That pornographic New York Post cover

The New York Post was wrong to put a photo of a naked Melania Trump on its cover, but not because Melania or Donald Trump were somehow wronged. In fact, neither of them has anything to complain about.

This is really simple: If you do not want nude photographs of yourself to be distributed, then do not accept money for a photo shoot that will be published in a magazine. This is not a case of someone who had her iCloud account hacked, with the stolen photos distributed across the Internet. That sort of thing is indefensible on every conceivable level. That is not what happened here. Mrs. Trump knowingly and intentionally posed for those pictures with the full knowledge that they would be published for public consumption. She accepted money for that photo shoot. So no, neither Trump was wronged by what the Post did.

However, it was still in terrible taste for the photos to be published. For a major newspaper to literally be publishing pornography on its front page illustrates how far we have been degraded as a culture and how little we as a society value and respect women. It also shows how little we hold to basic standards of modesty that were seen as mandatory just a couple decades ago.

People sharing the image on Facebook - whether to attack Trump or because they are aroused by it - are very foolish. Do people not think about what they post before they post it? There are a lot of people in your "friends" list who do not want to see porn in their news feed. They may be in a place where an unwanted and unexpected pornographic picture showing up on their computer screen could be embarrassing or even harmful.

This is not about Republicans and Democrats. This is not a political issue at all - or at least should not be. This is a cultural matter, and it should make us think very seriously about where we are as a nation.