me. But there we have that intersection of personal and public. You should be allowed to say whatever you want about your employers as long as you do not mention them by name. i think that's completely fair.