Open mouth, spit out disgusting taste, close mouth

[drwex]

I am appalled. I probably shouldn't be. It's the Web, it's America. It's clearly commonplace. But... ugh.

I was trying to explain the difference between "discreet" and "discrete" to someone and went to Google for "discreet" to get a definition. What I got was narsty.

"Extramarital Affairs - Discreet Affairs - Discreet Relationships" - www.discreetadventures.com
"Discreet Housewife Dating" - www.lonelycheatingwives.com
"Affairs Made Simple" - AffairMatch.com
"Married Dating" - MarriedSecrets.com
"Married Dating Personals" - www.Desperate-Wife.com
"Lonely Housewives" - www.Married-Woman-Personals.com
"Extramarital Dating" - www.discreetadventures.com

And that's just on the first page.

I'm not exactly surprised - yes, I realize that there's a godawful lot of cheating going on. I am a bit taken aback by the brazen nature of the phenomenon. I suppose that ought not to surprise me, either. It's just more confirmation that I Am Not One Of Them.

Comments

[harlequinaide.livejournal.com]

Since you didn't do the research, I went and checked the sites out. Unsurprisingly, they're not actually dating sites; they're thinly veiled porn. They don't consist of "lovelycheatingwives," so much as older women paid to set up profiles to make themselves seem like lonely, cheating wives, for the edification of the primarily male porn audience (and the primarily young male audience that goes for "Cougars" as replacements for their mothers; older men tend not to look for women of the stripe advertised on these sites, because they're too busy chasing after their own lost youth).

This fits with what I know about the internet, and about the social psychology of personal ads. To whit: women don't use them. Or, more specifically, women don't tend respond to male ads. In studies of personal ads, male respondents are significantly more common, by (if I remember correctly) a ratio larger than 10:1. I wouldn't be surprised to find that the "housewives" on these sites are actually women and men working in a phone-bank like atmosphere: the chat-room work tends to be handled by male and new employees, and women graduate to the phones, eventually. They are never really willing to meet their "paramours," but they spend a lot of time having cybersex, for which the men pay the website a certain fee (and clearly, the women don't, because they're employees, and, as I said, women tend not to answer these kinds of ads).

Do I what? Know people who work in a phone bank like that? Why yes, yes I do.

As to your other comment, which, regardless of intention is a thinly veiled insult, I might suggest that "honesty within the terms of the relationship" is the difference. If the terms of my relationship are such that having netsex with another woman is against the rules (spoken or unspoken), then that's cheating. If the rules allow for that then, by dint of the definition of the word "cheating," it's not. For further definitions of "cheating," I recommend the various on-line dictionaries. Likewise, if my relationship allows extra-marital sex, but not, say, extra-marital movie-going, and I go to the movies with a hot bi babe, that's cheating, too. Because it's breaking the rules, regardless of my motivations.

The shorthand is usually "lying about it," versus "not lying about it." If you feel the need to lie about the sex you just had, or the deep emotional conversation, or the fourth beer with your friends, then it's probably cheating. A poly relationship is only a superior structure in that it discourages lying by permitting the most frequently lied about behaviors. I believe that drwex's issue, here, is that mainstream society (whatever that is, assuming that it exists) disdains the more honest (by definition) lifestyle in favor of the more discrete one.

It is a fact that the majority of relationships in America are monogamous by default. According to the studies that I've read, a majority of people (three-quarters, or thereabouts) consider netsex cheating. I couldn't say whether or not the people who frequent those sites are in relationships, or are just lonely bastards being taken advantage of, but if they are in relationships then statistically, they're probably cheating.