A friend of mine, a renowned, respected professor, can be called a sex addict. For years, he goes to certain prostitutes to satisfy himself, not just for sex but also for his self-esteem.

(I won’t go deeper on this since it’s too complicated.)

“I’ve spent more than a Mercedes-Benz on them over the years.” He once said with a grin.

He has a particular taste for women, and the opportunity to choose was a liberty for him to go beyond imagination.

“Of course, it’s unethical or unfaithful, if you’d say, but it saves my marriage.” He told me candidly.

That’s indeed one of his excuses. Reasonable and understandable, but it wouldn’t survive any moral examination. I wouldn’t endorse his reasoning.

Many things we do wouldn’t survive moral examination either, and we wouldn’t endorse each other in public.

Maybe it’s hypocritical, especially among people of the same gender, but I believe that we all have reasons behind those “unendorsables.” Under some circumstances, you may judge people by their (wrong)doings by calling this friend a “disloyal pervert,” “dirty,” or something more colorful.

Which is fine, suit yourself. You are absolutely entitled to do that no matter if you’re an endorsable person or not.

But I’d say not to judge a person by his/her inner depression or agony. You’d know it’s there, but you don’t know where they were from, and you can do nothing about it.

“You dirty pig.” I called him in the face as we drank, “I know what’s it all about, but you have to work on this.”

“I am working on it, hard.” He shrugged.