Ask Electra: Naughty Santa and a little Facebook Christmas jealousy

The Internet Age comes with its own problems, real and virtual: romantic, sexual, practical, professional. More than ever we need a good old-fashioned agony aunt for the social Web who will help us solve our digital dilemmas. Unfortunately, we only have Electra, who doles out her brand of Greek advice with a kick. Got a virtual problem? Ask Electra and brave her total honesty by emailing askelectra@thedailydot.com or follow her @AskElectra.

Dear Electra,

Last night my husband “liked” this ridiculous photo posted by a “friend” he barely knows—a woman he has worked with in the past. The photo showed her posing in a candy cane striped bikini, covered in tattoos, with a gingerbread man and a naughty twinkle in her eye. In short, it was holiday themed semi-erotica. Now I trust my husband completely and know he would never cheat on me, but this drove me crazy—the thought of all my friends seeing him “like” this picture, my parents and cousins and old high school friends, knowing what I’d think if I saw a friend’s husband do that (OK, maybe I’m judge-y, so what). So I have to admit, I kind of crucified him for it, and made him remove the “like” immediately. Although he did it, he was completely baffled and surprised by my reaction. Two of his work buddies told him that their wives wouldn’t have cared at all. Am I becoming a Facebook jealous wife? Am I crazy, or was that totally inappropriate?

—Jealous Facebook wife

Dear Jealous Facebook wife,

That picture sounds awesome. I can tell you I would have also liked it, would have probably even commented on it with something like, “Please let your name be Carol.” And God bless people who still post pictures such as that one on Facebook, and give the rest of us reason to still check Facebook. (Not going to add a babies-and-cats rant here because hating them is so passé it will soon make a comeback.) In short, you should be proud your husband liked it. What’s not to like about a heavily tattooed lady in a candy cane bikini? And if your parents and cousins and high school friends have a problem with that, it says more about them than it does about your husband.

It would have been embarrassing if he had liked something like Wal-Mart. Who would proudly like Wal-Mart, one wonders, and yet people on my newsfeed do. It is when your husband stops liking women in candy cane bikinis and starts liking Wal-Mart that you should start worrying. Because do you know what that means? That there will be no more candy cane for you, dear Jealous Facebook Wife, because your husband will have lost interest in sex altogether. So give the man a break. That you asked him to “unlike” it and he respected your request is proof enough that he loves you, and that you won’t catch him with his hand in someone else’s Christmas stocking.

Photograph by x-ray delta one