I can vividly recall the lessons my mother taught me about character. When I was just a little girl, she drove home the concept that no one had the right to harm another, no matter what.

Nope, she didn’t want me to be a pushover for wrongdoers. In her eyes, everyone had the right to defend themselves from harm and protect others as well. But she taught me that people don’t knowingly have the right to deliberately inflict harm, even when the other person harmed them. That was vigilante justice.

As parents, we have to teach our kids wrong from right. But our responsibility to provide such clarity begins and ends with our child.

All sociopaths justify the harm they cause others. In their eyes, there’s always a good reason why they should be cruel and not concern themselves with the well being of their victim. Responding to wrongdoing with wrongdoing is, simply put, self-justified wrongdoing. Society would become chaos if it were okay for everyone to retaliate against others who hurt us.

I fully agree with the mindset of Lynette Lamendola who provided the following insights about the recent hacking of the Ashley Madison internet site:

Thoughts on the Ashley Madison Hack

“Most of us saw the news in the past week about the hack of the Ashley Madison dating site, a site that openly promotes marital infidelity. In fact, there is no doubt. There is full disclosure. The home page for the site shows a sensual picture with a statement, “Life is short. Have an affair.”

My wheels began to turn…

My first reaction to the hack of the Ashley Madison dating site was a feeling that the people on that dating site “had it coming and deserve to be exposed.” Then, I started to realize that the group that was hacking the dating site was a criminal enterprise. They were pretending to stand up for the principles of marriage and punish people having extra-marital affairs. The hackers have an agenda and it is not a moral one.

Then, another thought came to me that rather surprised me…..  At least the people on the Ashley Madison site know that they are dating a cheater! The married people that are on that site are actually being honest disclosing their marital status as married and are seeking to have an extra-marital affair! I am in no way condoning cheating. These people are going to cheat, but at least they have their own dating site! They are consenting adults.

Preventing rape by fraud

Ashley Madison is keeping married people off of single dating sites! They are at the very least limiting the number of people on dating sites who are pretending to be single when they are actually married!

This happened to me and to many of the readers of Stop Rape by Fraud. You signed up for internet dating, as I did, and ended up dating someone who lied about marital status.

Many of these people don’t just lie about it, they live a lie. It can be very difficult to uncover their deception. They vitiate our consent for sex. We think we are involved with a single person, but the person falsely represents themselves and tricks us into a sexual relationship based on deceit. And then, the sexual relationship that was based on lies, can evolve into a deeply entangled relationship that usually ends badly.

Weaving a web of lies

The man that duped me through an internet dating site claimed that his “ …. marriages had ended and that he was single again …. ready to start a new chapter in his life.” I thought I was in love with the man of my dreams and was planning to spend the rest of my life with him.  The whirlwind romance quickly turned into a long distance romance that lasted over a year with three brief visits. I was lonely in the long distance relationship, but “waited” for him and put my life on hold.

He defrauded me of money during a feigned personal crisis. He then tried to con me out of a lot more money for another personal crisis. A year after the relationship ended, I found out that he was a married man the whole time and still is! What a waste of my life. He robbed me of so much, breaking my heart, bank account, and my ability to trust.

I didn’t sign up to date married men. I signed up to date single men. I didn’t sign up to be the “other woman.”

A site for consenting adults

The cheaters need to stop pretending to be single and available on the dating sites that single people are on! So, maybe it is better if the cheaters have their own dating site!”

I agree with Lynette that the service provided by Ashley Madison, albeit unsavory and an instrument enabling the destruction of marriages, is one where, at least, the participants are not being scammed into complicity. That, and the vigilante nature of the feigned justice The Impact Team, who hacked their site perpetrated, puts me at odds with their behavior.