Over at Slate.com, William Saletan uses the recent scandal involving Anthony Weiner to explore the propriety of online flirtation with people one has never met.   Does this sort of activity constitute cheating on one's significant other?   Saletan offers a thoughtful and serious discussion that meshes well with another recurring question these days:  to what extent are those Facebook "Friends" I've never met my friends?  If not much, then it would seem that our time with them amounts to social masturbation, and not any meaningful expression of friendship. In the case of Weiner, I do think it's telling that that he claims that he was not cheating, and he was not engaged in "relationships," yet he was willing to lie to cover up what he was doing.   But maybe that raises another provocative question:  Just because one would rather not be exposed for doing an activity, is that any evidence at all that the activity is morally wrong?   Is social condemnation always an indicia of moral lapse.  After all, quite often the crowd is simply judgmental.   Or maybe the onlookers are simply permeated with schadenfreude. I know people who have been married for decades who don't talk to each other, and who don't really know each other, yet they officially have a marriage.  Why is this situation not condemned?  Isn't it a farce?  On the other hand, I know many people who are married, who sincerely admit that they can't and shouldn't expect that they could have all of their diverse needs and interests met by only one other human being.   Hence, in the face of a strong relationship at home, they have a wide variety of outside friends (often friends of both sexes) that they spend time with regarding those things their significant other isn't passionate about, whether it be photography, history, raising dogs or whatever.  Sometimes that interest is flirtation; sometimes even sex.  I'm not suggesting any sort of lesson here, but what gives the crowd the right to judge a particular marriage that, in its own crazy-seeming way, seems to work? And how could anyone concerned about this country not be dismayed, once again, when a sexually-tinged side show takes 90% of the media's attention, such that real issues are not given proper coverage.  Could this be solved by requiring members of Congress to stand up naked while they give speeches on important topics?   How could we focus media attention on Wall Street corruption or the massive amount of money we spend of discretionary warmongering and, instead, encourage viewers to talk about these things intensely, to the same extent that we are all now jabbering about a horny man who has otherwise done an admirable job of being a thoughtful representative?   I have no answer to this question.