Originally Posted by Parkbandit
Adultery is a private choice. The important rejection of it comes from love, not intimidation. The reason not to commit it is that it is likely to devastate someone you love if he or she learns about it. And the only way that person won't learn about it is if you tell a lot of lies. Telling a lot of lies eventually harms your ability to maintain a trusting relationship; secretiveness undermines intimacy. And tending a committed, intimate relationship is a deeply meaningful part of life, though we all know it has its share of bad days.
While biographers have described people who are exceptions and seem able to countenance adultery and marital intimacy at the same time, by and large the reason not to choose adultery is that the pleasure it offers is taken in trade for harming more enduring love and more important loved ones.
But publicly humiliating anyone for consensual adultery is draconian, and wrong. It teaches children cynicism. What they see is how little respect there is for privacy, and how gratuitously and harshly adults will harm one another to gain a little power. And using adultery or any aspect of consensual adult sexuality as a weapon in political battles is more abhorrent than the act itself.
You might say that how and why we disapprove of adultery is as important as whether we do.
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