When you cheat on your girlfriend on national TV, you're the bad guy.

Here’s an ethical question for you. It’s not a hard one: If you cheat on your long-term girlfriend on national TV, you’re the bad guy, right?

When you know the woman who trusts you is at home watching and you choose to snog some girl called Cat in a bathtub, you’re in the wrong, yes?

It’s all on you.  It’s your relationship to protect, therefore it’s your fault when you can’t manage to be faithful?

Apparently not.

You see, 23-year-old Big Brother housemate Lawson cheated on his girlfriend of three years with fellow housemate, 31-year-old Cat earlier this week. They got cosy in a spa, kissed, touched, whatever else – all on camera, for his girlfriend to watch later.

Now, hook-ups are pretty standard in the Big Brother House. Shit can get pretty boring stuck in a house for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with complete strangers.

But Lawson has a girlfriend on the outside of the house watching the entire thing unfold – and that’s spectacularly unfair on her.

A girlfriend who was forced to shut down all her social media accounts last week, as we all watched her boyfriend cheat on her on live television. A girlfriend embarrassed her boyfriend took a bath with housemate Cat, then slept in the same bed and kissed her.

A girlfriend who went into social lockdown after thousands of viewers told her Lawson and Cat probably had sex after the cameras turned off.

So, that’s Woman #1 who has come out of this cheating scandal badly. She’s probably humiliated and heartbroken.

Here’s Lawson crying about his infidelity… 

But there’s another woman affected by Lawson’s actions and to be frank, it’s depressing.

Cat is the woman who hooked up with Lawson in the house. She’s single, so she can behave autonomously and hook up with whoever she wants. She doesn’t have an innocent heart to break outside of the house or a promise of fidelity to keep. She’s a free agent.

AND YET. Everyone is blaming her for Lawson’s affair.

Yep, everyone in the Big Brother house blames Cat, and feels sorry for Lawson.

It’s the same bullshit we should probably be far past by now, but yes, the single, attractive, innocent woman in this situation is being blamed, essentially for being too sexy. Lawson, testosterone-laden fellow that he is, can’t possible be blamed for sleeping with someone outside of his relationship. Because men have needs, etc etc.

Lawson is obviously helpless against Cat’s seductive ways. Or so their fellow housemates say.

Housemate Aisha told Jason she thought it was disgusting that Cat was doing ‘questionable things’ like massaging Lawson and being so flirty with him.

Housemate Jason agreed with her: It was all Cat’s fault…. Even though Lawson was the one already in a relationship.

Here’s how that charming conversation played out:

Jason: “What she continues to do to him… I just can’t stand it. The head massages, in the spa…”
Aisha: “Same. Thank you!”
Jason: “Us talking about who has partners and you said ‘Lawson’s got a girlfriend’ and she said ‘oh, I forgot about that’ and laughed”.
Jason: “I think it’s so disrespectful. He’s in a relationship and has been for three years! You need to back off.”
Aisha: “I know she’s a nice person but her going about this, doing what she’s doing, that says enough about her as a person for me to back off from liking her”.
Aisha: “The reason I feel so strongly about this is because I’ve been the girl sitting at home, I’ve been cheated on.”

Those sentiments were echoed on Facebook later: “ At the end of the day, the guy is 23. He made a stupid drunk mistake and let lust get to his head. Cat on the other hand is a 30-yr-old sleaze.”

Seems there’s one important person not being ‘blamed’ here: Lawson. The one who should no better, who is an adult responsible for his choices. A man who possesses the ability to say no. But who seemed to cry his way into becoming the victim.

WHY IS THIS STILL HAPPENING?

It’s very simple. If you cheat, you are the bad guy.

Take a look at what’s been happening in the Big Brother house this week: