For Women in Weiner Scandal, Indignity Lingers

[garbon]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/nyregion/for-women-in-weiner-scandal-indignity-lingers.html?src=mv&_r=0

Customers taunt Lisa Weiss. "Talk dirty to me," they joke. "We know you like it." Colleagues refuse to speak with her. Strangers mock her in nasty online messages.

"Clearly she's got mental issues," declared the latest.

Anthony D. Weiner's improbable campaign for mayor of New York City is a wager that voters have made peace with his lewd online behavior, a subject he has largely left behind as he roils the race with his aggressive debating style and attention-getting policy proposals.

But for the women who were on the other end of Mr. Weiner's sexually explicit conversations and photographs, his candidacy is an unwanted reminder of a scandal that has upended their lives in ways big and small, cutting short careers, disrupting educations and damaging reputations.

"I cannot tell you the devastation," said Ms. Weiss, a 42-year-old blackjack dealer in Nevada who exchanged dozens of explicit messages with Mr. Weiner, then a congressman, in 2010 and 2011.

Ms. Weiss, a die-hard Democrat who once volunteered for Bill Clinton's presidential campaign and was inspired by "Fahrenheit 9/11," a film critique of the Bush administration, said she reached out to Mr. Weiner after watching him joust with Republican rivals on cable news. They traded admiring messages on Facebook that, at his prompting, became intimate and raunchy, she said.

When their correspondence eventually became public, she said in an interview, conservative-minded colleagues sought to have her fired. The press lined up outside of her house and showed up at her casino, causing her to miss work for weeks. One night, she turned on the television to find the HBO host Bill Maher and the actress Jane Lynch performing a dramatic reading of the bawdy messages.

Ms. Weiss, an avowed Maher fan, said she sat in her living room crying. While coping with the onslaught, she drank heavy amounts of alcohol, a habit that persists.

"I obsess about it," she said, "every day."

It is hard not to, she said: Mr. Weiner had faded from view after resigning from Congress, but now that he is in the mayoral race, her phone lights up with calls from reporters, online enemies are pouncing and fresh cruelties abound.

"We know what you want to do to him," she recalled a man teasing her at work recently.

Little unites the five women whose online relationships with Mr. Weiner have become public. Some were self-confident political admirers; some were struggling and insecure, flattered by attention from a man in power. Some fled publicity after his downfall; some sought it out. (Ms. Weiss even appeared on "Inside Edition.") Some of them still think he would be a good mayor; some are repelled by the concept.

But it is clear that all of them have been overwhelmed by the reaction to the imbroglio.

Gennette Cordova, a 21-year-old college student when she interacted with Mr. Weiner, is still trying to reclaim her identity, online and off.

In spring 2011, Mr. Weiner sent her an image of himself in boxers, with an obvious erection. Ms. Cordova, who has told The New York Times that she had chatted electronically with Mr. Weiner about politics and not about sex, was shocked by his unwanted advance.

When Mr. Weiner inadvertently posted the image publicly on Twitter, the Internet quickly rendered its own verdict, branding Ms. Cordova, incorrectly, she says, a participant in his online dalliances.

The news media dug up Ms. Cordova's old yearbooks and sifted through police records, publicizing her youthful indiscretions.

The attention prompted her to withdraw from academic classes. She moved from Seattle to New York City, before Mr. Weiner's decision to run for mayor, eager to leave a place where she had become known for her ties to the unfolding drama.

But, with Mr. Weiner back in the spotlight, the story has followed her across the country. A few weeks ago, a reporter showed up, unannounced, at her office, asking her about Mr. Weiner.

The repercussions were also painful for Traci Nobles, a onetime schoolteacher and a fitness instructor in Georgia, who says her roommate leaked her salacious messages with Mr. Weiner without her permission. As media inquiries poured in to her employer, Ms. Nobles was forced to quit her job at a Young Women's Christian Organization because of the attention.

[more in link]

Maybe I didn't pay enough attention to the scandal but I don't think I'd recognize any of the women - let alone think it'd be fun to throw it up as a joke in their face.

[The Brain]

Why did you post this?

[Admiral Yi]

First person to post in the thread loses.

[garbon]

Why did you post this?

It was something I hadn't thought about with regards to one of my mayoral candidates.

[Caliga]

Why won't Weiner go out and get a real job? Like drive the Weinermobile for instance.

[derspiess]

Another life lesson learned!

[Valmy]

Another life lesson learned!

You are not allowed to have a private life?

Seriously what is the lesson?  Become a nun?

[derspiess]

You are not allowed to have a private life?

When it comes to "sexting" public figures, pretty much. 

[Valmy]

You are not allowed to have a private life?

When it comes to "sexting" public figures, pretty much. 

I guess.  I mean so far as I can tell none of those women were even in relationships so I do not see that they were doing anything wrong.  Stuff like this ruins it for everybody.

I mean one of them was just chatting with him and he sent her the schlong pics unsolicited...what is the lesson there?  Just do not talk to public figures?

[Richard Hakluyt]

I think it is pretty harsh when "conservative colleagues" want you sacked from your job as a blackjack dealer in Nevada because of some sexy online chat 

[Admiral Yi]

Valmy: Two of the three chicks mentioned in the article were apparently doing more than chatting about politics and the weather.

[Valmy]

Valmy: Two of the three chicks mentioned in the article were apparently doing more than chatting about politics and the weather.

Yes that last bit was referring to chick #3.

[Jacob]

Maybe I didn't pay enough attention to the scandal but I don't think I'd recognize any of the women - let alone think it'd be fun to throw it up as a joke in their face.

That's because you didn't know them for other reasons. The people giving the women a hard time are either reporters, or people they work with or otherwise know.

Imagine if one of the people involved was posting on languish; it'd be brought up constantly.

[Valmy]

Imagine if one of the people involved was posting on languish; it'd be brought up constantly.

I don't know.  If I found sexts written by CdM I would be doing my best to forget I had ever seen them.

Edit: Oh Jake I had a thread for you in the Gaming forum if you haven't seen it already.

[derspiess]

I guess.  I mean so far as I can tell none of those women were even in relationships so I do not see that they were doing anything wrong.

I'm not casting moral judgment, believe it or not.  I'm just saying it's stupid.

Stuff like this ruins it for everybody.

I mean one of them was just chatting with him and he sent her the schlong pics unsolicited...what is the lesson there?  Just do not talk to public figures?

Don't talk to those named Weiner

In two of the three cases it seems that the women willingly traded raunchy messages back & forth.  I kinda feel bad for the other one, but then again her "youthful indiscretions" that apparently got uncovered were her own fault.