Painful to Watch

I don’t think this documentary is painful to watch because it was poorly made, or because I think Anthony Weiner is bad person or politician. I’m just not interested in his personal life. I would rather watch a documentary about politicians like Rob Ford or Silvio Berlusconi. Weiner’s sexual activities are boring when you compare them to the activities of some other well known politicians. I also think the documentary was painful to watch because it highlights one of the many things that I think it wrong with the American political system, and the average American’s perception of sexuality and marriage.

It would have been an interesting documentary to watch if Weiner decided to deviate from the normal American political rules and customs during his mayoral campaign, and run on a platform of brutal honesty. The type of honesty that many Americans don’t want to see or hear. The type of honesty that destroys cultural fallacies and illusions. He could have focused on important political issues, while refusing to apologize for his private sexual activities. And he could have let the public know that as long as he’s not breaking the law, anything that he does in his private life is none of our business.

Anthony Weiner isn’t a social conservative, so a campaign of honesty without shame wouldn’t have made him look like a liar or a hypocrite. An honest and flawed politician winning a mayoral race in NYC would have been a long shot, but at least he would have had a chance. And even if he didn’t win, at least he could have played an important role in the process of slowly changing the way the American public thinks about the private lives of politicians and other people in the spotlight. But that’s not what he did. Instead he chose to continue his risky sexual activities, and he bowed his head in shame when he was caught for a second time.

I think Weiner’s actions were stupid, but I don’t think he did anything that I would consider morally wrong. I’m not a woman that agreed to be in a traditional monogamous relationship with the man, so from my perspective it’s none of my business. Some people believe that Weiner’s actions proves that he has some kind of mental illness. If anything, I think it’s American society that has what I would describe as a social illness.

We embrace systems that are built on lies and half-truths. And then we get upset when the lies are exposed. Most of us foolishly expect our politicians to be perfect citizens with a set of customs and values that are definitely not in alignment with our biology. Any politician that breaks the illusion of traditional family values is usually perceived as bad. And most of us believe that they have the right to tell other people how they should and shouldn’t experience pleasure or happiness.

I have a “whatever works” philosophy when I’m thinking about pleasure or happiness. As long as you’re not causing any involuntary physical harm to someone in the process, then I don’t care how you get from point A to point B. I want my politicians and anyone else that’s working for me to be happy, because happiness is associated with better productivity. And it’s obvious that Anthony found a thrilling activity that makes him happy in the moment.