Who is the real victim in a cheating scandal?
People continue to debate the liability of a website and its owners when it comes to suicides of the platform’s users.
I am referring to the Ashley Madison cheating website scandal from earlier this summer that exposed tens of millions of potential cheaters who were signed up for a little fun on the side.
Several discussions — namely arguments — have started about the role a website could play in someone taking their life. One of the biggies is: “Do you blame the victim who was so devastated that their cheating tendencies embarrassed the hell out of them so much that they killed themselves?”
Dialing it back a little more, is the “victim” really the victim in a case like this? Can we consider a cheater a victim? Or is the true victim the partner who is being cheated on?
Maybe there is more than one victim in this situation. And if so, is one more important than the other? Do we feel more compassion for another party in the ordeal?
How often do we hear of a major drug kingpin or even a local dealer face a violent death and we say, “Well, maybe he shouldn’t have been involved in that in the first place”? And who do we feel sorry for? That person’s family that is left behind. Rarely do we have sympathy for the deceased because he was a bad guy, right?
So very quickly the victim of the stabbing or the gunshot is quickly a secondary victim and the left-behind loved ones are the public’s primary concern.
Back to the Madison drama: Do you feel sorry for someone who commits suicide because their lies and deceit devastated and humiliated them so badly that they ended it all?
