For the Lovers, Dreamers, Serial Fornicators and Me: Infidility in the Information Age
Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 9:00AM
Gawker is somewhat salivating at the mouth of the possibility of another sex scandal involving besieged New York Gov. David Paterson. Apparently the New York Times is sitting on a potential bombshell. Gawker has spun the political scandal Wheel of Misfortune and are putting their money on Gov. Paterson and the wife being swingers which is:
1. Gross.
2. Eh ... not as bad as the other 1 million sex scandals running right now.
I mean, seriously. At least if they're a bunch of super freaks they were super freaks together. And you can throw up your hands and scream "Demon Sheep! Take the wheel!" over it, but the notion of the governor and his wife just being kinky with key parties is almost quaint and refreshing compared to Tiger Woods' wandering Johnson, John "You ARE the father" Edwards, Eliot "Sex With Socks On" Spitzer and hiking the Appalachian trial with South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.
I mean, if Paterson and his wife are cheating they are apparently doing it as a team, and aren't we always encouraging husbands and wives to participate in activities they like -- together? So they took that to a freaky-ass, 1960s swingers level. That's ultimately between them and the STDs. I largely prefer it to the field of hurt feelings and broken up families that have marked some of the most recent sex scandals.
There have always been sex scandals. We are sexual beings. Politicians and the famous aren't any different, but what is different from the dusty sexcapades of old compared to now is these individuals are trying to do their "sex outside of marriage" in the Information Age.
Never has it EVER been easier to get caught with your pants on the ground.
Here are my top five examples of why, if you're going to cheat, you should probably NEVER take any pictures, use text messaging or email and never, ever do anything without the protection of a second party shell corporation or at least only mess around with those who can easily be bought off or called crazy after the deed is done.
5. YaVaughnie Wilkins and the billboards of "OUR LOVE WAS REAL, MFER!": I've heard a lot of things about YaVaughnie Wilkins, that she was a gold digger or something else of some sort, but at the end of the day, this woman had a long-term, emotionally invested relationship with a man who swore he was going to leave the wife and at the last minute thought "Dear Lord! What about the MONEY?!?!?" and chose to stay with the wife and kick her out of the $11 million manse he had her running around in teeny tiny bikinis. Namely, I don't really feel sorry for any of the parties involved, but I'll be damned if I'm going to feel sorry for Charles Phillips, the Richie Rich guy from Oracle who created this whole mess by stepping outside of his marriage in a big, use shell corporations to set your Mistress up all fat n' lush-like kind of way. No one TOLD him to do that. YaVaughnie didn't have to put a gun to his head and say, "You BETTER romance me for almost a decade, take care of me and give me wife status without ever actually making me your wife!" No one can make a person do that. But his ultimate mistake was that he wanted it all, his wife and his woman too, and when things went bad YaVaughnie and her tiny bikinis and toy dogs were just supposed to shut up and disappear silently into the night. Not over an $11 million house and a more than 8-and-1/2 year affair they won't!
How the information age ruined him: YaVaughnie had a lot of pictures and it's pretty easy to slap together a Web site and blow tens-of-thousands of dollars on some billboards. Because, you know? You don't leave YaVaughnie. YaVaughnie tells you when you can go. And his wife ended up divorcing him ANYWAY, so ... yeah. He handled that in a brills kind of way.
4. Please Delete My Number: I've said this many times to my friends but Tiger Woods seriously should have invested in high end whores instead of intercepting waitresses and party girls. One: whores totally are doing something illegal, so they have as much to lose from your screwing around as you do. Two: whores are not going to call you at home, interrupting your Thanksgiving holiday. Three: whores are not going to text you constantly. But then, maybe that was the problem? The whores were about BIDNESS. They're only telling you you're King Dingaling because you're dangling cash on the end of it. In the end, juggling a bunch of groupies and waitresses was probably more fun. You tell them you love them. They have unprotected sex with you (something a high-priced whore probably won't do because they KNOW you don't love them). You get the thrill of having all these womenfolk wanting and needing you and telling you your dick's bigger than Gods and it's all Peaches and Herb until it devolves into whatever the fuck happened Thanksgiving night 2009 in your driveway. But it didn't have to be that way, you know? If you'd just stuck with whores. But what do I know? Maybe Jamie Jungers (and the rest of the Fighting Fifteen) was SPECIAL!
How the information age ruined him: Again, a whore doesn't know you ... even when she *knows* you. Hollywood Madam Heidi Fliess never gave anyone up. Tiger had ladyfriends swinging from the rafters and they all saved every email, every text and every phone call. You really thought your game was that tight that the Silicone Sallies of Sexting would never turn on you. You thought wrong. And you weren't sprinkling around enough money in the end to keep anyone's mouth shut.
3. Don't Cry For Me Argentina (Because You're My Soulmate): Probably the most amazing fact I've heard about the destruction of Gov. Mark Sanford and Jenny Sanford's marriage was that after she caught him cheating (by finding a file full of details about his affair), was that he pestered his wife to see his mistress. That Jenny really didn't LOVE HIM if she wouldn't let him get some damn closure with whatever Argentine woman got his nose wide open.
How the information age got him: Well, he kept a file. That didn't have anything to do with technology. That was just muy estupido. But you can't exactly "disappear" when you're a public figure in the Age of Information. People will wonder where you went. You can't just say you "went hiking" and have your office all flat-footed and unable to reach you. And when you're already on your wife's bad side, she's not going to cover for you, as Jenny didn't when she was all, "Yeah, I don't know where he is either. If you find his ass, let me know." And, again, you're a public figure, so it's not easy to steal away to the Argentine to see your "soulmate." It also doesn't help when you describe, in public, that the woman you've been seeing who wasn't your wife is your "soulmate" and you're supposed to be patching things up and making it all better. But, you're still a governor and I'm not, so perhaps Sanford is doing "something" right.
2. The Mother of Glibert Arenas' Children and the No Accounting For Taste: I don't have time to really go into much depth about the ELVENTY BILLION KINDS OF WRONG it is for two people in committed relationships with children involved to get it on, repeatedly, and leave a trail of emails behind that winds up on Young, Black & Fabulous. But, gawd, Shaq and Laura Govan? Seriously. Gross. I wasn't surprised by any means considering both of your histories with your respective others -- the cheating, the lawsuits, the misc. kids strewn around, etc. But how selfish are two people to routinely inflect infidelity nightmares on people they claim to love?
How the information age did them in: Never have I seen so many poorly written emails that were never meant to see the light of day. But the real head turner is how before the internet age the chances of you knowing about a major scandal like this involving a black celebrity was nil because, let's face it, who was going to report on it? The only black people most mainstream gossip rags cared about were Michael Jackson (who is no longer with us) and Oprah Winfrey. Even Tiger Woods' face has been accused of not pushing stacks of Star in the same way Brangelina does. And if were talking the establishment black press? Oh hell no. They wouldn't piss off the VERY CELEBRITIES they need access to. Not Ebony. They're like the black race's PR magazine. There was a time a black celebrity could have the world's most dubious and dirty past and could run around blithely coked up with hookers because no one was ever going to write about it anywhere. Well, here comes the Internet and black celebrities are no longer safe from having their dirt wind up in the street in the most unflattering fashion. No more rumors. No more innuendo. No more putting your careful spin on it because you knew Ebony would let you sit down and tell your side of the story in a measured and clean fashion. Now you wake up and your ass is on Bossip for the WORLD to gawk at and you just have to live with it. But, again, in Shaq's case, he's Shaq and no one honestly expected better of him.
1. John Edwards: I don't know how that man thought he was going to hide a kid. I don't care if he did have some ride-or-die staffer who was willing to put up his mistress in his house and claim her kid as his. That is just a bridge too far to ask of anyone, even if they're creepy and weird and probably madly in love with you like Andrew Young. Fine. You're cheating on your cancer-stricken wife who may or may not be a bear to deal with in real life. Fine. You're doing it with some hippy chick that everyone thinks is kind of nutters. Great. But I don't know how you hide a baby, John-boy. Not in any age, let alone the Age of Information. I don't know how Elizabeth feels about this situation, but I know how I would be, and I'm not above surviving inoperable cancer just to spite a person. If I had her money I would be working on various therapies and medications just so he would have to look at me. Because I'd be so insanely bitter, being stricken with the cancer and all, that there's a fifty-fifty chance I would just turn like sour milk and be all, "You thought I died in my sleep, MFer, but HA-HA! I'm still HERE just to remind you that you're a dumbass who got some staffer knocked up ... and you're NEVER GOING TO BE PRESIDENT!" And people would tell me that life is precious and short and that I should really just let John go and spend my remaining months, years, whatever, pursuing my own happiness. And I would be like, that sounds nice ... IN THEORY. Because if living well is the best revenge, I'd want to live the shit out of my life right where he could see.
But I'm not that passive aggressive. I'm sure it would get old and I would move on, just like Elizabeth has, and separate from my caddish lout of a hubby.
How the information age did him in: One, there's allegedly a sex tape of Edwards getting it on with his pregnant mistress ... a sex tape I NEVER HOPE SEES THE LIGHT OF DAY. Along with hearing about Paterson's swinger lifestyle and seeing Tiger Woods' junk, that goes on the list of things I hope never leak out. Of course the medium Edwards chose was a crappy videotape that was easily repaired and viewed by the creeptastic Andrew Young and his wife. Edward's ladyfriend has a court order to keep the tape from being released, yet Young is still sitting on it, quite grossly. Seriously, Internet, take one for the team on this and just say no.
Honorable Mentions: Matthew Knowles (again, back in the day, WHO WOULD HAVE REPORTED ON MATTHEW KNOWLES?!?!?! After all, how many articles did you read about Joe Jackson before Michael outted him as being crazy-pants AFTER "Thriller" blew up?)
Reader Comments (12)
Thanks for the laughs, and just want I needed with all this damn snow messing up my day.
Regarding Gov. Paterson and his wife, if my memory serves correct, Gov Paterson admitted that, at one time, he and his wife had an "agreement" to bed other people. In short, as per the Gov, they had an open marriage. I can only imagine the media drama ahead, if any of their bed partners decide to talk. Poor Gov.
HE HAS A GOOD EXCUSE. I MEAN, HE CAN BARELY SEE WHERE HE'S GOING, SO HOW'S HE SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHO HE'S BOFFING?
HILARIOUS!!!! - I was looking for something else and just had to read the whole thing.
You should get snowed in more often
SWIV you are all kinds of wrong...
I'm with Snob on this one, if they have an understanding and it's working for them, who am I to judge.
I agree!
OMG,
this was HILARIOUS.
ALL KINDS of hilarious.
Serial Fornicators-i loves it
SWIV-it's awful but my first thought was maybe Patterson was just feeling his way around-lol
It's hard to believe Patterson replaced another whore, Spitzer. He is such an awful governor, and it's beyond foolish that he is actually using the mythical race card concerning the overall view of his poor performance. At one point he said folks were picking on him cause he's blind-but if it comes out he and the Mrs. were having Caligula parties at the mansion, he could reinvent himself as the poster boy for freaky deaky handicapped people.
AND YOU KNOW HE TRIED TO PUT IT SOMEWHERE HE SHOULDN'T HAVE
LMAO! THAT'S PROBABLY WHY SHE WANTED TO STOP FOOLIN WITH HIM.
This was freakin hilarious! Love ya, Snob!
Christ. We've got a bunch of whores running this country. No wonder Congress is all fucked up. It's too busy reeling from orgasms (or lack thereof).
You had me rolling on the floor.... too funny. We can only imagine what will happen next.....
Well if everyone is in it with their eyes open and everyone agrees to it, i don't care. It may not be my cup of tea but no one is being lied to at least. Let the Patersons get their freak on!