Even between spouses, intimacy can become 'kompromat'

By Anahit Voskanyan

Any intimate content that was never meant for others to see becomes "compromising material" the moment it falls into someone else’s hands. When that person threatens to make it public, or actually does so, it is a crime.

“Intimate” here can mean even the most ordinary and lawful moments between spouses: their private sexual life, a kiss, a shared breakfast and even a cup of coffee. Whether it involves a couple or one person, it remains strictly private and off limits to outsiders.

No matter how much Nikol Pashinyan and his spouse have normalized the public display of their own domestic routines – eating, sleeping, talking – training the public to watch and comment on others’ private lives, it's deeply unhealthy to watch how people live behind their closed doors.

Peering into a neighbor’s window through binoculars is already a recognized form of deviant behavior. Filming and publishing such scenes already constitute a criminal offense. And that crime is committed not only against those secretly recorded, threatened or exposed, but against society as a whole.

The public is being treated as a crowd of voyeurs, conditioned to feed on other people’s private lives.

Shame!