The Pixelated Scarlet Letter
A new kind of scarlet letter can be painted on cheaters at the "cheater registry," a web site that aims to create a searchable database of social transgressors. Adultery isn't a criminal offense in the United States, strictly speaking, but the basic similarities between a cheater registry and a sex offender registry aren't coincidental. Molesters are tracked because they have high rates of recidivism and there is a great deal of societal fear about the ongoing danger posed to children. We also fear secretiveness - a child molester could be your neighbor, and you might never know it - and we want a way to shame those who have committed such horrible crimes.
Cheaters should be tracked, or so the thinking seems to go, because "once a cheater, always a cheater" - they will cheat again, and continue to get away with it because no one knows about it. If you change your address or social circles, there might be no one to warn new people, but a database entry will follow you wherever you go. And having a profile created on such a site is a kind of public shaming. Anybody could look you up, from a friend to a spouse to a curious coworker, and they will then be privy to private information about your sex life. Or, what's supposed to be private information about your sex life.
One of the safeguards present with police databases is that they list people who have been officially charged, investigated, and sentenced. Citizens cannot make entries into such a database on a whim or as a means of revenge. The cheater registry's Facebook information page seems to be aware of this when it states: "Cheaters cannot be posted without at least three verified pieces of information, which can include photos, voicemails, text message conversations or videos proving the indiscretion." But who verifies these pieces of information, and does a third party have the right to share communications that aren't theirs? And how much information is good enough to prove that someone has cheated? Is it enough that a phone number belongs to you?
And what about the future? An internet database entry could exist into perpetuity (and I have seen nothing about an expiration policy on the site), long after people have moved on. Do you deserve to have a scarlet letter painted on you forever for what might have been a suspicion, or a single transgression, or a difficult habit? Keep in mind that this is not a hate-filled blog posted on someone's personal web site, subject to their desires and alterations, but an entry stored by a company that has no incentive to take things down once the rage has ended. In fact, to be comprehensive and to maintain a righteous reputation, the company will likely want to keep entries up. But is it really their place to punish people in the first place?
While looking at other web sites and their thoughts on the cheater registry, I've seen certain kinds of language and rationale. "If you know a cheater who is yet to be outed, you can do the world a favor by creating a new profile for the filthy bastard," says The Frisky. "Have You Been a Victim of Cheating?" asks Good Times with Mo. This week, we were told that more intelligent men are less likely to cheat. So if you're smart, well-adjusted, caring, religious (and so on), you won't have cheated in the past and you certainly won't in the future, right? Because only filthy bastards cheat. Only weak people, stupid people, and moral lepers give in to temptation, and we'd never be like them. Right?
It is much easier to sit in judgment and to mete out righteous anger when you're on the outside, sitting above the fray in a bubble of superiority. It is much more difficult to account for the chaotic elements of human nature, the seeming senselessness of some of our decisions, and the ways we can hurt even those we love most. Because when you come down to it, this is not really a matter of "us" versus "them," as much as we want it to be. Some of us will never cheat and history bears that out - but all of us have the potential, and many of us will slip up in ways we never imagined before our ride on this merry-go-round is through. Many of us will fall short of all expectations, including our own, and we will still have to go on living and loving - and despite what any site says, cheaters have the right to move on, and fingers that are pointed too long lead not to healthy development, but resentment.
It is relatively easy to stew in anger, to lash out in confusion, and to try to even the score somehow, some way; at least that way, you regain some control and reassert yourself. It is much more difficult to deal with the weaknesses in everyone and to forgive what society screams must be unforgivable.
Those people trying to save their relationships and to move past indiscretions? They're openly pitied and derided for their choices, even (or especially) when those choices are made out of love.
The people at the cheater registry say they "are curious to see if fear of being posted on this site will have any influence on people’s behaviors as word spreads," and their blog states that "this is definitely not a religious site so we're not saying that you should fear God but the person you should be fearing is your spouse, fiancée or partner." I am curious if they understand that fear of surveillance and discovery has always been a part adultery, and has only driven it further underground. Even the fear of God and the fear of hurting the people you love the most in the world - even the fear of losing everything you own and the life that you have built from nothing - has not slowed overriding libidos down for long.
There is no simple cause for cheating and no simple cure, and a scarlet letter of a pixelated sort will fail like all the others before it.
Cheaters should be tracked, or so the thinking seems to go, because "once a cheater, always a cheater" - they will cheat again, and continue to get away with it because no one knows about it. If you change your address or social circles, there might be no one to warn new people, but a database entry will follow you wherever you go. And having a profile created on such a site is a kind of public shaming. Anybody could look you up, from a friend to a spouse to a curious coworker, and they will then be privy to private information about your sex life. Or, what's supposed to be private information about your sex life.
One of the safeguards present with police databases is that they list people who have been officially charged, investigated, and sentenced. Citizens cannot make entries into such a database on a whim or as a means of revenge. The cheater registry's Facebook information page seems to be aware of this when it states: "Cheaters cannot be posted without at least three verified pieces of information, which can include photos, voicemails, text message conversations or videos proving the indiscretion." But who verifies these pieces of information, and does a third party have the right to share communications that aren't theirs? And how much information is good enough to prove that someone has cheated? Is it enough that a phone number belongs to you?
And what about the future? An internet database entry could exist into perpetuity (and I have seen nothing about an expiration policy on the site), long after people have moved on. Do you deserve to have a scarlet letter painted on you forever for what might have been a suspicion, or a single transgression, or a difficult habit? Keep in mind that this is not a hate-filled blog posted on someone's personal web site, subject to their desires and alterations, but an entry stored by a company that has no incentive to take things down once the rage has ended. In fact, to be comprehensive and to maintain a righteous reputation, the company will likely want to keep entries up. But is it really their place to punish people in the first place?
While looking at other web sites and their thoughts on the cheater registry, I've seen certain kinds of language and rationale. "If you know a cheater who is yet to be outed, you can do the world a favor by creating a new profile for the filthy bastard," says The Frisky. "Have You Been a Victim of Cheating?" asks Good Times with Mo. This week, we were told that more intelligent men are less likely to cheat. So if you're smart, well-adjusted, caring, religious (and so on), you won't have cheated in the past and you certainly won't in the future, right? Because only filthy bastards cheat. Only weak people, stupid people, and moral lepers give in to temptation, and we'd never be like them. Right?
It is much easier to sit in judgment and to mete out righteous anger when you're on the outside, sitting above the fray in a bubble of superiority. It is much more difficult to account for the chaotic elements of human nature, the seeming senselessness of some of our decisions, and the ways we can hurt even those we love most. Because when you come down to it, this is not really a matter of "us" versus "them," as much as we want it to be. Some of us will never cheat and history bears that out - but all of us have the potential, and many of us will slip up in ways we never imagined before our ride on this merry-go-round is through. Many of us will fall short of all expectations, including our own, and we will still have to go on living and loving - and despite what any site says, cheaters have the right to move on, and fingers that are pointed too long lead not to healthy development, but resentment.
It is relatively easy to stew in anger, to lash out in confusion, and to try to even the score somehow, some way; at least that way, you regain some control and reassert yourself. It is much more difficult to deal with the weaknesses in everyone and to forgive what society screams must be unforgivable.
Those people trying to save their relationships and to move past indiscretions? They're openly pitied and derided for their choices, even (or especially) when those choices are made out of love.
The people at the cheater registry say they "are curious to see if fear of being posted on this site will have any influence on people’s behaviors as word spreads," and their blog states that "this is definitely not a religious site so we're not saying that you should fear God but the person you should be fearing is your spouse, fiancée or partner." I am curious if they understand that fear of surveillance and discovery has always been a part adultery, and has only driven it further underground. Even the fear of God and the fear of hurting the people you love the most in the world - even the fear of losing everything you own and the life that you have built from nothing - has not slowed overriding libidos down for long.
There is no simple cause for cheating and no simple cure, and a scarlet letter of a pixelated sort will fail like all the others before it.