Anthony Weiner: Chronic Cheater

I have a visceral negative reaction to cheating, no matter who is doing the cheating and regardless of whether or not I'm personally involved. The first time I ever heard of anyone "cheating" was the Monica Lewinsky scandal back when I was 10 years old. I was completely horrified by it! Why would a husband do that to his wife? What did Hillary do to deserve that? How could a father do that to his daughter? I was very upset with Bill Clinton in my little kid mind.

Fifteen years later, I haven't changed much when it comes to this topic. If anything, I take a harder line on it. Eight years ago I was on the "Monica" side of a cheating situation. I was 17 and when I realized how morally wrong everything I was doing actually was, I was the one who ended it. He is still married to the same woman. I've recently found out that he has continued cheating on her for seven years with at least three other girls.

Three years ago when I heard about Tiger Woods cheating on his wife with multiple women, I was destroyed. My dad had been through two heart surgeries and used the inspiration he got from Tiger's golf game to help himself get through physical therapy. Suddenly all of that meant nothing. Sure, his game still stood, but what did Tiger himself stand for?

Two years ago, Anthony Weiner was caught sexting many women. His wife, Huma, was pregnant with their son and I cried when I heard the news. Huma is a role model for women everywhere and she was publicly humiliated by her husband. A lot of women wanted her to leave Anthony because we all knew it was a chronic problem, not just a one-time occurrence (not that having a one-time fling is okay--Bill Clinton--it just changes the game a little bit).

Two weeks ago, Weiner got caught again. And it's not like the sexting was from 2011--it's from one year ago. A year ago is also around the same time he was in People Magazine saying he felt "like a different person."

When the new sexts came out a few weeks ago, people were shocked. Why? We need to learn that when people have a chronic cheating problem, it's chronic. That means that it does not go away. Men (and women) who cheat over and over, promising they'll "never do it again" every time they get caught, do not change.

Some people argue that rehab helps. Sure, just like it helps an alcoholic or drug user: that person will be fine until something triggers them and they need control or a "high" or whatever they use their addiction for.

Anthony Weiner is not a "different person." Neither is Tiger Woods or the guy I was involved with eight years ago. These chronic cheaters will always cheat. So don't let them cheat you by voting for them.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." --Gandhi

Rate-Your-Men App: Creepy, Sexist

Author's Note: It's good to be back! I had a wonderful wedding and honeymoon! Thank you all for being so patient and continuing to visit the site and blog while I've been gone. Wedding article coming soon!

Today I came across this news story about an app called "Lulu." It is a "girls-only" free app on which you can rate your male Facebook friends, including ex-boyfriends. You give them a number between 0 and 10 and then can leave descriptions, as well as positive and negative hashtags about them for other girls to see. The Lulu app is supposed to use "the power of collective wisdom to offer insights on life and love, and everything in between," according to its description on the App Store.

To write this piece with appropriate research, I downloaded the app. It might be one of the creepiest apps I've ever had! Every guy on your Facebook friends list is imported into this collage called a "dashboard." You can see their average score from all the girls who have rated them. When you click on a guy's photo, you see who has rated them: "friend," "hookup," "together," or "crush" and what hashtags they've used to describe them.

The screenshot to the right shows a guy who has had two hookups in a month. What happens when he wants a serious relationship? Are girls going to be scared off because of his "ratings?"

In this other screenshot I took, it shows the hashtags that girls have given him. What on earth does #QuestionableSearchHistory mean? The "best" hashtags include things like #RespectsWomen and #4.0GPA. What happened to the first date?! Why can't we find these things out on our own like we used to? And just because there's a hashtag on a guy, does that mean it's true? Is this now a digital way to pass up potential guys based on a hashtag, much like we used to dismiss guys based on their looks?

The other creepy thing about this app is that it has a "Last Seen" section to let all the ladies out there know where this eligible (or not eligible) man was seen. This seems a little too close to stalking. The guys are not providing this information--the girls are!

Now that we've explored the general creepiness of this act, there's something a little more morally questionable about the Lulu app: if guys had an app like this to rate the girls they know, there would be a lawsuit in less than 24 hours and it would get shut down. There is no way our society would support guys "objectifying women" and "pigeon-holing them with things such as hashtags." I am willing to bet that the same girls running around rating all the guys on Lulu would be horrified if there were guys rating photos of them in their bikinis and talking about their last "hookup."

Our society is in a habit of calling out sexism when men do it to women, but calling it "women's empowerment" and "collective wisdom" when women do it to men. This is a really good example of this blatantly obvious double standard.

This app was created by women, for women. Ladies, let's have a little self-respect. Women still struggle every day to get real, tangible equality. Do you really think teaching girls that it's okay to stalk the men they're interested in and that it's okay to say mean (oh--I mean "wise") things about guys because "they'll never see it" has any integrity? Is it good for girls to be used to objectifying men and then be massively offended when a guy makes an offhand comment about their looks because they feel that they are "only wanted for their looks?"

Lulu is an app that is, in my opinion, more destructive than helpful. It is extremely creepy and sexist. This is the kind of app that we need to speak out against and not allow to take hold in our already struggling society.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." --Gandhi