Infidelity, Oh My!

I think that most people would agree that infidelity is a very bad thing. In fact, in lesbian romance there are a fair number of individuals that will not read a book if a main character, or sometimes, any character, cheats on their lover/girlfriend/wife. Interestingly enough, I read an article recently that talked about the fact that people don’t actually agree about what constitutes infidelity. I suppose the same is true for the definition of a lie. Some are adamant that withholding important information like I kissed another woman isn’t a lie unless the partner asks and the woman doing the kissing doesn’t cop to it. Personally, I am strongly in the camp of “failing to share crucial information” is indeed a lie. So, what does the research say about how people define infidelity…

Benjamin Warach and his team of researchers found 305 studies that included over half a million people in 47 different countries in six different continents. Of course, there were biases, because over half of the studies were conducted in North America, and 20% in Europe. Most of the participants were white and 95% of the participants were heterosexual only one measly study with gay participants. Additionally, most of the participants were married.
Thirty percent of the studies left the definition broad, asking participants if they had ever been unfaithful, cheated or had an affair, essentially leaving the definition up to the participant.
But, when the definition was more refined, there were vastly different self reports of what might be considered infidelity. For sexual infidelity, 17.45% of people indicated they’d engaged in it; for emotional infidelity it was 27.5%. Then there is the less clear forms of what some consider infidelity like dancing or holding hands with someone else and for that, the figure increases to 35%.
Men admitted to a lot more infidelity than women (25% compared to 14%). For emotional infidelity the numbers were higher at 35% for men compared to 29% for women.
It seems that most everyone agreed that engaging in sexual intercourse outside of the relationship meets the definition of cheating or infidelity. Additionally, most believed that sexual contact with another person other than your spouse/partner also meets the definition of cheating. But, here’s where it gets a little gray…what consitutes sexual contact? Since only one study included same sex relationships, it’s no wonder there were questions about oral sex or touching of intimate areas? Well, duh, for lesbians, yup that is definitely sexual contact. To be fair most did loop that into the sexual contact definition.
Now…here’s where it’s gets even grayer (not gayer….) Does just kissing, or even kissing on the cheek fall within the definition of cheating? Then there was other behavior that grayed things up like holding hands, dancing, flirting, sexting, and finally, providing tender, emotional support to another person of the same sex as their spouse/partner. Finally, where does looking at porn without the spouse/partner fall on the possible infidelity spectrum?

Although I have written about infidelity in a few of my books, because, honestly it is a part of life, I haven’t glorified it, or even made the character likable. To my absolute shock, the one character I believed was despicable because they were the cheater, got a fair amount of sympathy from readers who wanted to see her mend her ways and get her happily even after. I couldn’t bring myself to give her a full-fledged story, but on a lark did write a BDSM light, free short story to appease those readers, making Laura Beck one of the main characters. The only other time I penned a story with infidelity as a major theme was loosely based on my own personal experience (no I was not the cheater, but the cheatee). Guess I just made up a new word again..cheatee…I kind of like it. Anyway, those stories are The Ultimate Betrayal and Artist Free Zone in case you want to check them out or any of my other books (simply click the links below)!