By Mark David Blum, Esq.

A woman lures a philandering husband to a motel hideaway. She blindfolded him and tied him up good. Her prey secure, the woman secretly texts three of her friends and the man’s wife to join her. Then, the woman cut off his underwear and slapped him across the face while she and her friends, including the man’s wife, belittled him and berated him. Finally using some fingernail glue, they glued his penis to his stomach.

At sentencing, the women were given probation and a slap on the wrist. The judge made a point that the man suffered no serious or permanent injury. He then openly acknowledged that had the situation been reversed, there would be prison time. Finally, the judge blamed the victim in part for his role as a cheating husband saying he brought it on himself.

For those of you who find this event laughable or say “good, the guy deserved it” for cheating on his wife, I submit the following for your consideration. Imagine instead it was a woman, lured to a motel room, handcuffed and blindfolded, and that the woman had her labia superglued together or each glued to a thigh. Nobody would be snickering then but society would be in an uproars.

I, for one, am outraged. It is not funny.

For a judge to openly acknowledge a double standard is more offensive than the gentle touch of his sentencing. Every man who stands before this judge facing a sex charge against a woman should raise the issue of the glued penis as a defense. Why should a man face prison where a woman gets a walk? Where does the justice system ever defend the unequal treatment of the sexes. Is that not the constitutional intent behind the 14th Amendment; that we are all equal before the law.

Also I thought our society had gotten beyond a “blame the victim” mentality. Every time a woman is grabbed by the hair and dragged down an alley to be sexually assaulted; we don’t say it is her fault. Since when does philandering ever excuse an assault; let alone a sexual assault?

Does a cheating wife deserve pain? We don’t blame the woman for how she was dressed or how she moved her body on a dance floor. “No” is supposed to mean “no”. Nobody asks for it by virtue of their behavior. If this was about him asking for it by cheating on his wife; what he was asking for was a divorce, not a supergluing. The wife, the girlfriends, and the friends of the girlfriend should not be forgiven nor have their sentence reduced because the man was being unfaithful to his wife. By fiat and example, this judge has now told women in what ways it is OK to deal with a straying spouse.

No, I wont be looking over my shoulder and I am not going to stop my investigation of binding and blindfolds. But for those husbands out there philandering or thinking about it, at least in one county, I would walk very carefully.