"A Serial Flasher?" What are the women in these episodes? Victims? I don't think so.

Sydney Leathers (click here) allegedly contacted Anthony Weiner on Facebook after he quit Congress in June 2011.

 

This is all consensual stuff. They weren't paid for their participation and they were not solicited in any way. Everyone was an adult and willing to be part of sexting occurring. Now, it's about making money. They never came forward when he announced his exploratory committee or when he first announced. They are in the public eye because New Yorkers might have a mayor with federal experience this time.

 

If anyone wants to discuss infidelity and the hardship on the marriage, three quarters of the time it is due to the fact, "The Other(s)" don't stop. Regardless of the insistence of the spouse to cut it off.

 

That is the dialogue. Why do the attempts by Anthony and Huma to stop the assault on their marriage fail? I mean you talk about impossible odds. She has had some very difficult days, but, her solace is there are numbers of sexual playmates and they aren't involved in an intimate way. The internet is a seduction tool. There are couples all over this country seeking help with their marriage because of internet relationships. When is that insidious tool going to become sensitive to the sexual assaults marriages have to face every moment of everyday.

 

I was affiliated with a campus women's organization when it became obvious there were emotional abuses of sexual partners on campus through this ridiculous media instrument called telecommunications and instant messaging. Young men and women about the age of this woman were emotionally bonding with people familiar to them or otherwise over a wireless device.

 

Professionals sat down and discussed what we were facing. We didn't like it. The wireless device was as much a necessary professional tool as it was a personal asset to communication with friends. It was a problem. If, as a campus community, we were demanding emotional competency with our learners and educators what were we going to do about it?

 

The paradigm took on the characteristics of "The Woman that Loves Too Much." That dynamic has very high recidivism rates. In the pockets and handbags and backpacks of our community was a dangerous weapon against their personal security and their emotional health.

 

The community could not simply turn them off, they were looking for work and passing around their resumes'. They were carrying out research with notes and papers on their devices. The devices were vital safety measures as well as a threat. There was no option of simply turning them off.

 

The emotional component had to conquered and we were fairly sure what we were looking at. Recidivism with a dangerous component is an education issue. The users of the device had to conquer their vulnerabilities. No different than 19 year old interns finding themselves without enforcers (parents) of their boundaries. Our community was 'on the loose' for the first time in their lives and they were emotionally vulnerable. There were many of them, not just one or two. We began to recommend these folks start by taking self-defense courses offered by the campus police when they took their required gym classes. We wanted to make the threat they were facing both emotionally and physically to become real.

 

Tears alone when their privacy was violated in a public way was not enough. Tears when a heart is violated to realize they are not the only one was not enough. Many of these experiences were new to them and we didn't approve of it. They weren't even worrying about self-survival in the real world. Cyberspace was now included in the abuses of the real world.

 

Additionally, the focus on wireless communications as a tool without a physical relationship should be prohibited. Asking for a date was not to occur over cyberspace. Allowing an emotional dating relationship without having a physical component was absolutely out of the question and if a strange it was then 'stranger danger.' Cyberspace offers an entire world of the untouchables. It is horrible, abusive and cruel and now the public is getting a real taste of it.

 

The issues surrounding 'deprogramming' from Sexual Cyber Abuse is very difficult. Competent emotional bonding can last a lifetime if it touches the private world of the human emotions. That is healthy. We need those deep abiding private places in life. When abuse is introduced into that private and emotional space it is not just sad, but dangerous.

 

I realize that politics can be garnered from such sexual mischief by candidates. No one should know that better than Anthony Weiner. But, the continued lack of substantive dialogue and focusing on nothing but tabloid headlines is not going get anyone anywhere. Will Mr. Weiner continue to embarrass himself? Who knows? But, then that simply means he is not a good marriage candidate and not necessarily a failure as a mayor.