What's most interesting about the Anthony Weiner photo and sexting
 scandal is not what was said, photographed and sent. It's not who
exposed the scandal. And it’s certainly not the warped psychology of
a vain man who risked everything for a dubious secret pleasure. It’s
the way society at large has reacted.

 I'm the ex-wife of a cheating man. When I was married to my college
sweetheart in my mid-twenties, he decided to have a business trip
fling, which resulted in the creation of a young man who would now be
college age himself. In an attempt to do the right thing – and
because our marriage must have had fissures I had never even dreamed
of – my first husband left me, married his paramour and moved out of
state to parent his son.

At the time, I was torn in how I felt towards the man who was busily
wrecking my life and future. On the one hand, I still loved him and
I wanted only the best for him. On the other hand, it outraged me
that he would not be made to pay, in any way, for his reprehensible
behavior. Though what he did was arguably worse (though not as stupid
and not nearly as entertaining) as what Representative Weiner - who
supposedly never even physically met any of his women –did, my first
husband suffered absolutely no societal condemnation or practical
repercussions for his actions.

His friends and family shook their heads at his folly, assured me that
he was an idiot and went right on loving and respecting him. His
 company promoted him and moved him across country to be with his new wife and child. Though his bad behavior was directly tied to a
company business trip and his boozy after-hours activities, no one at
his office blinked an eye.

I have to wonder how something like the Weiner scandal would play out
in the real world.

Suppose you had a buff, aggressive, married co-worker who, though vain
and annoying, was inarguably bright and knowledgeable and a good
spokesperson for the company. Somehow, another co-worker (who,
not-so-secretly dislikes the brash co-worker and really wants his job)
 gets hold of this annoying guy's personal twitter pics and anonymously
publishes a particularly nasty one over company email, blasting it out
to the whole firm. This prompts a girl from Accounting with whom he’d
also had a sexting relationship to come forward with more photos of
the jerk, passing them around in the lunchroom. The information is
 soon flying everywhere – all over his colleagues’  Facebook accounts,
Twitter feeds and out into the internet world. His wife is utterly
humiliated. Meanwhile, management figures out who it was that hacked
 this fellow's account and anonymously published that first telling
photo.

What would happen? Would the company star be fired for his tawdry
extra-curricular activities? Is it possible that the hacker would be
greeted as a hero for having exposed the “real” guy behind the
brilliant presentations to the firm’s clients? Or would the golden
boy creep get a good talking to, have a rough time with his wife for a
while and resume his march to greatness while the hacker got
criminally prosecuted for his computer hacking and fired for
conducting personal business on company computers? And what of the
girl from Accounting? Would she be sought after and consulted, or
would she be summarily sent packing?

I think we all know the answers.

It’s fascinating how much power a photo of someone we never knew -and
will never personally know – has over our collective consciousness.
The level of condemnation of Weiner across the board from liberals and
conservatives as well as the level of betrayal many liberals feel is
just plain weird. Why do we care so much about the immature
once-removed sexual activities of a guy like Weiner when we don’t
blink an eye at the betrayals perpetrated by the real people in our
midst?

Perhaps judgment is just way easier at arm’s length. And really, no
one should be expected to resist when the guy sending crotch shots
over the inter-webs is named Weiner.