Posted on 08/20/2012 11:40:25 AM PDT by nickcarraway
The setting is the quiet corner of an Italian restaurant in the City; the players are George, an IT specialist, and Zoe, who wears a pretty dress and a big smile; they drink an especially good bottle of wine and when they get to coffee he reaches over and kisses her on the mouth. She surprises him by kissing him back. To onlookers it might be the classic opening scene of a traditional romance.
Yet both parties are married to other people, whom they have no intention of leaving. Although they will go on to enjoy all the spoils of a relationship, from intimate phone calls to Christmas shopping trips and, of course, regular sex, this is understood from the outset. They are in fact launching into a “playfair”, a 21st-century affair in which would-be adulterers meet, via specialist dating websites, to enjoy the excitement of an illicit relationship without any of the domestic fallout.
Alongside the internet dating revolution, these “playfairs” are evidence of a potentially dramatic shift in British marriage. As dating websites open up a global shop window of sexual possibilities, as life expectancy continues to rise and we become increasingly sexually aware, how can we still take the crushing old rules of fidelity, that turn marriage into a prison, for granted? Why should we not be able to recapture the heady thrills of youth, while protecting a secure home life? The time has come, alongside the technology, to redraw the rules of marriage for the 21st century. Just as the Pill opened up premarital sex in the Sixties, the internet is opening up a whole new culture of affairs among married people. Sex has become a major leisure activity of our time, accessible to everyone, married or not, rich and poor. It’s time to start honing
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Women don't seem to be able to do an affair, and still maintain any emotional bond with the husband. Once she finds somebody she likes better in bed, she's done with her husband (although she might stick around for the kids or financial reasons).
If she is going to use the killjoy card, I'm going to just go on out and call her a slut.
The sex positive agenda seeks to end ALL morals over ALL sexual pairings, regardless of sex, age, relation, marital status, number, or species of partner(s).
Even SHE stated that sex is no more about morals than eating a good meal.
My hat’s off to Mr. & Mrs. rxtn41, and all Freepers who stick with their partners.
ArrogantBustard - great fix!!
“Recipe for Happiness?” If you were happy, you wouldn’t be looking for something on the side.
A marriage is much like other achievements in life. You get out of it what you put into it. Self-esteem comes from doing the hard work and succeeding, not taking the easy way out as soon as you hit a bump in the road. The grass is always greener on the other side, until you get to the other side.
“Playfair?” Terrible name. How about PlayUnfair?
These articles can always find cheaters who are at the beginning of a hormone-fueled romance. It would be interesting to do a long-term study and see how they ended up. My prediction is that within two years, most will have fizzled at best, and that the majority would been like bombs exploding in their faces, making a shambles of the lives of both adults and their families.
I also would bet that these cheaters score high on sociopathy, i.e., they have no conscience or empathy. They lead empty lives pursuing pleasure but are never satisfied and they don’t care who they hurt in the process.
Here is the best section:
For one thing, I believe that Clare, when she says "happiness," means simply and solely "sexual happiness." Partly because women like Clare never use the word "happiness" in any other sense. But also because I never heard Clare talk about the "right" to any other kind. She was rather leftist in her politics, and would have been scandalized if anyone had defended the actions of a ruthless man-eating tycoon on the ground that his happiness consisted in making money and he was pursuing his happiness. She was a rabid teetotaler; I never heard her excuse an alcoholic because he was happy when he was drunk.
A good many of Clare's friends, and especially her female friends, often felt—I've heard them say so—that their own happiness would be perceptibly increased by boxing her ears. I very much doubt if this would have brought her theory of a right to happiness into play. Clare, in fact, is doing what the whole western world seems to me to have been doing for the last forty-odd years. When I was a youngster, all the progressive people were saying, "Why all this prudery? Let us treat sex just as we treat all our other impulses." I was simple-minded enough to believe they meant what they said. I have since discovered that they meant exactly the opposite. They meant that sex was to be treated as no other impulse in our nature has ever been treated by civilized people. All the others, we admit, have to be bridled. Absolute obedience to your instinct for self-preservation is what we call cowardice; to your acquisitive impulse, avarice. Even sleep must be resisted if you're a sentry. But every unkindness and breach of faith seems to be condoned provided that the object aimed at is "four bare legs in a bed."
It is like having a morality in which stealing fruit is considered wrong—unless you steal nectarines.
And if you protest against this view you are usually met with chatter about the legitimacy and beauty and sanctity of "sex" and accused of harboring some Puritan prejudice against it as something disreputable or shameful. I deny the charge. Foam-born Venus. golden Aphrodite. Our Lady of Cyprus. I never breathed a word against you. If I object to boys who steal my nectarines, must I be supposed to disapprove of nectarines in general? Or even of boys in general? It might, you know, be stealing that I disapproved of.
The real situation is skillfully concealed by saying that the question of Mr. A.'s "right" to desert his wife is one of "sexual morality." Robbing an orchard is not an offense against some special morality called "fruit morality." It is an offense against honesty. Mr. A.'s action is an offense against good faith (to solemn promises), against gratitude (toward one to whom he was deeply indebted) and against common humanity.
Our sexual impulses are thus being put in a position of preposterous privilege. The sexual motive is taken to condone all sorts of behavior which, if it had any other end in view, would be condemned as merciless, treacherous and unjust.
Cheers!
In my experience, the greatest obstacle to married sex is teenagers.
You know, nature's birth control. :-)
Cheers!
Some woman will fake a lot to get a husband. Also, I think it was discovered after many years that she had some genetic hormonal problem.
Two-hundred years? It will happen much more quickly!
Gee Wally, that sounds just like .... prostitution!
Thanks.
Congrats to you, too.
I couldn’t agree more.
I’ve got too much invested in my wife and my marriage to ever stray. Not just financially, that too of course, but emotionally, and the memories of shared lives that would be destroyed forever.
Besides, whatever I do, and I’ve done plenty that I shouldn’t have (I’m talking about non-sexual sin), I always remember that God is up there watching, and that I will answer to Him one day. That’s one sin that I do not want to answer for.
Lot of reasons to stay with a woman once you’ve committed. But love for her and your family should be right at the top of the list.
Hear, hear! BTW, we’re taking our youngest to college this weekend so there won’t BE any more teenagers in the house! Woohoo!
There are so many raised questions, fallacies, and outright lies in this article, I don’t even know where to begin.
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