Vastly farting
Syzygys said:
label, invasion of privacy, emotional damages,etc...
Is there libel involved? I missed that part, if so. But privacy is an interesting thing: she, too, has a proprietary right to consider actions she takes part in. If I smoke pot alone, I can expect that nobody but me can talk about it. But if I smoke pot with friends, who's to say it won't turn up somewhere? ("So this one time, I was smoking a bowl with Tiassa, and ....") There are hundreds of those kinds of moments that my friends and I might share with the world. Like the time we were on these little thumbtack-looking mushrooms at a Phish show, and I turned to a friend during the set break and said, "Let's do the old
Whatchamacallit? commercial, and you do the 'what's right?' part, but do it in Scooby Doo's voice." Stupid as hell, I know, but we all fondly recall how hard we laughed after that. A good time was had by all. Or the "Funboy" (
Simpsons reference) episode after a Roger Waters show. Or sunlight hits in the parking lot at the Gorge with a friend?
Sex, at least, is legal. And, really: if people are freaked out that someone likes to spank an ass during sex, they're prudes. Really. People need to get freaky sometimes, or else they end up warped. Phyllis Schlafly, for instance, would probably have us believe there's nothing perverse about her. I don't even want to think about it, anyway, but really. And she's friggin' screwy.
There was a similar website where girls could rate their dates and a guy successfully sued the website because of invasion of privacy.
I would have to read about the specific issues involved in order to respond. I'll see what I can find out, but I'm not promising anything.
maybe you should. The other big difference is compared to 20 years ago, that back then people forgot about it eventually. But the internet and servers don't forget and any embarassment can stay there for decades and come back and bite you in the ass even when you forgot about it long time ago...
And 20 years ago, the best way to get a controversial message through was ... well, I don't think the Unabomber had it right, but think about the difference. In 1987, there was no solid internet offering millions of web pages asserting and dishing everything under the sun. Hers is just one more voice in the crowd, and he can respond in kind if he sees fit. A lawsuit in this case might actually make people care and notice more than they would have otherwise. (I think that point has already come up in the topic, hasn't it?)
For me, though, the say-so of a drunk, adulterous gardener isn't enough to worry about.
True story: A little over ten years ago, my friend Jon was dating Charity (her stage name), who became a stripper at a local club. We got to know Joe, the manager, and Ron, the owner. After Jon and Charity broke up in a horrendous spectacle that involved the police (in Jon's defense), she badmouthed him all over the club. He beat her, raped her, cheated on her, &c. I recall there was even a story that he tried to pimp her. Outrageous. When we turned 21, we drank at a local pool hall called Sharky's, and when we wanted T&A we drove to Eugene, an hour away, to another club. One night, Joe came into Sharky's after finishing work at the T&A club. He was surprised to see us. That's right, you're legal now, &c., &c. He asked why we hadn't been down to the club yet, and Jon recalled Charity's trashing of his character. Joe scoffed and said, "It's Charity. Right. We believe her. Come on down and see us."
And thus resumed a happy relationship scarred only by our fears of what wasn't real.
Or another true story: A much-former girlfriend used to tell people--but only when it came up, and not as a malicious thing--that I didn't like going down on women. After that notion was corrected, it became that I didn't do it well. And that's fine with me. So I can't do her right. Oh, well. There are others who would spake otherwise. The only time it ever came up was when my recent former partner (see prior post) threw it in my face during an argument: "Even Corrie knows you suck in bed!" What? I was seventeen. I have long been aware that I sucked in bed at that point. Reminding me isn't going to hurt my feelings, and it's funny, dear, how you aren't complaining in the middle of orgasm. Whatever. It comes down to the individuals themselves:
I know, and the people of consequence in my life know, that my former partner is nuts. Most people don't care about my assessment of my sexual prowess in high school. I can't see why I should waste any more time on it than to acknowledge, "It would seem easy to believe." If such talk can be of consequence in my life, it seems to me that it is the result of my own priorities.
And so it is with the lawsuit:
To win, Steinbuch will have to prove that the details of their sexual relationship were private and publishing them was highly offensive. Billips argues that Cutler never intended to make the blog public but, in the information age, data is easily copied and distributed beyond its intended audience.
If the case goes to trial, its outcome will be important both to bloggers and to people who chronicle their lives on social-networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said he may teach the Washingtonienne case this spring during his class at Georgetown Law School.
"Anybody who wants to reveal their own private life has a right to do that. It's a different question when you reveal someone else's private life," he said, adding that simply calling something a diary doesn't make it one. "It's not sitting in a nice, leather-bound book under a pillow. It's online where a million people can find it."
Rotenberg asked, what if Cutler had secretly videotaped the encounters and sold the videos without Steinbuch's consent? There has to be a line somewhere, he said. SeattleTimes.com)
I think her defense is lame and stupid, at least according to Billips' point that Cutler never intended to make the blog public.
But really: twenty million dollars? And what is Rotenberg's point? That selling an unwitting performance for profit is analogous to publishing slice-of-life vignettes and reflections on a weblog? Did she even make money from this publication? The life you share with someone is theirs as much as yours. Perhaps it's in poor taste to publish something like this and not inform one's lover, but not everything of poor taste is subject to lawsuit.
Farting, for instance, is of generally poor taste, and lacking any chemical compound that causes me actual physical harm, I'm not going to sue someone for cutting a sulphurous biscuit in the elevator. Besides, I consider the fart a legitimate form of self-expression in some circumstances; I'm not going to set a precedent whereby such expression is subject to lawsuits.
It's a matter of whether one's personal sense of embarrassment is worth calling general principle into question. I would hope such examination would be for reasons vastly more important.
