Y'know what really gets me about this?

Is that somewhere there are girls and young women who decide that this behavior is something to admire and aspire to on the same scale as Paris Hilton and other famous sluts.

It wouldn't be such a bad thing really, hell sluts can be fun for a brief interlude...but I can't help but wonder how many young women stumble into poverty through single motherhood as a result, following their role models right off a cliff, but absent the monetary safety net that keeps their heroine's safe.

Weiner did something stupid, he's not the first, he won't be the last. But I don't get what the big deal about it is. Wow, politician has a penis under his pants...likes to show it and use it with women. What a cover story.

Is there anyone that isn't already just assuming most of these guys are screwing themselves silly, with or without photographic proof?

Does this work both ways? I'm not unattractive and I'll beg for underwear shots of Hillary Clinton anytime if there's a payday in it for me...

I'm happy to do the tearful confession of how she used me and threw me away too for enough money.

Heh. You don't even have to be THAT young or THAT attractive.

I've lived enough that I don't need to ask why these guys run around, but I still don't understand why they choose "nobody" women with nothing to lose, and then expect them to go away quietly when they're done with them. Of COURSE they're going to blab to a tabloid.

These men spend their lives acquiring power and then piss it away in the most self-destructive way. Surely men with power and money have safe, discreet outlets available.

Ltw, have you heard about this woman? http://foolocracy.com/2010/01/irish-politicians-affair-not-a-fling-she-was-infatuated-with-teenage-lover/

IS, your graphic description reminds me of one specific "could have organised anything he wanted discreetly but..." Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky.

And I hadn't read that story - thank you! Such a shame I'm not 19 (*clear throat*, *ahem*, double that).

I'm not sure which line I like best

"Iris Robinson called her actions “the worst thing I have ever done,” but stated “I am comforted that He (Christ) was able to forgive even me.”"

or

"On a side note, music lovers are trying to drive Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson” to the top of the British pop charts."

"I've lived enough that I don't need to ask why these guys run around, but I still don't understand why they choose "nobody" women with nothing to lose, and then expect them to go away quietly when they're done with them."

It's an aspect of the Cluster B personality disorder that drives them. If they choose a hook-up partner of equal stature to themselves, they wouldn't get the hero worship which is the real reason they do it. As for why they expect the women to go away quietly, don't forget that most of these guys have had their way with people from a fairly young age, and for a long time they've had an entourage of fixers keeping their asses covered and cleaning up their messes for them. They become convinced that little-people laws and mores simply don't apply to them.

I'm not unattractive and I'll beg for underwear shots of Hillary Clinton anytime if there's a payday in it for me...

Not. Enough. Money. In. The. World.

Yes, young women of the world: we will pay you relatively trivial sums of money, and you can be infamous for your sexual exploits with men of power. I think fathers of little girls are going to need to add "keep them out of tabloids" to "keep them off the pole."

I was just saying to a friend how convenient it was that these women never feel the need to "bravely come forward" until the guy's behavior has gone public. Now I understand why. Remember when Monica Lewinsky tried to tell her story? Nobody took her seriously, and she's still seen as a punch-line(the latter being unfair after all these years, IMO). Now a woman involved in a sex scandal is rewarded for her efforts. What a great example for young girls.

Arnold, Tiger, and now Weiner. Won't these guys ever learn? If you have money you have to choose between keeping your money to yourself or taking a chance of losing it all over some money-grubber. They are targets to these skanks that are only interested in cash.

Solution? Never, ever get married. And get snipped so you can sire no children. Keep all your millions and billions and still have a good time.

And although I should be off looking through job listings and reading up on the DoD Architecture Framework, I can't leave here until I get this other thought out of my head. Amy, I'm glad you posted this, because I was going to do this comment over in the advice area on this week's nice-guy letter, but this post is a better place for it.

Stacy McCain has a post today on guys who ingratiate themselves with women by trumpeting their feminist credentials, and the feminists who fall for that malarky. McCain's thesis, which he states without much elaboration, is that insomuch as postmodern feminism is basically a special-interest pleading for (some) women, there is no valid intellectual reason for men to support it; therefore, any man who does so has ulterior motives. You don't necessarily have to agree with the first part of the thesis to recognize that there have always been men who attached themselves to the feminist movement not for any philosophical reason, but because they perceived it as an easy way to get laid.

Thus we have a variation (perhaps the ultimate development) of the pseudo-nice-guy syndrome. Other men are always rather bemused when feminists get tripped up by these guys, because we can spot them from a mile away. Any guy with a sliver of self-respect won't play that game, because you have to debase yourself so much in order to make it work. But some guys are willing to do it. And here's the dirty little secret: as in the case of other pseudo-nice-guys, a lot of these guys actually harbor a lot of misogynist thoughts deep down.

So guys, if you find yourself suffering from nice-guy syndrome, reflect on this. Do you really want to be an Anthony Weiner? Do you really want to turn love and sex into a game of political favors and quid-pro-quo?

Jessica Hahn- yummy.

Attention whores, literally.

"You don't even have to be THAT young or THAT attractive...I still don't understand why they choose "nobody" women..."

Maybe Weiner was a spammer - that is, he would send out pictures of his pecker & requests for phone sex to any female who friended him on Facebook or followed him on Twitter, on the idea that if he dangled the bait in front of a hundred women, at least one of them would bite.

"Surely men with power and money have safe, discrete outlets available"

Proof that you can have power and money without any discretion or judgement.

This phenomenon is nothing new under the sun. Where there no women in Roman times who cashed in on the notoriety of sleeping with Senators and such? If sluts have sex for fun, and respectable whores have sex for money but offer discretion to their clients, then these women fall into neither category.

if he dangled the bait in front of a hundred women, at least one of them would bite.

Ouch. Bad metaphor :)

Good for them. Making money off men's stupidity is no issue in my book. And it's better for them than stripping. Better money, too.

The women aren't equally at fault for having affairs with married men? Screwing a married man wasn't something you bragged about...now it's a chance to get your face on TV and get some money, and that's 'better for them than stripping'? They seem pretty stupid too!