Why do people feel the personal lives of others are any of their business?

[liberalhistorian]

I've been reading recent threads on adultery, gay sex, etc., and pondering why it is, exactly, that people believe they have the right to poke their nose into and judge the personal lives of others, especially people they don't know? Whose business is it, anyway?

I realize that repukes mostly are the ones "legislating morality", or always trying to, at least, and that they're the ones who are so uptight over gay sex and gay marriage, adultery, etc. And that they're mostly the ones who believe that you can do all manner of evil, nasty, terrible things (like, say, lie about the reasons for getting your country into a war, then sending hundreds of young men and women to their deaths and being responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians without blinking an eye), but as long as you're not gay or don't commit adultery or have premarital sex, etc., that's okay. And that they're mostly the ones who have no problem with the police banging down the door of a private residence and arresting adults engaged in consensual sex acts, or enforcing old adultery laws still on the books in many states, etc.

But let's not kid ourselves, many liberals, if they're honest, have the same hang-ups and Dems can be guilty of all of that, as well. And my question is WHY? WHY do people feel so judgmental about sexual and personal matters, especially regarding people they don't know? WHY do they feel the need to stick their noses in other people's personal business?

And what I REALLY get tired of, as a 38-year-old never-married single parent, is people always asking why I've never been married and that it would be better if I were married, etc., etc. (I usually shut them up, btw, by saying that, since Mr. Right hasn't appeared yet, maybe they'd like to find him for me? That does it every time!) So why do people care if other people are married or not, what business is it of theirs? And why do they think less of someone if they're single or, the opposite, feel bad for them and think they don't have much of a life?

None of this is to at all suggest that I in any way approve of adultery, or that I would want someone I was married to or involved with to cheat on me. But it would be a PERSONAL matter that would be no one else's business and that no one else would have the right to judge or stick their noses into. Remember, it's very, very easy to judge someone when you're not in their shoes!

[Muddleoftheroad]

1. People who cheat

In their private lives can be assumed to be untrustworthy, not just in their private lives.

If you are a known liar, even to those you profess to love like your spouse, why should I trust you?

[supernova]

2. That's the myth though,

there is no correlation between private sexual morality (or lack thereof) and morality and ethics on the job.

[HEyHEY]

3. I make it a policy

Not to trust or associatte with people who cheat on their signifigant others. If you can't be loyal to your lover then how can you be loyal to a friend.

[liberalhistorian]

6. Oh really? Then why have some of our best

politicians, who've done the most good for the country and society, been what we'd call "adulterers?"

Look at people like Oscar Schindler, the hero of Schindler's List. He drank, smoked, and screwed around. Then look at what he did. He gave up his own fortune and put his own life at great risk for many years in order to save a few hundred Jews from the Nazi death machine; all the while, "churchgoing, decent" people who would never dream of being "immoral" did NOTHING, even castigated him for saving lives at the risk of his own life.

Look at FDR. Even Eleanor said he was a basically good, humane man, and look at the tremendous good he did for the country and society.

Now look at Shrub and Cheney. Look at what lying, tyrannical, ruthless, cruel SOB pieces of shit they are and what they're doing to the country and the dead soldiers and civilians lives they're responsible for. But that's okay, I guess, because they've never committed adultery.

[Exultant Democracy]

11. That is pretty specious logic

You are taking one of your opinions and putting it forward to be a fact. In reality there are no hard fast rules about people, they can be trustworth in one thing and not in another. Take your avatar for instance, MLK Jr. was well known for his affairs, but he was still one of the greatest men of the modern era.

[jrthin]

13. Muddleoftheroad, you chose the...

correct word, "assumed." You know the old saying, when you assume something you make an ass..... Well, I'm sure you know how that ends. There is no such assumption. People and their lives are complex, certainly not black and white, so if an affair happens in a relationship or marriage, I suggest we let the people involve handle the situation and we don't falsely conclude that the offending party is "untrustworthy" in ALL areas of life.

From my own personal sitution, it's never black or white, it's complex. And in my situation, I would trust the offending party with being more loving, more human, and MORE honest than I would trust some sanctimonious creep, JMHO.

[newyawker99]

21. Congrats jrthin!! 400 posts

:toast:

[asjr]

4. personal lives

If one believes in the story of Adam and Eve and the infamous apple, then I think that apple was full of poison. God gave us brains, and He or She expected us to use our brains. Unfortunately, from the year one we have let God down. I totally agree with you about others trying to tell you how to live. Give it a few more years and it will not bother you as much. I read your message and think Good Grief, that is me 40 years ago. Human nature will not allow us to mind our own business. I have, in my later years, told people to Screw you! I'll tend to my business--you tend to yours. I try to be polite with it as I am basically a good-natured person, but at times it can be really difficult. If you do not want to get married, don't. I spent 30 years in a marriage made in hell because of others around me. Do not let that happen to you.

[liberalhistorian]

12. It's not that I don't want to get married, it's that

I have yet to meet, as they say, Mr. Right. And I won't "settle for" anyone, either, I'd rather be single than married to the wrong person and miserable!

[ForrestGump]

17. As one who's been to the altar of matrimony, please let me

assure you that I don't "think less of someone if they're single" or "feel bad for them and think they don't have much of a life." Uh-uh....nothing like a doomed marriage or marriage-ish relationship to make you envy the singles.

Well, sort of - because I think the real truth is that being married or not being married has nothing, inherently, to do with worth or happiness. Those are qualities that only one person can truly lay on you, and that's you yourself. if you're happy with another, as in a marriage, that's just great, but first you have to be happy in yourself and I'd posit that a great many marriages are missing that key ingredient.

As for why people are always so obsessed with prying into personal lives.....I don't know, but I do agree that it's probably a phenomenon that's independent of poilitical stripe (though perhaps the moral-majority kind of conservatives that the US seems so top-heavy with are, as part of their pathology, particularly bewitched by other people's private lives). Look at the success of biographies that dish up dirt on famous figures. We just eat that stuff up, colelctively. why? Maybe to make us feel better about ourselves - an ultimately fruitless way of going about that objective, of course - or maybe just because it's sheer titillation. Maybe we're jealous. Maybe we want to topple the mighty. Maybe we're morally outraged. Maybe we just want to feel morally superior, whatever the hell that is. Maybe we're looking for evidence of Satan. I don't know. All of the above? And then some, probably.

[silverweb]

5. You're absolutely right.

Personal lifestyle choices are no one else's business and should have no bearing on how they are treated with regard to interactions in the community.

We all know the right wing loves to legislate its version of morality, but as far as I'm concerned no one has the right to do that. I mentally give them the finger and do what I want.

Some of the moralizing and hypocrisy that are revealed are the reasons I avoid those threads. They're nauseating and pointless.

"If it harms no one, do as you please."

[liberalhistorian]

9. You hit the nail on the head as far as the repukes

"legislating ITS version of morality." The key word there is ITS. Because, frankly, different people have their own ideas and versions of morality, so which one is actually correct? And what gives someone the right to shove it down another's throat?

[jrthin]

7. I have wondered the ...

same question. I don't get it either. What people do in their bedrooms just don't concern.

[roughsatori]

8. If a friend or family member tells me they are adulterers

it is my concern. I have seen friends torn apart over cheating. I have even seen friends nearly destroyed when they were found to be cheating and dumped by the trusting spouse. I think it shows good judgement to think that not lying, stealing or cheating is better than lying, stealing and cheating.

Telling my brother that I think he is a dishonest-slob for cheating on his wife is not the same as advocating for him to be thrown in jail.


I might be confused by your post though. I don't think you are really saying you think no one should make judgements about other people's behaviors unless they've been in they're shoes. If I felt that way, I could ask myself who am I to judge Shrub for stealing and election because I have never been in his shoes.

Do you feel completely neutral when people in committed relationships cheat? (Sorry, I know I am focusing on one facet of what you wrote--but I am curious as I always read your posts.)

[liberalhistorian]

14. No, I certainly do NOT feel neutral when

people I know in committed relationships cheat. And I'm well aware of the damage it can cause, having experienced it in my own family with my own parents (my mom and stepdad, who will be celebrating their 35th anniversary in a few weeks, btw). What I'm saying is that I do not have the right to intervene or stick my nose in it because it is, frankly, none of my business, and I don't think others do either, especially if they don't even know the people involved. And maybe that's because I haven't been in a relationship in a long time. But I do know that if I were the "betrayed" spouse/girlfriend, I wouldn't want anyone else sticking their nose in my business, I would want to handle it between me and my SO and no one else.

[roughsatori]

16. I re-read your original post

and see that you are discussing this in a context of others legislating morality and sticking their noses in your business over your being a single mom. But if a friend tells me they are cheating on their spouse, I do think less of them for doing that. And I will not lie to a friend about that. (I should stop now, I am starting to sound like the SNL Church Lady.)

I think that the only 2 things that I find completely disgusting and would end a friendship over are people who vote Republican or molest children.

[AngryYoungMan]

10. Because they believe that it spreads.

Right wing parents don't want their kids taught by gay teachers, amongst gay family groups, or in any other situation where the impressionable youngsters will be inspired to indulge in "immoral" behavior.

The more "permissive" the environment, the more the kids are encouraged to be "decadent"; that's the road to "Sodom and Gomorrah."

While the argument (and its underlying hypocrisy, fear, and ignorance) is repellant, the part about "impressionable youth" is correct. For example, I can think of many college friends from right-wing backgrounds who had truly barbaric ideas in their heads; exposure to the more sophisticated environment of a University got them to be less parochial and more advanced in their thinking.

I'm sure that, once they went back to their right-wing homes during breaks from school, the parents were appalled at the "crazy liberal ideas" they'd picked up. It's an old story.

Anyway, that's why people think that other people's personal lives are their business.

[liberalhistorian]

15. That's a very good point,

I've seen that happen, myself!

[jonnyblitz]

18. because of their "religion" n/t

[sandnsea]

19. Maintaining a functioning community

Unfortunately they try to do it based on assumptions about family structures that function.

In my community I see alot of kids with no parents. Kids are shuffled from aunt to grandma and back again. I've seen kids whose parents have actually set them up in an apartment and left. I've seen kids whose parents are so drugged out they may as well not exist. Literally, kids whose parents sell drugs for a living. These are high school kids so it isn't like the parents haven't had time to get their shit together. And I live in a town of about 10,000 with a high income base too, well we know selling drugs pays well!

These situations impact the community. In the way the school functions, in crime, in social services, etc. So people want to butt in and do something about it, and Democrats tend to support those efforts.

But one group has blamed liberal sex, drugs and rock 'n roll as the cause of all the problems. But that's really bullshit because the problems were always there, just nobody cared. We have 'studies' that correlate unmarried black mothers with the problems in inner cities. Republicans pay attention to those studies. The 'studies' that correlate poverty to problems with kids are ignored. They have such a machine that countering all the propaganda seems like an impossible task.

Anyway, that's what I see as the reason people want to stick their noses into other people's personal business. As it pertains to you personally getting married, you might say you don't want to end up with a husband who beats you. It ought to stifle any stupid idea that your single parent status is contributing to the deterioration of the community.

[populistmom]

20. It doesn't matter what your situation, people still judge

My husband and I have been married for 12 years, BUT I'm 31 and he's 40. He still sometimes gets shit from people about being a cradle robber because I was 18 when we met and he was 27. Nevermind that at 18 I was supporting myself, living on my own, and had been through life's ringer in many respects with nothing in common with the average 18 year old boy and I pursued him. We're actually happy, pretty ordinary folks, yet we still get shit on occasion.
So don't worry about it. Lots of people think they know what's best for others or judge someone else's situation as "weird", but really have no clue and are simply narrow minded bafoons!

[newyawker99]

22. Congrats populistmom!! 100 posts

A :toast: for your first milestone!! :-)