[john_b]

Except that shooting someone is generally illegal, whereas having an affair is not. Allocate your sympathy as you wish, but don't pretend that a person deserves to be the victim of a crime because you or anyone else find their behavior distasteful.

[josinalvo]

To cheat, to break your word given to a life partner, is not just distasteful. It is wrong. It makes the world a darker place, and not only to you and your partner (and that is what wrong means)

I know this kind of statement is viewed with distrust. And I see why this is so. But I think some moral discussion might be good (rather than just the bland 'lets not judge')

First, I am not saying that I think all marriages need to be monogamical or 'till death'. Both ideas are probably bad on average (i.e.: make the world a darker place as well, cause needless suffering). I, for one, think that promissing monogamy is a bad idea.

But to break the promice of monogamy is, indeed, bad. First, it is inherently unfair: One partner (Pa) might be resisting temptations, to the benefit of the other (Pb). Pb gets benefits from increased marriage security, increase sexual availability from Pa, increased emotional availability... But does not offer the same.

I mean, it would be clear that withdrawing all the money from a joint savings account is bad, right? That is the same thing... One side is doing a lot of effort to keep a mutual benefit working...

To cheat is a form of exploitation.

[fnordfnordfnord]

The time, place, and manner of sex or other activity that occurs between two consenting adults is none of my business whatsoever unless one of those people is my spouse. When one of those people is my spouse and the other is not me, then my problem is with my spouse, not with any website or other instrument used to facilitate the infidelity. What meaning would an agreement such as marriage have if cheating were literally impossible?

>But I think some moral discussion might be good

Let's discuss how we can keep from inflicting our own personal morals on those who do not share our moral philosophies; lest someone show up here and one-up us all with an even better morality than the one we already have.

[philwelch]

Cheating is also something that roughly 50-70% of married people do. Sex, along with food, water, and drugs, is one the basic, biological human compulsions and it's part of the human condition, for a large majority of us, to fall victim to it against our better judgment. As wrong as it is to cheat, it's even more wrong (and more harmful, which is perhaps the same thing) to invade people's privacy and expose cheating.

[DanBC]

Adultery is illegal in many bits of the US.

[fnordfnordfnord]

It is but according to the Wiki it there hasn't been a conviction in the US since 1983.

[amyjess]

Having an affair actually is illegal in almost half the US, and in some states, it's even a felony.

[balls2you]

> Having an affair actually is illegal in almost half the US, and in some states, it's even a felony.

Wow! United Saudi Arabia (USA)!