Something about this whole Arnold Schwarzenegger as baby-daddy ordeal struck me as strange.
No, it wasn’t the fact that Arnold hid a love child from his wife of 25 years nor was it that the love child was the product of an affair with a member of his house staff. Sadly, I didn’t find all of that particularly shocking.
What was strange in my admittedly desensitized book was this statement in the article from The LA Times.
“To protect their privacy, The Times is not publishing the former staffer’s name nor that of her child.”
I’m not sure how I feel about their omission of the staffer’s name. I am all for protecting the privacy of others, especially young children, but in this case I’m not sure I think it’s fair for someone to be protected when they were an equal participant in the “scandal” being reported.
I’ll leave the issue of privacy protection to the experts, but this one question lead me to another: in a situation where a married man cheats with a woman who knows full-well that he is married, is one party guiltier than the other?
Yes, Arnold is the celebrity in this situation, but he did not act alone. He cheated on his wife with someone who worked in their home, but the “former staffer” had sex with her married employer. Is what he did worse? I don’t know. But she is not innocent.
Let’s assume he pursued her, worked hard to convince her, and made all the arrangements to have and hide the affair. Does that make him more guilty?
Is there a scenario in which her luring him, convincing him and insisting he hide all the evidence makes her more at fault?
I don’t know the answer. I know people who have been involved in the situation and no matter how you slice it, it always feels like the person in the relationship is more in the wrong. Logically I know that’s not correct.
This latest gossip really tests the question best. You’ve got a world famous actor-turned-politician with intense physical strength having an affair with a person he employs. It feels like he must be the villain, and lord knows we’ll treat him that way. But is this unnamed former staffer at equal or less fault? And, back to the original question, what does the LA Times move to keep her identity a mystery mean relative to that bigger question?
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You make a good point, but maybe it has to do with the fact that she is not a celebrity herself. He’s a celebrity/politician/married to a Kennedy. He’s in the spotlight by choice and he will have to deal with the press, etc.
She’s not. She’s a staffer. Not accustomed to the limelight, the interviews, etc. It’s not the same to expect her to able to weather such public scrutiny. Arnold’s been doing it his whole life.
Yes, the maid was wrong to have an affair with her married employer. Yes, Arnold was wrong to cheat on his wife with a member of his staff and then keep this woman on the payroll for 10 years. But she’s not the celebrity. He is.
I think it has to do with the fact that he is in a position of power relative to her. This doesn’t absolve her of moral culpability, but it does mean that he had more power in this situation and thus is, I would argue, more at fault. There is no telling whether there was some coercion (explicit or implicit) in that relationship. Additionally, I do think the person in a marriage is more responsible for the transgression than their partner in the affair because they are the one breaking the promise to their spouse (the mistress made no oaths at an alter, he did).
Apparently she was married at the time too. They’re both to blame.
Obviously this point is kind of moot now that they have actually released her name. However, I think the original reasoning behind keeping her name a secret was purely to protect the child. It would obviously be clear to those in the kid’s community that he was Arnold’s son if it was revealed that his mom was the mistress. That poor child has a lot to deal with now.
That being said, the “other woman” is definitely equally at fault in cheating situations. If you know a person is married, it means they are off limits!
I really don’t know why Arnold didn’t divorce his wife if he was no longer interested in her or why he kept a running affair with a woman from his paid staff. Maybe I can’t get this concept because I don’t think like a man.