In the 29th and final "Barbara Walters Oscars Special," Mo'Nique opened up to Walters about her almost-four-year marriage to childhood friend Sidney Hicks.

Mo'Nique said it is an open marriage, which she defined for Walters as "no secrets."

"Open means, you know what, let me tell you my every secret, my fantasies, my thoughts, so that way, there are no surprises," Mo'Nique said.

When asked by Walters if the couple had sex outside of the marriage, Mo'Nique said: "Let me say this: I have not had sex outside of my marriage with Sidney. Could I have sex outside of my marriage with Sidney? Yes. Could Sid have sex outside of his marriage with me? Yes. That's not a deal-breaker."

Labels: adultery, culture, Marriage

posted by Eve at 7:21 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...As it turns out, desire is exactly what's at issue here. Human beings desire variety. We desire multiple partners. It's a simple fact that's built into our biology. And while some choose monogamy simply because it feels right, I think many more of us choose it because we think it's what we're supposed to do. You don't want to end up an old maid or a lonely bachelor, do you?

Monogamy just isn't always realistic. There's nothing wrong with admitting that. It simply doesn't work for some. And just as people choose different religions, eating habits, and places to call home, I believe we should be able to choose different ways to live out our relationships.

Several years after my affair, my husband and I jointly decided that monogamy just wasn't for us. We love each other and want to be together, but monogamy is not the cornerstone of our partnership—trust is. So we decided to open up our relationship to other people.

First we both dated the same woman. Then my husband dated her and I saw other people. And then they broke up and I dabbled until I met a woman who, like my husband, I cannot imagine being without. And so now it's her and me and him and me, and we are all fabulous friends. Everyone gets their needs met. No one feels left out or guilty, and the only time any of us questions our lifestyle is when we let those Disney movies come creeping back into our heads.

Let me be very clear here: I have no problem with monogamy. I think conscious, honest, true monogamy can be a wonderful thing. What should not be tolerated is hypocrisy—and that's where Tiger’s vow of marriage got him into trouble. If you want to be monogamous, great—but don't think you can claim it while you sleep around. It's not fair and, quite frankly, it's exhausting.

Labels: adultery, Jenny Block, Marriage, open relationships, polyamory

posted by Eve at 11:20 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

The original punishments — including standing on the gallows for an hour with a noose around the neck — have been softened to a $1,200 fine, yet some lawmakers think it's time for the 200-year-old crime of adultery to come off New Hampshire's books.

Seven months after the state approved gay marriage, lawmakers will consider easing government further from the bedroom with a bill to repeal the adultery law.

"We shouldn't be regulating people's sex lives and their love lives," state Rep. Timothy Horrigan said. "This is one area the state government should stay out of people's bedrooms."

Horrigan, D-Durham, and state Rep. Carol McGuire, R-Epsom, have teamed up on legislation to repeal the law.

Horrigan signed on because he believes it continues New Hampshire's efforts toward marriage equality. In June, lawmakers voted to legalize gay marriage — a law that takes effect Jan. 1.

"We shouldn't be in the business of regulating what consenting adults do with each other," Horrigan said. ...

McGuire, the prime sponsor, believes the moral battle over adultery should be fought under the state's civil divorce laws. The bill would leave adultery as a cause in divorces not filed under the no-fault provision of the statute.

Labels: adultery, culture, divorce, gay marriage, Lawrence v. Texas, New Hampshire

posted by Eve at 4:32 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Which is the greater evil – higher TTC fares, or TTC-endorsed extramarital affairs?

For the folks at AshleyMadison.com – a controversial website that helps married people cheat – it would be the first scenario. According to CEO Noel Biderman, however, TTC staff would rather lose out on his site's advertising dollars and are now backpedalling on a deal that would let the company promote itself on city streetcars.

"They're making moral judgments and that's not the role of the TTC," Biderman said Thursday, shortly after learning TTC staff had decided against recommending his ad campaign. "They're basically saying `We don't like your business and so we're not going to let your business advertise.'"

As far as Biderman is concerned, the TTC had given him the green light on the $250,000 deal, which would see six city streetcars wrapped in his signature slogan: "Life is short. Have an affair."

The plan, Biderman said, is to roll out the text-only ads in January, with possible future ads placed on buses.

He said he's been dealing with CBS Outdoor – a company contracted to secure advertising for the TTC – who sent him an email Wednesday acknowledging the TTC's approval of the ads. CBS Outdoor also sent a contract to Ashley Madison, as well as subsequent emails clarifying the ads had been signed off by the ad review committee.

But TTC spokesman Brad Ross said Thursday the ads had yet to clear the transit commission's review committee, which ultimately gets the final say.

Calling it a matter of "taste," he said TTC staff was not recommending the ads.

"We don't feel it is appropriate for a streetcar to be running around on the streets of Toronto advocating that people have affairs," Ross said.

Labels: adultery, Canada, culture

posted by Eve at 2:28 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Pity the man whose wife writes a memoir.

Consider Elizabeth Weil's husband, Dan. On Sunday, in the New York Times Magazine, Ms. Weil previewed a memoir she is writing about their effort to improve their marriage. She doesn't stint on the frisky bits—or rather, what she proclaims to be the insufficiently frisky bits. The conjugal part of their equation is apparently "not terribly inventive." Ms. Weil derides their "safe, narrow little bowling alley of a sex life" and tells us that she and her husband "hadn't been talking to each other while having sex. And not making eye contact either." One thing's for sure: If that hesitation to make eye contact suggested a certain reticence, Ms. Weil has overcome it.

Dan's wife is just one of the legion of women scribblers eager to divulge the intimate details of their marriages. The hot new genre is the tell-all of sexual disappointment written by women having their Peggy Lee moment: "Is That All There Is?" Male writers are well behind this curve, retaining some vestigial hesitation to expose their wives in print. This reflects a basic social norm: No husband I know speaks out of school about his wife. You wouldn't trust any man who did. Say what you will about the male half of the species—famous for its promiscuous and predatory proclivities—but they can be remarkably discreet about the intimate aspect of marriage. Whether this is stoicism or a residual chivalry, it is a core part of the male code. Consider Tiger Woods's alleged transgressions: Perhaps the most appalling of them is the report that he prattled on to one of his cookies about how she connected with him in a way his wife did not. As if cheating weren't bad form enough.

Women, by contrast, seem to be at somewhat greater liberty to share private matters.

Labels: adultery, culture, Marriage

posted by Eve at 9:38 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

It was in July 2007 when Mike L. asked the Pennsylvania courts to declare that he was no longer the father of his daughter. For four years, Mike had known that the girl he had rocked to sleep and danced with across the living-room floor was not, as they say, "his." The revelation from a DNA test was devastating and prompted him to leave his wife -- but he had not renounced their child. He continued to feel that in all the ways that mattered, she was still his daughter, and he faithfully paid her child support. It was only when he learned that his ex-wife was about to marry the man who she said actually was the girl's biological father that Mike flipped. Supporting another man's child suddenly became unbearable.

Two years after filing the suit that sought to end his paternal rights, Mike is still irate about the fix he's in. "I pay child support to a biologically intact family," Mike told me, his voice cracking with incredulity. "A father and mother, married, who live with their own child. And I pay support for that child. How ridiculous is that?"

Yet despite his indignation -- and despite his court filings seeking to end his obligations as a father -- Mike loves his daughter. Every other weekend, the 11-year-old girl, L., lives in Mike's house in a quiet suburban neighborhood in Western Pennsylvania. Her bedroom there is decorated to reflect her current passion: there's a soccer bedspread, soccer curtains and a soccer-ball night light. On her bed is an Everybody Loves Me pillow covered with transparent sleeves filled with photos of her and Mike, the man she calls "Daddy," canoeing, fishing and sledding together. ...

Mike's conundrum is increasingly playing out in courts across the country, a result of political, social and technological shifts. Stricter federal rules have pressed states to chase down fathers and hold them responsible for children born outside of marriage, a category that includes 40 percent of all births. At the same time, DNA tests have become easier, cheaper and more reliable. Swiping a few cheek cells and paying a couple hundred dollars can answer the question that has plagued men since the dawn of time: Am I really the father?

Labels: adultery, child support, Fathers

posted by Eve at 3:02 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...Baumgardner also allows that Greer’s books may have self-contradictory elements, and I must admit that as a 21st-century reader, I’ve found that they can be choppy and manifesto-like, with off-putting wild generalizations and quasi-magical terminology. (Of course, this can also be said of third-wave feminists’ writings, e.g., Naomi Wolf’s.) Shulamith Firestone deems motherhood “a condition of terminal psychological and social decay, total self-abnegation and physical deterioration.” And Greer veers off in some directions that left me nonplussed (the taste of the menstrual blood of myself or others is something I’m happy to leave to the imagination). But then I turned to her chapter called “Family,” in which she argues that “stem”—or extended, multigenerational—households are inordinately stable; as opposed to today’s two-parent nuclear families, stem homes can never be “broken,” as their success does not “rest on the frail shoulders of two bewildered individuals trying to apply a contradictory blueprint.

Bingo. What better phrase to describe marriage among those of my own bewildered demographic slice—parents of the Creative Class? We start with the best of intentions. In her 20s, the Creative Class female carves out a cool Creative Class career, like Writer. She meets a man with an equally cool Creative Class job—say, Devoted Documentary Filmmaker of the Obama 10-Year African Kiva Water Project. In their 30s, the baby comes: the Creative Class mom is pitched into hormonal bliss (at least at first); the very same week—argh, the timing!—Gates Foundation money suddenly comes through for the Obama-kiva-water-project documentary. Clinking champagne glasses, both spouses agree that Dad must fly to Africa for two months to finish filming while Mom cares for the baby. (The last thing she wants is be a 1950s nag—and how rarely does Gates money come through, how important is drinking water for Africa?)

After kissing her husband goodbye, the Creative Class mother now begins to care for their baby, alone, in New York, or Los Angeles, or whatever cool city they’ve moved to. She’s isolated from her stem family—the grandma, aunts, and in-laws (who all love children!) have long been left behind in notoriously un-Creative Lompoc, Fort Lauderdale, or Ohio. She can barely maneuver the stroller down the four flights of stairs to get to Gymboree ($20 for 45 minutes, and you have to actually stay with your nine-month-old and drum). Result: the 21st-century Creative Class mom’s life is actually far worse than that of her 1950s counterpart. Her husband works as many hours (and travels more), but life is uncomfortable on his salary alone, and the isolated mom has no bingo-playing moms’ group to ease the unnatural, teeth-chattering stress of one-on-one care of her child.

Labels: adultery, extended family, Marriage, motherhood

posted by Eve at 11:58 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...In the age of hookups, friends with benefits and online dating, and as human life expectancy grows, is it still reasonable to expect people to pair up and stay monogamous until death do them part?

"It's realistic that some people can mate for life in the same sense that some people can play the Beethoven violin concerto or other people can ice-skate beautifully or learn a new language," said psychiatrist Judith Eve Lipton.

Added evolutionary biologist David Barash, "It's within the realm of human potential, but it's not easy."

Lipton and Barash, who have been married 32 years and are the co-authors of "Strange Bedfellows" and "The Myth of Monogamy," said serial monogamy may be more realistic -- a model in which people move from one committed long-term relationship to another and choose partners for different reasons at different stages of their life.

Possibilities in polyamory?

For some, even serial monogamy seems too restrictive.

The 1970s introduced the concept of "open marriage" in which couples stayed married but were free to date other people.

More recently, polyamory -- the practice of having romantic relationships with multiple people at the same time with the full knowledge and consent of all involved -- has been getting a lot of attention.

"We found the expectation that one person should be our everything seemed unrealistic given our day and age. ... It's oddly pressuring to set up that scenario," said Mark, who lives in Springfield, Missouri, and is in a polyamorous relationship. (He asked that his last name not be used for privacy reasons.)

Mark, 42, has been married for five years. He and his wife tried different things to spice up their marriage, including swinging, or having casual sex with other people, he said. But they found the experience unfulfilling and decided what they really wanted was to be able to fall in love with others while staying together.

Mark dates another woman, and his wife, who declined to be interviewed for this article, is dating another man. The four of them frequently get together to have dinner or watch movies.

"People describe polyamory as 'poly-agony' because of all the work you have to do to maintain things," Mark said. "It's just not normal to look over and see your wife with another man. I know a lot of people would have a real problem with that. I really don't."

Labels: adultery, monogamy, polyamory

posted by Eve at 2:08 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Labels: adultery, culture, Marriage, parenting, polyamory

posted by Eve at 4:09 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Alienation of affections basically consists of a defendant’s (1) wrongfully (2) causing plaintiff (3) to lose the affection and often company of the plaintiff’s spouse. In principle, it could apply to supposedly meddling in-laws, and has sometimes been applied that way, though if the in-laws are looking out for their married child’s best interest such behavior might not be “wrongful.” In practice, it has generally been applied to people who supposedly seduce away one spouse from the other (if it can be shown that they caused the alienation, rather than that a preexisting alienation of the spouses caused one spouse to be interested in the defendant’s attentions). The related tort of criminal conversation basically consists of a defendant’s having adulterous sex with plaintiff’s spouse, though of course such conduct may also often lead to an alienation of affections claim.

Many people assume that these two torts are dead. But some states -- Hawaii, Illinois, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah -- still recognize them (or at least recognize the alienation of affections). And it turns out that they still account for a significant amount of litigation, not much less than some well-established torts whose viability no-one doubts.

Labels: adultery

posted by Imapp Staff at 4:26 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

AT FIRST GLANCE, the Web site SeekingArrangement.com seems like any other dating site. Most of the men are looking for fit, sexy women, and most of the women want nice guys who can make them smile and laugh. But if eHarmony or Match.com is a chatty social mixer, Seeking Arrangement is a down-and-dirty marketplace where older moneyed men and cute young women engage in brutally frank transactions. They’re not searching for longtime soul mates; they want no-strings-attached “arrangements” that trade in society’s most valued currencies: wealth, youth and beauty. In the cheesy lexicon of the site, they are “sugar daddies” and “sugar babies.” ...

Consider B. K., a fit finance executive in his early 40s, who, last October, began “dating” a 20-year-old engineering major at a college 90 minutes from his house. Like nearly half the sugar daddies on Seeking Arrangement, B. K. is married. (Neither B. K. nor any other user of the site would allow full names to be published — certain the revelation would infuriate wives or boyfriends, shock colleagues and repel friends or family — and agreed to use only their first names, nicknames or initials.) B. K. and his wife opted against separation, for the sake of the kids, and for now, they have a policy — at least in his mind — of don’t ask, don’t tell. Between pangs of guilt about cheating, B. K. views his secret dallying as a safety valve, letting him feel desired so he can return home and appreciate the many things he loves about his wife, even if they don’t include giving him the attention he wants. ...

Other women on the site would happily forfeit conspicuous prizes and go for the cash instead, especially for tuition. One woman’s profile says, “That you can help me get through school and achieve financial stability through support and mentoring is more important than wowing me with diamonds and Prada.” In fact, Seeking Arrangement pays to have its ads pop up on search engines whenever someone types in “student loan,” “tuition help,” “college support” or “help with rent.” Lola was one of many to stumble on the site that way, when — behind on her rent and tuition and down to one meal a day — she Googled “student loan.” What popped up was hardly what she expected, but she was willing to try almost anything to stay in school.

Labels: adultery, culture, gender

posted by Eve at 9:16 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Labels: adultery, Connecticut, gay marriage, NOM, religious liberty

posted by Imapp Staff at 1:09 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

I believe Ben is slightly inconsistent:

In an earlier post I asked, Would you trust less a business partner who cheats on his/her spouse? Or do you completely separate personal and
professional?

My answer is I would trust the person less in a business or corporate environment, but would still trust enough to maintain a relationship.

Here's a question for people like myself, people who do not strictly separate bedroom character from boardroom character: Suppose that you were on an NBA team and you knew one of your teammates was cheating on his wife. Would you trust him less on the court? Trust is vitally important in basketball, just as it is important in
business.

My answer to this new scenario is no, I would not trust my point guard (who's cheating on his wife) any less on the court.

Why do I answer the questions differently?

Some of his readers think that trust in a point guard is automatic but I say ha.

When it comes to trust, I suggest that compartmentalization is the best default assumption.

Labels: adultery

posted by Imapp Staff at 5:02 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...Now I think marriage is (generally speaking) a very valuable institution, and that adultery is (almost always) a very bad thing.

But not all bad things are the sorts of bad things that the legal system -- and in particular the tort liability system -- should address. Sometimes the proposed rules seem likely to cause much more bad than they would prevent. And often even if a narrow proposal would be proper, the proposals that are actually offered are much broader.

Here, for instance, are just a few of the problems with the above proposal:

Labels: adultery

posted by Eve at 3:54 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

An updated tort of adultery could look something like the document below the fold. This tort (drafted for Minnesota, don't ask me why) could be either expanded to include "commerical enterprises that intentionally and explicitly attempt to profit from acts of adultery," or we could choose to limit it to commerical enterprises. Such a tort would not prevent websites from facilitating hookups that include adulterous ones. It would prevent them from explicitly incorporating adultery into their advertising plan.

Labels: adultery

posted by Eve at 1:21 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Deroy Murdock wants to know why I (among other "socio-cons") haven't spoken out about a famous website devoted to arranging adulterous affairs: "But as outspoken as these and other social conservatives are about Allen and Steve's clear and present danger to Adam and Eve, they have held their peace about an enterprise that profits from adultery."

The answer is: I went to the website and looked at how it brags about all the TV publicity it gets. I realized that they consider publicity part of their business model. So, I declined to help pad their profits by useless denunciations. Instead I poured my energy (with other "socio-cons") into something I could actually affect: like giving the people of California a chance to respond to an activist supreme court that tried to redefine marriage.

About that website, here's what I would like to do: Revive the old alienation-of-affections tort as a new "tort of adultery" directed at third parties who actively encourage and facilitate adultery. (We could limit it to "commercial enterprises.") Then let the cuckolded husbands and abandoned wives, and children of divorce, recover some of that website's profits.

Deroy, you with me on that? Let's start a movement.

Labels: adultery, culture, Marriage

posted by Imapp Staff at 5:43 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Some defenders of traditional marriage claim that gay marriage jeopardizes husbands and wives. It’s as if when two Massachusetts men wed, they exchange 24-karat-gold crowbars, all the better to pry straight couples apart.

Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum has said that same-sex marriage “threatens my marriage. It threatens all marriages.” Mixed-sex-matrimony guru Maggie Gallagher wrote last June 20, “If the word ‘marriage’ can be redefined as a civil rights imperative, why balk at lesser ideas like ‘monogamy’ or ‘fidelity’?”

But as outspoken as these and other social conservatives are about Allen and Steve’s clear and present danger to Adam and Eve, they have held their peace about an enterprise that profits from adultery.

AshleyMadison.com calls itself a “dating site specifically designed to help married people cheat on their spouses.” Its slogan is “Life’s short, have an affair.” Its previous tag line was “When Monogamy Becomes Monotony.” It boasts 3.5 million registered users, among whom some 400,000 active members each pay up to $249 quarterly. ...

Surely AshleyMadison.com has enough shame to conduct its shady business in the shadows. Wrong! AshleyMadison.com advertises on CNN, ESPN, NBC, and even the conservative-leaning Fox News Channel. ...

Straight-marriage advocates’ obsession with gay marriage versus their quietude about AshleyMadison.com is like declaring a War on Toasters that might malfunction and ignite, but ignoring arsonists who toss lit flares around Malibu during a Santa Ana wind.

Labels: adultery, culture, monogamy

posted by Imapp Staff at 5:38 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT