His public flogging says more about us

FORMERDEMOCRAT politician Anthony Weiner is in the news again. The erstwhile congressman, forced into early retirement when he accidentally tweeted pictures of his penis, and was then caught doing the same thing during a bid to be mayor of New York, is still engaging in his favourite pastime of sending pictures of himself with an erection to women who are not his wife.

On Monday, the covered its front page with photos Mr Weiner sent to an unnamed young woman and, worse, a Trump-supporter. The photos showed a shirtless Mr Weiner with the now familiar erection but, perhaps most notably, his young son had crawled into bed and fallen asleep next to him. The boy was visible in the photo.

But… why is this newsworthy? The man, no longer a congressman nor a mayoral candidate, is now nothing more than a consultant, according to a recent article (and — full disclosure — a meeting I had with him last week). In other words, he is an entirely private citizen, no longer at the disposal of the “public interest”.

Does his proximity to America’s presumed next president actually justify this kind of scrutiny of the man’s private life, to say nothing of his child’s (surely the crime in publicising that shot was much greater than Mr Weiner’s in taking it)?

Apparently this is still news. The web was ablaze with the story, especially when his wife, Huma Abedin, announced that she would be separating from Mr Weiner, and begged for some privacy.

In the past, the couple have not shied away from the limelight, including a recent film, documenting the implosion of Mr Weiner’s 2013 mayoral bid, supposed to be his comeback. But those were days in which Mr Weiner was still a public figure.

On Twitter, someone suggested that Mr Weiner would be susceptible to blackmail, since a person who tweets images of his penis for the entire world to see surely does other, even more embarrassing things. Really?

Does it get more embarrassing than that? Indeed, the moralising around all of this would make you think he had violated someone, or at least touched someone, rather than simply exchanged a few lewd photos.

The moralising has been trumped only by the pathologising. Mr Weiner has an illness! He is a sex addict! A compulsive liar! He cannot control himself! But in the digital age, isn’t his behaviour rather typical?