A story rumbling around the message boards concerns two Iowa fans who were caught having adult relations in a Metrodome handicapped stall last Saturday, an event that has probably garnered more reaction than the lackluster 55-0 game itself. The punchline of the story, as it's usually reported, is this: "the woman was released to her husband, the man to his girlfriend."
Hilarious, right?
Right, and, as a side note, really just an insignificant footnote, it shows the blackened moral abyss into which we've descended.
I don't mean sex. No matter how pious or amoral a society, alcohol doesn't mix well with inhibitions and intoxicating scents often create lustful air. Hook-ups are virtually inevitable, be it in the taverns of Shakespeare's England or in the dark corners of swank Atlanta clubs.
And I'm certainly not opposed to personal responsibility. The two were clearly in violation of Minnesota law and, surely more embarrassing, have to own up to their behavior with their significant others.
But that, you see, is about as far as the stone-throwing should go, for most of those criticizing or causing additional pain for the woman in question live in houses far more fragile than glass. What's worse is that while straddling their own high horses about personal responsibility, most of the Internet jockeys tacitly refuse to take responsibility for their own actions.
Because there's more to any story than the two-sentence blurb I posted in the opening paragraph. On Wednesday, the woman in question was fired from her job during a recession. She continues to have her name and photograph plastered over the Internet and has received numerous prank calls.
For a misdemeanor and an act that is better dealt between husband and wife than by internet pontification.
And yet they persisted. Despite the scant known facts, the geniuses of the Internet started throwing out their scholarly theories, some suggesting she has an alcohol problem, others supposing she is a skank, a swinger, and a lousy mother, and most using it as a springboard for jokes even after the follow-up story came out.
Are these twits going to take responsibility for the woman's unemployment? For her name permanently etched in the Internet stone of Google searches? For the embarrassment her family has to suffer? For the harassment?
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about 1 month ago
And yet here you are exploiting it further...all for a point, granted...but still here in this place with a headline to attract readers...who will be enticed by the subject matter.
who has not been in her place? a moment of indiscretion - regretted? she paid the ultimate price for her act and may have regardless...but double standards are nothing new...they will always be in place in this society.
we are a society of stone throwers - our motto is - just so long as i don't get caught myself!
people laugh because they can identify with her--some are just plain cruel...there is a lot of that in this world.
it is indeed a sad and unnecessary commentary...in my humble opinion...bobbie
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