Over a year ago, I wrote on an hot issue in the legal community: can minors be prosecuted for sexting pursuant to child pornography laws? I felt that it was senseless to give minors a criminal record for sending around naked pictures of other minors and I feel that way today. At least I know I’m not the only one with this view. Today the House of the New Jersey General Assembly unanimously passed (78-0) a measure that would require minors to undergo an educational program, in lieu of criminal prosecution, for sexting. I’m sure the Senate will quickly approve the matter as well. Good job New Jersey (this still doesn’t make up for Jersey Shore though)!
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ESPN recently ran an article discussing infidelity amongst professional athletes, especially from the perspective of their wives.
The article didn’t provide too much insight, but I found the following passage particularly interesting;
[Randy] Kessler, based in Atlanta, says the culture of adultery is so pervasive that he stresses to his clients that they become educated, proactive and realistic. He recently suggested to one of his NBA clients that he include a clause in his prenuptial agreement that states if his wife files for divorce because he cheated, he won’t be penalized financially.
He told the NBA player it was likely he’d cheat on his wife and it was likely he’d be caught.
“I thought he was going to hit me,” Kessler says. “I thought he was going to be mad. You know what? He said, ‘I want one of those; I want a bad-boy provision.’ He already knew what it was.”
As an attorney, I know that we can give moral advice in addition to legal advice. Why are attorneys seemingly encouraging people to cheat by including these clauses? It’s one thing to have a prenuptial, it’s a whole different beast to have a protect you ass WHEN (not if) you mess up provision.
Fidelity comes in large part from surrounding yourself around people that encourage you to be faithful. We always look down on athletes for cheating, but maybe we should call out people like Kessler that tell them what they are going to do before they do it and make it easier for them to do.
I promise you that athletes would think twice before they act if they didn’t have people like Kessler around.
Source: ESPN
Barnes (L) and Thompson (Right)
We all know that prostitution is the world’s oldest profession. I”m sure that stripping isn’t that far behind it. We also know that call girls and strippers make really good money.
What’s new, however, is the mass appeal of being a hoe. Karrine Steffans, also known as Superhead, has written three books, one of which is a New York Times Bestseller. Some of the biggest celebrities today got their start from ”accidentally” releasing sextapes, such as Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton. The promise of fame and fortune from being a hoe even led to Laurence Fishbourne’s daughter to pornography (she said she was inspired by Kim K). Moreover, every VH1 dating show casts women as money hungry bimbos that will do anything for 15 minutes of fame.
I guess this phenomenon really hit me when I read the story behind UK soccer player Wayne Rooney’s affair with Miss Jennifer Thompson. Thompson and her best friend Amy Leigh Barnes went to Catholic school together, but decided early on that they wanted to be famous by sleeping with professional athletes. Barnes eventually started dating soccer coach Ricardo Morrison after the two met on Facebook. Morrison became violent once Barnes tried to leave her and he was eventually convicted of killing her. Thompson is a 1,200 pound/night call girl. She began receiving money for sex from professional soccer players while she was in high school.
One often wanders how stories like this happen. But if you think about it, it’s not that hard to imagine. There are very few aspiring role models for young women in the media. There are media personalities (Tyra/Ellen), political figures (Michelle Obamas/Sarah Palin), but that’s about it. BET gives out shows to rappers’ baby mamas. VH1 gives out shows to women that are comfortable with three-way kisses. And if you’ve slept with enough celebrities, you’ll have people knocking down on your door to write a book. So what do we tell our daughters? You can make go to school until you’re in your late 20s to be a doctor or you can get a 10-year head start and be a call girl?
Few people realize that the fast lifestyle is just that…fast. One weeks hot women is the next week’s old news. Women make much money money as doctors in lawyers in their 30s and beyond than video vixens, strippers, and prostitutes.
Just look at the relative popularity of Kim Kardashian (blue) and Paris Hilton (orange)
Kim v. Paris
This chart displays a couple of things. First, it shows how short-lived Paris’s reign as heiress really was. Second, it conveys that even though the Kardashians are seemingly ubiquituous, Kim K doesn’t even come close to where Paris Hilton was a few years ago. The problem is that despite the fact that Kim K isn’t as big of a deal as she appears to be, she is still way more popular than the First Lady (orange).
Kim v. First Lady
So if we don’t want our daughters to want to be Kim K, what needs to happen? I think it’s relatively simple, don’t make being a hoe seem so profitable. If you’re a man, you can stop employing the services of a hooker. If you’re a woman, you can stop picking up those supermarket magazines with Kim K on the cover every week. Everyone can stop watching their show(s). Most importantly, you can be a living example of how to lady (as a man) or how to be a lady (as a woman).
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Quick Bar Study Break – Ashley Trashy Madison has sued the owners of AshleyMadisonSucks.com and AshleyMadisonScam.com for $75,000 each on the grounds that they have infringed their trademark. Trashy Madison claims that the sites are “confusingly similar.”
Now, I’m no trademark law scholar, but I have taken trademark and I know that “gripe sites” generally are okay, especially when they have a noncommercial purpose. But don’t take it from me, just see what the Las Vegas Trademark Attorney has to say about it:
I don’t know how Canadian courts handle this kind of case up north, but down here, we would call this a pretty strong example of a) non-commercial, fair use of a party’s trademark and b) using allegations of trademark infringement in a lawsuit to quash the lawful exercise of free speech.
Of course, is it really no surprise that a company whose entire business model is established around encouraging extra-marital affairs would resort to a such a questionable course of action in order to obtain possession of some gripe website domain names (and removing some criticism of its services at the same time).
Hmm…I know from first-hand experience that Trashy Madison doesn’t like it when people speak out against them…
Sources: Las Vegas Trademark Attorney and Courthouse News Service
to keep the unenforced law. In the past the crime was standing on the gallows with a noose around one’s neck. Now the penalty is a $1200 fine.
I have a serious problem with unenforced laws remaining on the books. You can’t just pick and choose when you are going to enforce it. For some strange reason, they always end up getting enforced against minorities and poor people. What if we did that with murder prosecutions? In my home state of Georgia, we still a fornication before marriage law on the books (in addition to infidelity) as if college students aren’t getting it on on a weekly daily basis.
My second problem with this law is that unenforced laws have no deterrent effect. If the point of the law is to prevent people from having sex, then it clearly is not getting the job done. Rather, adultery is something that is inherently personal. People don’t need the government, especially with numerous presidents that have had affairs telling them that adultery is the way to go. The desire to be faithful is a personal decision and no unenforced law with a $1200 fine is going to change that.
Only private enforcement (i.e. friends holding friends accountable, blogs such as this, etc.) are going to cause people to really dig deep and think about the implications of cheating.
Source: Boston Herald
Her subject line says it all. Starts with this paragraph and goes full steam ahead.
Here’s what I asserted: straying spouses, not third parties outside the marriage, are responsible for any harm caused by adultery. Furthermore, extramarital lovers have the same right to free speech as anyone else. That means that no matter how unseemly we might find it, every one of Tiger Woods’ umpteen mistresses can get paid for writing a book without owing restitution to Elin Woods.
Read her full post here. Seriously folks, let’s keep the blame where it belongs.
You’ve read the title. You all know how I feel about punishing people for infidelity. This case is an example of how these laws need to be cleaned up off of the books. I’m so appalled about this that instead of doing a post here, I’m going to write an Op-Ed. Hopefully it’ll get published.
Source: Greensboro News-Record
Taiwanese Official Ryan Wu has the following to say about monogamy: “”Why do we have monogamy? I think this is a baffling moral concept.”
Wu recently resigned from the KMT party in Taiwan in the wake of a sexual harassment claim against a college student while he held another job.
Is sexual harassment a baffling moral concept Mr. Wu?
Source: ABS-CBN News
Meet Scott Schmidt. Schmidt is a former firefighter. He shot and killed his “estranged wife” (I don’t know whether they were going through divorce or just having problems) three times in the head on Apriil 17 outside their home. He’s now in court and defended himself on the basis that he was trying to prevent his wife from committing adultery. The victim, Kelly Wing Schmidt was on her way to meet with a man at a hotel. Scott says that prosecutors don’t take adultery seriously, so he decided to take matters into his own hand (literally).
Again, I don’t know their status because it says “estranged wife.” All I know is that she didn’t deserve this.
Source: PostCrescent
I tried to come up with a better title, but there’s no other way to state it (so I used the one from the source, HipHopWired). Meet Samson Ojo.
Ojo is a 24-year-old married man with children. Ojo took his family to see “Did You Hear About the Morgans.” Ojo left the theatre and asked a woman for her phone number. When she refused, he took her into an empty theatre and raped her. He then returned to the theatre with his family to watch the movie. Ojo has been charged with rape and kidnapping.
This guy is sick and this is probably the most shocking thing I’ve ever posted on this blog. Although it’s not as shocking, I still want people to get to the point where we find the fact that he asked for the woman’s number objectionable as well (I bet a lot of people missed that reading the story).
Source: HipHopWired
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