MSNBC reports on man wearing "I cheated" sign

Video story here. Apparently the subject of the video got caught or admitted to being unfaithful and so his wife required him (presumably under threat of some other event, like divorce) to stand on a street corner wearing a sign saying he cheated. The commentators seem happy about it, with one of them suggesting (predictably, the male commentator) that this doesn't go far enough to punish the man.

Well, I have some thoughts. First off, marital fidelity and infidelity are private matters, or at least I feel they ought to be. Wearing a sign saying you're a cheater and standing on a street corner pretty much destroys that. It destroys it for the man's wife, too. So it is surely a sign that the man in question has some serious self-respect/boundary issues. (I imagine the man's wife does, too, albeit ones of a different nature.)

Second, I wonder, if a woman who cheated on her husband were told that as part of her "penance" she must do the same thing that this man is doing, would the press be quite so supportive? Or is it more likely that the law would get involved and accuse the man of doing something DV-related, or otherwise, how would he be getting her to do that? Must be threatening violence or "exerting abusive power and control" over her in some way, would go the thinking.

Add nymphotropism to today's journalistic priorities and this is what you get.

Ironically, right next to this video is a clip from a recent David Letterman show of an interview with Anne Heche. Miss Heche bashes her ex-husband (a film cameraman she met while doing a movie) and the father of their child and exhorts everyone to avoid marriage at all costs. (I can understand that, especially if we are talking about people like her.) She complains that she is paying some kind of support to her lazy ex-husband and how she doesn't want anything to do with him, not able to understand why he wants her to show up at events with him, except in that she is "so wonderful".

You know, I wonder why he'd want to be around her too. But she can't say he doesn't want to include her in events with their child. (Well, maybe not until she goes back to court for some reason...)

Remember this is the same Anne Heche who has gone through six romantic partners (just the reported ones), and showed up naked on the doorstep of total strangers during some kind of drug-induced "psychological episode". Yes, she's been in a few movies, but has made her real bank simply by having the right girlfriend (Ellen DeGeneres). Now she is doing late-night interviews talking about how great she is, how her ex-husband and the father of their child is a no-goodnick loser, and how marriage in general sucks.

Experiences vary, Anne, but I am quite sure that being married to you would indeed suck.