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

[bluegargantua]

But it also illustrates your point:

These people are having "discreet" affairs because they're supposed to be in a "discrete" marriage.

later
Tom

[feste-sylvain.livejournal.com]

It's just more confirmation that I Am Not One Of Them.

Them. Lots of them. Mostly them, and not many of us. And that's why we're here, and they're there. So there there.

-- the Firesign Theatre

[dpolicar]

I'd be interested, primarily as an academic question, to know what the overlap is between the activity on those sites and the actual cheating.

It would not surprise me to discover that they are close to disjoint sets.

[mizarchivist]

It's just more confirmation that I Am Not One Of Them

I often wonder what the hell kind of reality makes their monogamy and their cheating better than our "weirdo"ness. I'll be happily not normal if that's what they think is SOP.
Did you see that whozit of 5 things you can do to make your man jealous in a non-bad way a few weeks ago? I forget who mentioned it now, but I was totally grossed out by the mind games they thought were a good way to make him pay attention again. .... right. /rant

[drwex]

Yes, I saw that and I wrote a snap rant to the column editor. No response, of course.

[drwex]

I suppose so. I can't find a whole lot that's discreet about advertising one's affair on the Web, but hey call me a traditionalist.

[tisana.livejournal.com]

Sadly, despite being a wordgeek of sorts, I only recently realized they were two different words...I just thought it was one that was often misspelled, or that had an archaic or incorrect spelling that was acceptable.

I think a book like Disheveled Dictionary (that or another in the series) may have been why I looked up the difference.

But yeah, people suck, doesn't surprise me.

[drwex]

Thank you. Firesign Theatre is oddly comforting at times.

[drwex]

You think these are sites for people into the fantasy of cheating? That's an extra layer of weird I hadn't considered.

[tisana.livejournal.com]

Saw that on Yahoo when I logged in to my email. It didn't seem particularly good...kind of like a watered-down version of The Rules. Yick.

I've got a lid in the car

[mizarchivist]

so there mr. monday morning quarterback, mr. wheelchair general. What are you going to do when they come knock knock knocking on your front door?
Had to add the next line because I'm in that sort of mood...

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

This is a testimony to the power of existing social structures and the difficulty individual people have creating other structures that work better for them.

Many, if not most, people in the wider society seem to be more willing to lie or break their vows than are willing to change the agreements under which they conduct their relationships. I recognize that this is a result of greater social forces, but I'm impressed by the power of those forces nonetheless.

[dpolicar]

Well, in the same sense that I know a lot of people who check job-hunting sites because they are into the 'fantasy of finding a better job.' Not in any formal role-playing sense, but just in the 'what's the harm in looking?' sense.

[sweetmmeblue.livejournal.com]

That's the sort of thing I learned from my peers growing up. It made no sense to me then or now.

[quezz.livejournal.com]

I find it odd that so many of you are criticizing these websites. Is it because they seem to adhere, in an odd way to "traditional values," and thus are a perversion of them, or is it because there's only one type of poly out there in your minds?

Many, if not most of you, are polyamorous. You're doing the same thing, just under different perceived rules. If you are married, and you choose, with or without your partner's consent, to have another relationship. you are having extramarital affairs. The difference is not that discrete, if I may call upon the theme of this discussion.

We don't know if some of the people who utilize these websites are doing so with permission; we don't know if some of them are simply engaging in web-fantasy, and I personally am not sure if any of this is more wrong than choosing polyamory forms, or perhaps engaging in BDSM fantasy (something that many of you also do.)

I also don't know where to draw the line in terms of extramartial affairs/relationship/"secondaries". When is it cheating for poly people? When one leaves their primary for their secondary? When one doesn't follow a contract, if it's written up? If you put it on the Web, is it icky then? If you pair with the "wrong type of person?"

This whole thread looks dangerously close to stones in glass houses. I personally didn't engage in anything extramartial, though I thought about it a couple of times, and very openly. I decided that extramarital of any kind was not for me. I don't judge anyone who has chosen extramarital relationships quite so quickly anymore, becaue I just don't know enough about the motivations people have to have them -- I don't have the desire, and I personally hope I never do.

[quezz.livejournal.com]

We don't know what's going on here, and I find it pretty hypocritical that a group of people who actively choose to buck the norm and engage in similar behaviors under a different name would be so quick to judge.

As I said in a longer post on this thread: how you dress it doesn't mean it's not the same thing. I don't know enough to judge, especially after observing some of the intrigues that go on in the poly crowd.

[drwex]

I suppose. And the theory then being that these sites make enough money from serving up ads to the gawkers to pay for themselves? It seems pretty far-fetched. Occam's razor and all that.

[dpolicar]

(shrug) Like I said, I'd be curious as to the overlap; I don't have a strong belief here. But that said, the idea of illicit-sex-themed websites that make their money from people surfing them and fantasizing doesn't seem that far-fetched to me.

[dpolicar]

Hm.
That's a fair point, actually.

To be clear... I think everyone above is assuming that the "discretion" being advertised is that your spouse won't know. In that context, I flat-out disagree with you... the difference between lying to your spouse and not lying to your spouse is fundamental, not just "dressing".

But one could adopt the reading that what is meant is "the neighbors won't find out." Under that reading, I'm more inclined to agree with you.

My intuition as a member of this society is that the former is clearly what's meant, but I'm hardly infallible.

Incidentally, if it matters for any reason, I'm unmarried and have been in a monogamous relationship for the last 15 years.

[gentlescholar.livejournal.com]

Certainly, I would expect the number of people looking and fantasizing to be MUCH larger than the number who work up the guts to do something about it.

[quezz.livejournal.com]

I've seen polyamorous couples be discreet (the neighbors/kids/whatever don't need to know) and I've also seen polyamorous couples break the rules they set for themselves, with one or both partners choosing discretion because they are lying to their partners or not being entirely open about their activities. I find this just as reprehensible as any "traditional" extramarital affair. It is perhaps even more reprehensible to me because the poly community is so insistent about their openess and applying their rules that they still break in such situations.

My point is if you're breaking the rules, you're breaking the rules. Since I don't know what the "rules" are in any given case, I won't judge until it's public that rules were broken. These websites might suggest rule-breaking, but I still don't know enough to say that it is rulebreaking.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I think you are reading judgment into my comment where no judgment is being made.

We're all influenced by greater social forces, whether we like to admit it or not.

[dpolicar]

I agree with you that it's not guaranteed that the people who go to these sites are breaking (or contemplating breaking, or reading about breaking) the rules of their marriage, whatever those rules may be.

Though, again, I would say that's the way to bet, and it's not unreasonable to make that inference. That's not to say that you're under any obligation to have any opinion at all on the matter, but it is to say that I'm not sure your tone here is entirely justified.

The fact that some people in poly relationships break the rules of those relationships seems somewhat irrelevant to me, though I certainly agree it's true.

[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.