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Comment by camillomiller | Hacker News Reader

The elevation of monogamy and closed relationships as the God-given natural status of a couple is the source of too many problems.

Same for not living our own sexuality in the open. By acting like this (that is: like you are supposed to) you are constantly prone to blackmail.

If you happen to have a wife that is entitled in her social-induced belief that even thinking about other women is good ground for the termination of a marriage, then external forces will have a great power over you.

If you live with a person that accepts external affairs, sex with other people and who is ok with your true sexuality (e.g. If you're bisexual or happen to like transgenders) you will always have someone on your side no matter what, and your relationship to that person can't be menaced by any eventual disclosure.

Social stigma might still have a leverage on you, but if you're open with your intimate circle of friends and business acquaintances it would be virtually impossible to use a sex-related scandal against you.

The Ashley Madison leak is interesting because of this, too. It's a breakthrough because it exposes behaviors that society still considers immoral and punishable. People that left behind this archaic way of thinking and built their life together with someone that shares more open sexual values are totally immune to this scandal.

This is certainly something that would have tickled Sir Bertrand Russell's mind.

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> God-given natural status

The "God reasoning" isn't the only reasoning. Just like polygamy is a choice, so is monogamy. It's a sexual choice.

What is wrong is that people can't be open about that choice. People should be able to be open and honest about being polygamous or monogamous with their partner - yes, that might sometimes result in the relationship ending; but there's a good chance where there is a disagreement it would have ended with heartbreak further down the line anyway. This should occur long before marriage is ever on the table, or even, before a relationship is on the table.

In Africa it's important for people to know their AIDS status and be honest about it; I wish we could do the same thing with relationship preferences.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to have only one partner, there is also nothing wrong with wanting to have many partners. Both approaches to relationships have their pros and cons.

Either way, debate about polygamy vs. monogamy in this case-scenario is completely irrelevant. Someone was hacked, privacy was violated (it doesn't matter what privacy) and that is the end of that. There's no reason to attach another argument to the discussion because the hack was an outright violation in the first place.

> "Either way, debate about polygamy vs. monogamy in this case-scenario is completely irrelevant. Someone was hacked, privacy was violated (it doesn't matter what privacy) and that is the end of that. There's no reason to attach another argument to the discussion because the hack was an outright violation in the first place."

Is it that simple? Would the outright violation of a hack be the end of the story if we were talking about something that we all agree is wrong and/or illegal? What if it was a hack on a website that connected child pornographers, or cocaine dealers, or human traffickers, or arms dealers, or planet-destroyers, or abortionists, or super-rich exploitative CEOs?

EDIT: That list started off in my head as stuff that I thought there might be agreement on, but I couldn't think of anything beyond child pornographers, so it turned into stuff that significant groups feel very strongly about but on which there is no general agreement. Hopefully both sets of stuff make my point.

> Is it that simple?

Yes. The legal system is responsible for bringing criminals to justice. The system maybe imperfect but its better than vigilantes with a deeply held, righteous cause who honestly believe their targets to be evil. Fanatics of all stripes see themselves in that light and that kind of thinking is extremely dangerous. In truth, it should only be used in the event a blood revolution is the only option available to the citizenry.

If we say that it is never acceptable for vigilantes to release illegally-obtained information, then shouldn't we also be decrying Ed Snowden and Chelsea Manning? Their dumps certainly contained unpleasant stuff that could be traced back to individuals. There's got to be a line somewhere, even if it's not at Ashley Madison specifically.

the sad thing is, both of you are right, and no matter what I do, I cannot decide who is "more right". strange times indeed :)

You'll notice I left out an exception for revolution / rebelling against the government. If you get to the point you need vigilantes to fight the government, well, yeah.

In the context of a private company, yes, its never acceptable.

Pictures don't hurt anyone (except sometimes in the libel/slander sense).

But don't stolen credit cards get traded online? Or other impersonation / "identity theft" information? Maybe a marketplace for one of those would be a good example.

The trick is probably making sure that "something that we all agree is wrong" matches with things that actually harm people who didn't freely agree to it. Things like murder, coercion, kidnapping, breach of contract, ...

Infidelity harms some, unless we aren't counting emotional harm.

Infidelity is certainly harmful to someone (emotional harm is a real thing, not to be discounted) but so is exposing people's private lives and peccadilloes. Infidelity is something that should be resolved in private by the parties involved.

Whatever you do, someone will find it offensive or harmful to them, for some definition of "harmful" -- even the way you dress, or the music you listen to, or the books you read, or who you have sex with. This isn't a good enough reason to humiliate you in public.

I'd say you cannot compare infidelity with things like murder, extortion, or someone in public office engaging in corruption or grossly misleading the public. Those things do need exposing.

Why? Surely their commitment was public, if the person in question was married. If the state sanctions a contract, in this case marriage, and one party does something to offend that contract, then why not make it public?

Infidelity can be just as serious, morally speaking, if the person in question is not married but in a long-term monogamous relationship. Is this simply a question about the law? I thought people were arguing about moral outrage.

In any case, not every breach of contract must be made public for all to see and humiliate you.

Considering infidelity can lead to non-consensualy exposing people to STDs and possibly lead to rape (depending upon how you define consent).

No. Rape is not "I wouldn't have had sex with that person if I was better informed".

Where does that end? "He has an STD"? "He is unfaithful"? "He cheats at poker"? "He is a bad father"? "If I'd known that, I wouldn't have had sex, therefore it wasn't consensual".

(edited for grammar)

>No. Rape is not "I wouldn't have had sex with that person if I was better informed".

I never said it was. I said that under some definitions that people use it is. Especially when it involves disclosing use of birth control (all cases I know of involve men lying, as that increases the biological risk of the woman, while the woman lying doesn't make the man more likely to get pregnant) and when it involves lying about having STDs.

I'm not saying which definition is right, only pointing out that some people (and I believe some legal systems) do use such definitions (and as such this influences other moral decisions they make).

I think that knowingly lying about STDs is morally wrong (and in some cases, for some STDs, it -is- a crime to do so).

"Disclosing use of birth control" All the cases you know of involve "men lying"? I'm having trouble wrapping my head around that. I just don't see 'putting or pretending to put on a condom and then sneaking it off unknowingly before intercourse' as being a common concern in sex/pregnancy. If I understand you correctly?

Either taking it off or lying about having a vasectomy. From my understanding, the legal problem is that in these cases the man exposed the woman to a vastly increased risk of pregnancy that she did not consent to. And such cases do appear to be rare and only in some countries. Far more common (though perhaps still rare) is meeting people who think that consent must be fully informed. I'm not saying I agree with such people, only that they exist and to them some actions are far more immoral because of the way they view things like consent.

I think that lying about having a vasectomy is seriously wrong, and probably (but I'm not a lawyer) you can get sued for this in some countries.

However, in which country is this considered rape? It's consensual sex between people of legal age, only that one of them is a lying, amoral bastard, and the act can lead to serious long-term consequences like an unwanted pregnancy. But rape? Seriously?

Also, while lying about safe sex is certainly a despicable and immoral act, it's still a private matter between two people. I don't see that it's morally right for a group of strangers to arbitrarily decide to publicly expose and shame unfaithful people, particularly since, in the context of this discussion, they cannot even know if anyone is lying about any vasectomies -- it's entirely possible the cheaters practice perfectly safe sex -- or has actually committed any act of infidelity!

>Also, while lying about safe sex is certainly a despicable and immoral act, it's still a private matter between two people.

Why is it automatically a private matter? Perhaps you think it should be a private matter, but someone else may think it shouldn't be, and thus the morality of something like cheating may be to them much worse than it is to you, thus morally justifying more extreme actions to be taken to expose cheating.

Also to note, something does not need to be legally considered a given crime for a person to morally consider it such. You may think them wrong, but their view is still consistent given their underlying values that you disagree with.

That a person may view this hack differently than you may not be the result of a different view on the morals of hacking or the right to privacy, but on something more nuanced like a difference in distinction between what counts as consent.

Sex is a private matter by definition, between two or (ahem) more people. What you or other people think about it is mostly irrelevant, as long as the people engaged in the sex act are not doing something outrageously against social conventions, such as having sex right in front of you in a public space.

> Perhaps you think it should be a private matter, but someone else may think it shouldn't be, and thus the morality of something like cheating may be to them much worse than it is to you, thus morally justifying more extreme actions to be taken to expose cheating.

Sorry, I find this position totally unacceptable. Yes, we were always talking about people's moral opinions, which are subjective by definition, and everyone has one. People who are morally outraged about what other consenting adults do with their private lives are despicable (way more despicable to me than cheaters that keep their opinions to themselves) and they have no right to harm other people because of their own morals. Exactly how some religious fundamentalists have no right to publicly shame gay people, or some other religious people think it's their right to stone adulterous women to death.

This argument that some people care so deeply about what strangers do with their private lives that they are entitled to take "extreme actions" just doesn't fly.

PS: in which country is lying about a vasectomy exactly the same as rape then?

I stand corrected. I don't know why but the vasectomy route never crossed my mind. I can absolutely agree with your perspective there. And appreciate us having a civilized discussion about it.

What the... How can you conflate rape with infidelity? They are completely unrelated things! Rape is definitely a crime and an act of violence worthy of moral outrage. If you are forcing someone to have nonconsensual sex, that's terrible and totally unrelated to cheating. And you can have forced nonconsensual sex within a marriage. Seriously, rape is a completely different issue.

Exposing people to STDs is a problem which can also happen regardless of infidelity. Besides, are you saying if you practice safe sex while cheating then it's morally ok? Is it simply an issue of safe sex?

I'm not defending this position, so please don't pull out pitchforks or anything, just making an argument where this could be expanded into rape charges somewhere:

There are countries where having sex under false pretext is considered rape. For instance: saying that you are going to use a condom then removing it without the knowledge of your partner would be rape. One could argue that being in a marriage with the promise of monogamy, but failing to keep that promise, would mean that all instances of sex with your partner are then rape.

I repeat: I don't agree with this and I think that it belittles people that have actually experienced the horrors of forced rape. Perhaps there should be things protecting the victims of this situation, but calling it rape waters down the word and act. "Sexual Intercourse under False Pretenses" should have it's own set of laws and punishments around it if it should be punished, IMHO.

I hear what you're saying and I'm not pulling out any pitchforks, don't worry.

Having said that,

> For instance: saying that you are going to use a condom then removing it without the knowledge of your partner would be rape.

In which country is that rape? I think pretending to use a condom and secretly removing it is morally deplorable, and the mark of a terrible person, but it's insulting to actual rape victims to consider it rape.

> One could argue that being in a marriage with the promise of monogamy, but failing to keep that promise, would mean that all instances of sex with your partner are then rape

I can't think of any universe where this makes sense. It's an act of dishonesty, and a pretty serious one depending on your upbringing and personal convictions, but rape? Sorry, that sounds seriously fucked up to me. I wouldn't want to live in a place where being unfaithful is equated to being a rapist.

>There are countries where having sex under false pretext is considered rape.

Exactly. And I'm not saying that is right or wrong. That is why I said 'possibly', because it depends upon if you agree with such a definition or not and if the legal jurisdiction you live in operates with such a definition or not.

In exactly which countries is having sex with someone under the false pretense you're being faithful the same as rape? Note: not simply illegal or punishable by law, but actual rape. Otherwise I think this point is moot.

If there are such countries, I wouldn't want to live there.

PS: if we're talking about countries where adulterous women can be stoned to death, I think we can all agree that is horrible and the public shaming of Ashley Madison customers completely pales next to the crime against humanity that is mutilating or murdering people for being unfaithful or gay. I'd consider those countries completely beyond the scope of this discussion.

I thought that was said of Sweden, due to the Wikileaks thing. I'm not expert enough on their laws to claim to understand it, though.

True, I remember reading about it in (extremely confusing) articles online. This is also a potentially politically motivated case, and I cannot find a concrete and convincing description of Swedish rape laws online.

> Pictures don't hurt anyone (except sometimes in the libel/slander sense).

The hell they don't. Talk to someone who was not only abused, but knows that there are unwilling photos of their abuse circulating online for sadists to jerk off over. Psychological trauma is a real thing.

I don't think that's the trick.

I'm talking about greater goods than privacy and order, goods that make privacy and order good.

And I'm not just talking about things that one group or another really thinks should be illegal. I'm also talking about things that we've decided to tolerate as legal, but which we think are wrong -- maybe even grossly wrong -- and therefore (strongly) disapprove of and want to (strongly) discourage. I don't think things are so simple in those cases, either.

> Just like polygamy is a choice

That's not much of a choice though. In several places you can go to jail for it. Or it is choice in the same way that being a criminal is a choice.

Yeah, I should have prefaced that whole argument with "advanced societies." It's very hard to argue these points when you have e.g. the middle east getting in the way of rational and humane thought processes. In places like that you really have no choice or autonomy and arguments such as my original one simply hold no ground.

The middle east was an advanced society up until recently, definitely better off than Europe & co was during the middle ages in terms of scientific and mathematics and whatnot. Can we just call it "different"?

We're veering off-topic here. Suffice to say: I have my reasons, and they aren't just about a difference.

The middle east squatted on the remains of the roman/greek culture they destroyed, claiming civilization because they played with the few shiny things left.

You can't objectively label different cultures as not being advanced just because they're different. There could well be good reasons for enforcing monogamy on people that your society disregards. I'm just guessing here, but maybe no monogamy may end up with a lot of people suffering the natural human emotion of jealousy and perhaps something like most women queuing up to be with the most attractive men, leaving the majority of men without sex their whole lives. Maybe ancient societies experienced problems like that and decided to enforce a more "wealth distribution" kind of system like monogamy as a solution. Modern societies often laugh that off but they also can't explain the reason for it. It's a bit like deleting ugly code when you don't realize it prevents a corner case bug.

If we really had complete sexual freedom and didn't impose legal restrictions on it to protect human emotion then rape would be nothing worse than other kinds of physical force, even for children. Maybe that's how an even more advanced would see it?

Unfortunately, there's so much bigotry in the world that it's difficult to separate different types of criticism of large areas of the world, but it's entirely possible to be positive about Middle Eastern cultures and strongly against the power structures there. For example, they have great food and literature, but you can be whipped to death for publicly criticizing unelected rulers in places like Qatar. It's not necessarily culturally insensitive to say that's backwards policy.

You can't objectively label different cultures as not being advanced just because they're different.

When that culture normalizes things like throwing acid at rape victims and violent mass retribution for violation of religious laws, well, yes, I can and will label that culture as being backwards and primitive.

It's not really a choice. It's "the way things are supposed to be". The argument is not unrelated though, because it's relative the nature of our society. And that nature is what makes this hack so juicy to people that would have otherwise have ignored that as they ignored many other data leaks in the past. Freedom of choice is important, but you're not really free to choose polygamy when education and morals are still mostly driven by archaic religious beliefs.

> It's not really a choice.

Just like homosexuality "was not a choice" a mere few years ago: yet people did choose to be open about their homosexuality and did choose to fight for their rights as homosexuals. Look where we are today: the American courts now lawfully recognize that choice in marriage.

> archaic religious beliefs

So far as advanced societies go, believing in higher power(s) is a choice. It is certainly not archaic to those who choose to do so and in the somewhat broken world today, possibly more relevant to them than ever. I've never understood why those who are discriminated against have discriminated beliefs. It's not right when their force-feed their beliefs down people's throats, but that doesn't make it right to force-feed Atheism/Agnosticism down theirs.

> So far as advanced societies go, believing in higher power(s) is a choice.

Is it? That must be the reason why all recent U.S. Presidents were all fervent atheists...

Is it a choice in a society where swearing on a religious tome is still considered a rational way to induce people to tell the truth in court? I know that's just theater (otherwise perjury would not be a felony). Still, I think it's a telling detail of how far you would go without believing in something in contemporary American society.

We've gone from a data breach, to swearing on a Bible in courts. It's an interesting discussion but this is not the place to have it.

Why not? Tout se tient :)

Let me finish off by agreeing with you about eliminating the Bible in court. Not only is it out of place, but a person who doesn't believe in such things could swear on it and proceed to lie simply because they don't believe that they will go to Hell. This means that not only is it completely ineffective, but if an actually Christian person comes along they would be at an unfair disadvantage: being unable to lie like everyone else can.

The "wrong place" isn't HN, rather: it's text. A lot of nuance is lost in text and this is an incredibly nuanced subject. We'd most likely end up having a fierce fight 50 comments deep, where in person we'd probably land up agreeing on most things after 2 minutes.

I've got to strongly disagree with your stance about not discussing this in text form. Nuance is even more subjective than text. I'll go much further and say that if you can't express your view in text, you need to think about your view more because it isn't well formed. I think the problem is that complex ideas can't always be expressed in soundbite form. HN is better than Twitter but it's just not the forum for rational debate.

>if an actually Christian person comes along they would be at an unfair disadvantage: being unable to lie like everyone else can //

You may not be aware that the NT says that people shouldn't take an oath instead let your "yes be yes"; ie just tell it straight, be honourable. It's never come up but I'd be unwilling to swear on the Bible in court as it's against my faith as a Christian.

I like how you applied pure logic to the Bible problem. That was just an example for how even the court system, in the U.S. takes religion as the de facto standard for setting moral ground. :)

I do not agree though that text isn't the right form. We will probably never talk to each other in person, but we had a text-mediated prolific and mature discussion that, in the end, enriched both of us.

Thanks.

You're barking up the wrong tree. I don't think the core demographic of AM is people who are sexually liberated and in consensual open relationships. The site bills itself as an avenue for cheating, and people find that immoral because it implies breach of a relationship expectation/agreement.

Your "partner" may have three other sexual partners that you know about but that doesn't prevent them from having a forth that they keep hidden from you because they know you'll flip out.

You're not immune to this kind of scandal unless you're in a sexual relationship with somebody and you have no expectation to be made aware of their other sexual activities, in which case you're not in a healthy relationship.

I doubt Bertrand Russel would be very fascinated by polyamory - it's just another concept that works great in theory but becomes endlessly complicated in reality.

Why would you doubt it?

"The psychology of adultery has been falsified by conventional morals, which assume, in monogamous countries, that attraction to one person cannot coexist with a serious affection for another. Everybody knows that this is untrue."

"There can be no doubt that to close one's mind on marriage against all the approaches of love from elswhere is to diminish receptivity and sympathy and the opportunities of valuable human contact. It is to do violence to something which, from the most idealistic standpoint, is in itself desirable." [...] "but I do not recognize in easy divorce a solution of the trouble of marriage[...] but where there are children the stability of marriage is to my mind a matter of considerable importance.

[...]

I think that, where a marriage is fruitful and both parties to it are reasonable and decent, the expectation ought to be that it will be lifelong, but not that it will exclude other sex relations.

A marriage that begins with passionate love and leads to children who are desired and loved ought to produce to deep a tie between a man and a woman that they will feel something infinetly precious in their companionship, even after sexual passion has decayed, and even if either or both feels sexual passion for someone else. This mellowing of marriage has been prevented by jealousy, but jealousy, though it is an instinctive emotion, is one that can be controlled if it is recognised as bad."

Bertrand Russel, Marriage and Morals

I suppose I gave him too much credit in assuming he would avoid this topic entirely.

I think you might be confusing cause and effect. Long term serial monogamy is the norm across cultures and religions. It does not mean any other arrangements are objectively "wrong" but this meme of "Everyone would do X if not for cultural oppression!" is wrong. It's the same delusion that goes on with people who claim everyone is bisexual; it's a wish fulfillment fantasy of people who are outside the norm.

Where did you get that from? I'm not saying that, not at all. Do I think that living and open relationship (not necessary polygamy, because the terms implies numerous relationships each with the same affective and contractual status) is the best way to go? Yes. Does that imply that humanity, freed from the religious oppression, would go for that? Not at all. There might even be some biological bases for monogamy, but we are rational beings. We can work around our instinct. We do that all the time. Some of us can successfully do that for monogamy, too. It would be great if that could be more largely accepted.

You seem to be taking contradictory positions, or I'm misunderstanding. You think that open relationships are the best way to go. But then you say that most people wouldn't go for them if religious strictures were lifted. Are you drawing a distinction based on religion specifically versus culture overall? One would presume that worldwide, if there was no "artificial oppression", people would naturally be mostly into open relationships if that's truly the natural state.

The conclusion of your post seems to be that privacy is only necessary or desirable because of our ancient, obsolete religious hangups.

This seems to be a common view of the left on HN. The biggest example being the most common defense of privacy I see: "Gays need privacy because many live in countries where they will be killed if found out". So in other words, once the entire world is accepting of gays, there will no longer be a justification for the existence of privacy.

This is the wrong way to be looking at this issue. Regardless of what the users of this site did, it does not excuse the behavior of other parties. It doesn't excuse Ashley Madison's failure to protect user data. It doesn't excuse the hackers theft of that data. It doesn't excuse the disclosure of that data by the hackers or people on Twitter.

Lamenting people's hangups about infidelity is the wrong response to this situation.

Nope, maybe my formulation was a bit foggy, but that's not my point. I'm not saying that the old adage that you shouldn't be worried about your privacy being breached if you have done no harm or if you have nothing to hide. Quite the contrary.

Mine was a very specific assertion related to the king of leak we're witnessing: what's making this data so relevant and prone to gossip is the way we give for granted the monogamous nature of our relationship and how we deal with a moral set of dogmas that society inculcates on us "because God says so".

Who doesn't live by these archaic impositions and accepts more open forms of relationship has a strong advantage because his pursuit of perfectly natural sexual desires doesn't need to be hidden and is not considered (especially by the partner) as an immoral and punishable thing.

> The elevation of monogamy and closed relationships as the God-given natural status of a couple is the source of too many problems.

Don't pretend that monogamy is purely socially constructed. There is absolutely nothing wrong with consensual open relationships, and we'd all be better off if the taboo against them went away, but there is definitely something wrong with making a promise to someone you love about something that matters to them and then breaking it behind their back.

Or maybe simply don't marry? That's anyway the present and future and humanity is in transition. The west drives it and east follows in a few generations. EDIT: When almost 30% of marriages end in divorce and that number growing, it doesn't make sense to have laws around marriages.

Yes, have a partner, if you want, but don't marry. I agree. In Europe, where I live, is considered normal to legalize a union not as a marriage but as a simple contract between two persons. That's more than enough to take care of the legal stuff that getting married would normally imply (right to visit a sick partner in the hospital, some forms of mutual agreement about the financials of the couple, etc...).

You're using "that" when you should use "who": "a wife who", "a person who"

Thanks for the correction, I'm not a native speaker, and it shows. I'm always looking for constructive criticism to make my written English better.

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