Is a Sexting Spouse Cheating on You?Relationship Infidelity and the Real Villain Behind It
Hitting the lottery once in a lifetime will never happen to most of us, butn just hit the criminal justice system jackpot, not once, not twice, but three times. DNA evidence has linked him to three sexual assaults, but lucky old Brian will soon be released from prison without ever serving a single day for any of the assaults in question.
So is Brian Brockington just one of the "luckiest" men alive? Perhaps. But he had some help. Continuing the lotto metaphor, you could say the powers that be screwed up and now all of us have to pay up, starting with the women DNA evidence links him to assaulting. Or in casino terms one might say the slot machines are severely broken and those in charge of the house haven't made repairing them a priority. As a result we'll likely see a lot more Brian Brockingtons winning the criminal lotto in coming years. Allow me to explain related articles.
As reported in the New York Daily News:
Brockington, 35, was arrested on rape charges in 2007 and his cousin Rodney Howard, 36, was arrested two years later after their DNA matched evidence from a 1993 gun-point attack on a 29-year-old woman. But because of a police backlog, the DNA evidence from the crime wasn't processed for nearly a decade -- and prosecutors filed charges a day after the crime's 10-year statute of limitations expired, said Steven Reed, spokesman for the Bronx DA. The DA's office realized their error only after the cousins were arrested -- and prosecutors were forced to drop the rape charges.
Ghosts do not die. That is the power of a phantom. You can bury of the cases to the chanting of the prosecutor's fraudulent funeral rites, but its restless spirit keeps rattling through the haunted house of the UMNO Party's premier family. The latest rattle, in which the shocking revelations that Prime Minister Najib Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor were involved in hatching sodomy accusations against Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim Ghani Patail has the chance to go down in his nation's history as either a colossal waste of a promise, or as the exorcist who rid Malaysia of the ghost of all the ghost ., the then chief minister of Malacca, Abdul Rahim Thamby Chik, was reported to have raped a 15-year-old schoolgirl (under Malaysian law, sex with a minor constitutes statutory rape). Lim Guan Eng, currently the chief minister of Penang and the then MP for Kota Melaka, spoke out against the rape of a minor after the girl’s .grandmother-cum-guardian, who was also Lim’s constituent, turned to him for help.However, far from deserving justice, both Lim and the schoolgirl received their “dues”. Lim was jailed for three years for speaking up against the rape while the girl was given three years “protective custody”. As for Rahim, because of the rape and pending corruption charges, he was forced to resign, after a 12-year stint as Malacca’s chief minister.But the judiciary saw Rahim escape punishment for a crime committed; this came about after the public prosecutor withdrew the charge citing lack of evidence. The corruption charges against Rahim were also dropped.The travesty of justice is such that on Feb 28, 1995, Lim was thrown into jail after he was charged under the Sedition Act for prompting “disaffection with the administration of Malaysia”.On March 17 the same year, he was slapped with another charge under the Printing Presses and Publications Act for “maliciously printing” a pamphlet containing “false information”, specifically that Lim had used the term “imprisoned victim” to describe the schoolgirl who was raped.As a result of his trying to seek justice for the rape survivor, Lim was barred from holding public office for five years, making him ineligible to contest in the 2004 general election.As for the underage rape survivor, she was initially detained for 10 years without parental consent. She was subsequently sentenced to three years “protective custody” in a house for “wayward girls”. During Lim’s trial, the girl gave evidence that she had sex with a minister.With such lecherous politicians in our midst, the safety of girls and women – be they our sisters, daughters, mothers and foreign female workers – is at risk. There is no telling which politician is waiting to sexually assault the girls and women in this country. What is annoying is the fact that the crime is easily dismissed by threatening and buying the silence of the victim.In Rais’ case, if the rape had never taken place as he claimed, then what made his domestic helper of eight years to suddenly pack her bags and leave for home in Indonesia? If he has been such a kind and generous man as his former domestic helper claimed when retracting her allegation of rape, the question of her quitting her job would not arise. There is no doubt something is amiss here, no matter how much Rais denies it.In the case of Rahim, he was never convicted and continues to enjoy life while Lim spent three years in jail and the the rape survivor was sentenced to three years in a house for “wayward girls”. What wrong did the girl do to end up in a house for wayward girls while the perpetrator, Rahim, walked a free man? Where was justice when it was desperately needed?
The public editor of the New York Times, Arthur Brisbane, sided with readers whoexpressed outrage over a story in the paper about a brutal gang rape in Texas.The story, which was published last Tuesday, focused on the rape of an 11-year-old girl by 18 boys and men in Cleveland, Texas. But critics excoriated the Times for, in their view, blaming the girl for the attack.In a blog post on Friday, Brisbane said he agreed."My assessment is that the outrage is understandable," he wrote. "The story dealt with a hideous crime but addressed concerns about the ruined lives of the perpetrators without acknowledging the obvious: concern for the victim."Brisbane pointed to the sections that drew the most ire, where residents were quoted expressing worry about the burden the men will have to carry because of their crimes, and where the girl was described as often "dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s.""If indeed that is the only sentiment to be found in this community - and I find that very hard to believe - it becomes important to report on that as well by seeking out voices of professional authorities or dissenting community members who will at least address, and not ignore, the plight of the young girl involved," Brisbane wrote.The Times initially defended the story in a statement, saying the writer of the article, James C. McKinley, was merely reporting what he had been told. But the paper's standards editor, Phillip Corbett, seemed to walk back that defense in an interview with Brisbane, saying that the Times "could have done more to provide more context" to stress the fact that the victim was not being blamed.
INVESTIGATION PAPERS ON SOI LEK’S SEX VIDEO TO BE SENT TO AG
KUALA LUMPUR – The investigation papers on the distribution of the sex video involving MCA President Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek will be submitted to the Attorney-General’s Chambers soon.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein said Dr Chua lodged a police report after being informed by a colleague on the distribution of envelopes containing two DVDs in several areas in Batu Pahat, Johor, which was intended to smear his image.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein said Dr Chua lodged a police report after being informed by a colleague on the distribution of envelopes containing two DVDs in several areas in Batu Pahat, Johor, which was intended to smear his image.
Following the report, police conducted an investigation and the investigation papers submitted to the Attorney-General’s Chambers, before the Attorney-General ordered for further investigation, he said in a written reply to a question by Hee Loy Sian (PKR-Petaling Jaya Selatan) in Parliament Tuesday.
Hee wanted to know the rationale Dr Chua was not charged in court.
Hishammuddin said the case was investigated under Section 292/509 of the Penal Code.
In January 2008, Dr Chua resigned from his cabinet post and as MCA vice-president after admitting that the man in the sex video was him.
in Verve.
* Unwelcome sexual behaviour like physical contact
Brockington was subsequently linked to two other sexual assaults.
The scary thing about the Brockington case (you know, besides the fact that an alleged serial rapist will likely soon be walking among us) is that the current system virtually insures that Brockington will not be the last alleged rapist set free by what some are calling a "technicality" but increasingly looks like willful legal negligence. Not simply on the part of police and prosecutors, but on the part of legislators.
In interviews with representatives from organizations dedicated to aiding survivors of sexual assault and improving the criminal justice system's prosecution of sex crimes, I learned that as the current system stands the release of the Brian Brockingtons of the world is virtually inevitable, caused by a nearly perfect storm of the following:
• Only five states in America have no statute of limitations for any felony, meaning any felony crime can be prosecuted at any point at which prosecutors believe there is sufficient evidence, even if the alleged crime took place decades earlier.
• Only 27 states have explicit DNA exceptions on the books rendering statute of limitations non-enforceable or significantly widening the time frame for such limitations should DNA evidence link a suspect to a crime.
• The Justice Department estimates there are at least 100,000 rape kits from unsolved sex crime cases waiting to be tested at labs around America.
• The actual amount of evidence waiting testing nationwide is much higher than 100,000, because before DNA collection became the norm there was no universal standard for storage of such evidence. This means there is an untold amount of evidence stored in unknown places and unaccounted for, some of it misplaced and misfiled for decades.
You do the math. This means that in a plurality of states, regardless of whether or not DNA evidence successfully links a perpetrator to past crimes, there is very little our criminal justice system can do to insure that perpetrator will serve any time. The reason? Because of a woefully antiquated and inept system that at the very least has been slow to adapt to the 21st century, and at the very worst has consciously chosen to treat sex crimes as low on the list of legislative and prosecutorial priorities.
Despite advancements in DNA technology a number of states still adhere to arcane statute of limitations provisions, meaning regardless of what evidence is unearthed that crime may not be prosecuted. "The rationale behind statute of limitations is that memories fade. DNA doesn't fade. It's good forever," said Scott Berkowitz, President of RAINN, the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network. "As long as you have the evidence, you should be able to use it anytime you finally identify the suspect."
But even those states that have attempted to address the statute of limitations problem have left loopholes in them so big a truck could drive through or more accurately, a criminal can escape through. For instance, while the New York state legislature bowed to pressure in 2006 and finally amended state law to eradicate statute of limitations for class B felonies, covering those deemed the most serious sex crimes such as first degree rape, a host of sex crimes are not covered. "We wouldn't be able to prosecute a case like Penn State here in New York," Joe Farrell, a spokesperson for New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault said, referring to child molestation allegations against Jerry Sandusky, a former assistant football coach at Pennsylvania State University. That means even if DNA evidence was discovered, such as a piece of one of the victim's clothing linking Sandusky to a crime, there would be nothing anyone could do to prosecute in the state of New York. "Ideally we would like to see the removal of all statute of limitations for such crimes to allow for delayed reporting."
But the legal challenges presented by statute of limitations provisions represent one broken cog in a piece of machinery full of defects. In many jurisdictions the processing of DNA evidence is so backlogged that as the statute of limitations clock ticks, with the ability to prosecute certain cases drawing to a close, the DNA evidence that could be used to prosecute said cases sits unanalyzed. There have even been instances in which a perpetrator was in custody for another crime, but because a rape kit had not been processed in a timely manner he was released before he was eventually linked to an unsolved sexual assault.
Some states, New York among them, have been shamed into doing the right thing and clearing the backlog. (Though the rape charges against Brian Brockington were just dropped days ago, the case represents a holdover from the years before the statute of limitations law was changed and the backlog was cleared in New York, illustrating the dangers other states face by not properly addressing those two issues immediately.) But plenty of other states have thousands of rape kits waiting to be tested, with the cities Detroit and Houston being among the worst offenders. (Click here to see an in-depth report on this issue from CBS News in 2009.)
According to one expert interviewed, Houston represents a troubling, yet perfect example of just how badly broken the system is. It was originally believed there were a couple of thousand untested kits in the city, until thousands more were discovered in facilities other than labs. If every major city is like Houston -- and it is believed that many are -- then we have absolutely no way of knowing just how bad the backlog really is. We just know that it is bad. As this expert pointed out, "Part of the problem is that law enforcement is hesitant to invest resources in testing kits related to non-stranger assaults. Of course the problem is there are perpetrators who may assault someone they know as well as victimize strangers, but law enforcement may never make that connection because those kits are not being tested." (She asked that her name not be used since she is not the designated spokesperson for the organization she works with.)
So what, if anything, can we all do to prevent future Brian Brockingtons from winning the criminal lotto? For starters:
1) Contact your member of Congress and urge them to support H.R. 1523, "The S.A.F.E.R. Act." S.A.F.E.R. stands for Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence Registry. Co-sponsored by Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Ted Poe, The S.A.F.E.R. Act would create a national database of rape kits maintained by the Justice Department and would require local jurisdictions to inventory all kits in their possession. It would also allow law enforcement to track which kits are attached to cases in which the statute of limitations window is drawing to a close. 2)If you live in a state that still has statute of limitations provisions for sex crimes (and chances are you probably do) contact your state legislators and request that they amend the law. (To see which states have the worst statute of limitations provisions for sex crimes, or as I call them "predator friendly states," please click here.)
If you would like to learn about other ways in which you can help, such as signing a petition in support of The S.A.F.E.R. Act, or to access contact information for your elected officials, or review the statute of limitations law in your state please click here Let's all do our part to make sure that fewer Brian Brockingtons are set free
When the topic of infidelity spills into our daily dose of media, we may say we saw it coming, or we may react with shock. Either way, we don't exactly look away. Without even meaning to, we learn details, names, sources and suspicions. Most of us would admit that there is little point in speculating about the ins and outs, agreements and lies, secrets and circumstances of a stranger's affair, but our fascination with the indiscretions of others should tell us something about ourselves and the world around us.
It's hard to deny that, as a society, there's a lot to be examined about the ethics of our own relationships. In the United States, 45 to 55 percent of married women and 50 to 60 percent of married men engage in extramarital sex at some time during their relationship, according to a 2002 study published in Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy. Still, other studies reveal that 90 percent of Americans believe adultery is morally wrong. Infidelity is inarguably prevalent, yet it is extensively frowned upon. Given this discrepancy, it is important for every couple to address how they are going to approach the subject of fidelity and to examine the level of honesty and openness in their relationship.
Earlier this week I got a call from a well-known women's magazine and was asked to explain when it is okay for a woman to lie to her partner. I declined answering the question, for one simple reason: it's not! Since when did lying become okay? Lying to someone, especially someone close to us, is one of the most basic violations of a person's human rights. Whatever one's stance is on open versus closed relationships, the most painful aspect of infidelity is often the fact that someone is hiding something so significant from their partner. Two adults can agree to whatever terms of a relationship they like, but the hidden violation of the agreement is what makes an act a betrayal and an affair unethical. Thus, the real villain behind infidelity isn't necessarily the affair itself, but the many secrets and deceptions built around the affair.
In the book "Sex and Love in Intimate Relationships," I cited extensive research on the subject of infidelity and posed the following:
Deception may be the most damaging aspect of infidelity. Deception and lies shatter the reality of others, eroding their belief in the veracity of their perceptions and subjective experience. The betrayal of trust brought about by a partner's secret involvement with another person leads to a shocking and painful realization on the part of the deceived party that the person he or she has been involved with has a secret life and that there is an aspect of his or her partner that he or she had no knowledge of.
Damaging another person's sense of reality is immoral. While keeping a relatively insignificant secret from someone you're close to diminishes that person's reality, going to great lengths to deceive someone can actually make them question their sanity. It's true that feeling an attraction or falling in love may be experiences that are out of our control, but we do have control over whether we act on those emotions, and being honest about taking those actions is key to having a relationship based on real substance.
As kids, we are taught that it is wrong to lie; yet as we get older, the lines tend to become increasingly blurred. This is especially the case when we are faced with the challenging conditions that come with intimate relationships. Too often, when we get close to someone, our innermost defenses come into play, and we unintentionally alter ourselves to "make it work." The baggage we carry from our past weighs heavily on us, and we have trouble breaking free from old destructive habits and harmful modes of relating that distort both ourselves and our partners. When this happens, jealousy, possessiveness insecurity and distrust can cause us to warp and misuse our relationships.
Once a relationship becomes about compromising ourselves or denying who we are, we are no longer living in the reality of what the relationship is but in a fantasy of what we think a relationship should be. An example of this might be a woman whose boyfriend gets so jealous that he forbids her to be alone with other men. Another example may be a man whose partner feels so insecure that she demands to be constantly reassured of his love and attraction to her. Though these couples may go along behaving as if everything is OK, they'll more than likely begin to resent one another and lose interest in the relationship. This type of restrictive situation can become a hotbed for dishonesty. The woman may lie about time alone she spent with a male friend or co-worker, or the man may lie about an attraction he is starting to feel for another woman.
When we treat our partners with respect and honesty, we are true not only to them but to ourselves. We can make decisions about our lives and our actions without compromising our integrity or acting on a sense of guilt or obligation. When we restrict our partners, we can compromise their sense of vitality, and we inadvertently set the stage for deception. This is not to say that people shouldn't expect their partners to be faithful, but rather that couples should try to maintain an open and honest dialogue about their feelings and their relationship.
If our partners trust us enough to admit that they find someone else attractive, we might just be able to trust them enough to believe them when they say they won't act on this attraction. The more open we are with each other, the cleaner and more resilient our relationships become. Conversely, the more comfortable we become with keeping secrets, the more likely we become to tell bigger and bigger lies.
When an affair occurs, denial is an act of deception that works to preserve the fantasy that everything is okay. Admitting that something is not okay or that you are looking for something outside the relationship is information that your partner deserves to know. Emotions sprung from deception (like suspicion and anger) can tear a relationship apart, but more importantly they can truly hurt another person by shattering their sense of truth.
Psychologist and author Shirley Glass wrote in her book "Not 'Just Friends'":
Relationships are contingent on honesty and openness. They are built and maintained through our faith that we can believe what we are being told. However painful it is for a betrayed spouse to discover a trail of sexual encounters or emotional attachments, the lying and deception are the most appalling violations.
An ideal relationship is built on trust, openness, mutual respect and personal freedom. But real freedom comes with making a choice, not just about who we are with but how we will treat that person. Choosing to be honest with a partner every day is what keeps love real. And truly choosing that partner every day by one's own free will is what makes love last. So while freedom to choose is a vital aspect of any healthy and honest union, deception is the third party that should never be welcome in a relationship.
He's sexually "inappropriate." He lies about it for a while, but gets busted anyway. He apologizes to everyone he's hurt, mostly his wife.
Can you guess whom I'm talking about?
The joke is that men often think with the wrong head. But with all the high-profile sexual misadventures of late -- Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Rep. Christopher Lee -- it's hard not to struggle with the word "think," as in were they thinking?
And now, add New York Rep. Anthony Weiner to the list.
It's baffling how any politician would continue to engage in the kind of shenanigans Weiner admitted to Monday--that he had "inappropriate" online exchanges with at least six women in the past three years. But the past is the past and for the 46-year-old Weiner, the unmarried past. But then there's the lewd photo he Tweeted to a college student in Seattle last month, which he repeatedly lied about for the past 10 days.
Okay, I get (but don't condone) the lying -- it's embarrassing because the photo was meant to be private, and who wants to get caught with his pants down (or with a big ol' erection in your tight undies)? Very few of us would come clean on the first questioning. And you have to appreciate a guy who has a sense of humor in his online lust. In one photo allegedly emailed to a young thing, Weiner is on a couch with two cats nearby. The subject line -- "Me and the pussys."
Weiner says he never met any of his online flirts, and he says his wife of barely a year, Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, knew about some of his online escapades, although not the latest one. Tellingly, perhaps, she wasn't by his side at the tearful press conference. Weiner said "we have no intention of splitting up over this" and that she told him "we're going to get through this" as a couple, but she wasn't quite standing by her man.
Whether Weiner should resign or not isn't the question here. The question here is, does Weiner's sexting qualify as cheating?
Yvonne Thomas, a Los Angeles psychologist, would say yes. "When you're going outside the boundaries of what you're supposed to share, emotionally and physically, only with your partner, cheating is cheating is cheating," she says.
For Sexorcist columnist Michael Alvear, co-host of HBO's The Sex Inspectors, "sexting is not the new lipstick on the collar. It's the application of lipstick before you get it on the shirt. As such, sexting doesn't qualify as a fling." But he's quick to add it's stretching marital vows "to the breaking point."
On a CafeMoms forum, more women than not say they consider sexting cheating, although a few mention whatever you call it, it's wrong. At the online dating site PlentyofFish's forum, one wise commenter writes, "If your SO [significant other] would be deeply hurt, ticked off or kick you to the curb for doing it ... what difference does it make what you call it. Get permission first."
Since Weiner repeatedly apologized to his wife at Monday's press conference -- and one would have to presume even more earnestly in private -- it's likely he didn't exactly have her permission. But that she knew of his sexting history before marrying him doesn't make her "partly responsible" either, as MSNBC's Chris Matthews said. Like most newlyweds, she probably thought he'd stop that nonsense.
So, if Weiner never had any sort of physical contact with the women he'd been sexting, what, exactly has he done? He flirted, he teased, he talked dirty and he sent pictures of various body parts to presumably willing, of-age recipients. In fact, he's been doing what20 percent to 39 percent of America's teenagers admit to doing. Do you dump someone for that?
Chatting is not cheating, or so John Portmann, assistant professor of religious studies at the Unversity of Virginia, says in an essay by the same title in his book In Defense of Sin."The Internet has not given us a new way to have sex, but rather an absorbing new way to talk about sex. Distinguishing between flirting and infidelity will show that talking dirty, whether on the Internet or on the phone, does not amount to having sex."
The problem with the kind of constant online sexual banter Weiner has been engaging in, a sort of reciprocal crush at a distance, is that it "intensifies this type of relationship and promotes its distortion," says Michael J. Formica in his Enlightened Living blog at Psychology Today. In a weird way, emotional infidelity is safe -- there's a perception that you're not actually "doing" anything so you can't get "caught," even if there are a handful of women with photos of your junk in their inbox. But Abedin and every other partner who's had to deal with a sexting spouse are, he says, "in the curious position of experiencing all of the hurt, anger and sense of rejection associated with an affair, while the 'cheater' shrugs it off and 'doesn't get it.'"
I imagine Weiner "gets" it now.
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