The XX Factor: Slate women blog about politics, etc...

Spitzer's Thorny Issues

Well, all gerbils aside, there are several thorny issues here. 

A male Slate contributor, who asked to remain nameless, wanted XX Factor to address whether it’s worse if your husband cheats with a prostitute or a nonprostitute. 

I’m not sure that question really gets to the point. The real point, I think, is that people hate hypocrisy. Or rather, we treat it like shit and masturbation and homelessness—it’s OK that it exists, we just don’t want to have to look at it. So I’m not sure this Spitzer thing is about sex or cheating or prostitution or spending money or even about breaking the law, so much as it is about lying, about presenting one image of yourself to the public (crime-fighting avenger!) while doing something very different in private (partaking in the very crimes one is fighting). In fact, Meghan, I think that Spitzer did not become interested in prostitutes because he was prosecuting sex rings, I think he prosecuted sex rings because he was interested in prostitutes. 

It’s like a pedophile who becomes a priest because he thinks it will help him stop.