That the audience reacted with applause and laughter to David Letterman’s recent confessions of infidelity would indicate that cheating is not only expected but acceptable, especially among the rich, famous and powerful.

In fact, it’s getting to the point that it’s more shocking if you’re famous or a politician and you don’t have a sex scandal or two under your belt.

This is a good thing. Not because I condone cheating. In fact, c’mon David, affairs with female employees half your age? Really? But frankly, it’s none of my business. Or any of ours.

And the more we realize this, the better off we’ll be. If the North American public becomes increasingly nonchalant about the indiscretions of our celebrities and politicians, we can spend our energy focusing on stuff that really matters, like, oh, I don’t know, saving the planet? Ending world hunger?

We should probably thank Bill Clinton. It seems to me that before Bill, Monica and “the blue dress,” we hardly ever saw news stories about the private lives of our public figures. And it’s not as if Bill Clinton invented infidelity. Celebrities and politicians have been cheating throughout history. But, for some reason, the Clinton/Lewinsky affair really set us off and opened up the debate. It got the whole country talking about cultural attitudes when it comes to public figures and their personal affairs. There were endless debates over whether his private sexual affairs should have had any bearing on his ability to run a country.

The Bill and Monica media frenzy ushered in a new era of digging into the private affairs of our public figures. In the last few years, it seemed you couldn’t turn over a politician or a celebrity without finding a sex scandal buried underneath. But, with each new scandal, public reaction is increasingly more shoulder shrug than shock.

The less the public cares, the less the media cares. And the less the media cares, the greater the chance we’ll get to read about something more useful to the world than what is written in Stephanie Birkitt’s diary.

– Josey Vogels is a sex and relationship columnist and author of five books on the subjects. For more info, visit www.joseyvogels.com.