Woman | Malgosia Bela | Javier Vallhonrat | Vogue UK April 2009 | ‘In A Very Private Affair ’

We’ve seen a few fashion editorials lately, in which the woman is an adulteress and most often in the company of a non Wall-Street-striving kind of guy. Translated, she’s hot for the guy who isn’t the sum of his possessions and has time for hot sex.

I stopped by UrbanDictionary.com just now for their take on the word ‘adulteress’. Admitting up front that the word doesn’t get a lot of action, the definitions amused me. They include:

- Known to men as the best sex they have had since high school.

- A woman with low morals and high sex drive. In other words,the female version of a man.

- A word you definitely don’t want to hear from your wife’s attorney in divorce court. (The only place it doesn’t sound sexy)

- Perhaps one of the few times where a woman is seeking sex for a purely physical need (like men) rather than for an emotional or spiritual connection.

- Who an adulterer should be married to. She would then be known as a swinger.

A recent article in Women’s Health Magazine got more scientific about studying The New Adulteress, reporting this month that according to a recent online poll, 79 percent of respondents said that having an affair with a “taken man” was never acceptable but 46 percent admitted doing it.

Nearly Half of Women in Women’s Health Poll Admit to an Affair

Noel Biderman has set up an online dating agency for married people called ashleymadison.com. Picture: Justin Lloyd When asked it the presumably mostly women respondents would rather be a mistress or a deceived wife, more than 62 percent opted for ‘mistress’.  The majority of women in the WH poll said that they weren’t trying to break up a marriage. In fact, knowing the man was married and therefore not looking for a long term relationship with her was an advantage.

The chance to play savior is a common reason women end up in bed with men who are already taken, says Mira Kirshenbaum, a couples therapist and the author of When Good People Have Affairs: Inside the Hearts and Minds of People in Two Relationships. “Sometimes a woman decides that a guy is with a partner who squashes his potential, and she hopes to help liberate him.” From that perspective, an affair can be viewed as more a noble cause than a moral transgression.

Mate Poaching As Evolutionary Biology

Evolutionary psychologist David P. Schmitt says that ‘mate poaching’ occurs in almost every society on earth; launching an estimated 10 to 15 percent of all romantic relationships, according to his survey of nearly 17,000 people worldwide.

David M Buss, PhD, also an evolutionary psychologist agrees, saying that high-quality men are often in scarce supply, so women compete for the best of the lot.

I am always suspect of the scientific assumptions employed by male evolutionary psychologists because we know that when the subject is sex in the animal kingdom, females are in charge and males compete for her favor. It seems logical to assume that once women became the property of men, competing for the best owner made sense.

In today’s world where women of professional status frequently out-earn men, the evolutionary psychology assumptions may be challenged by the reality that society’s expectations of marriage is changing. When half of all marriages end in divorce, branding women as slut girls for having an affair rings a false tune.

Note that educated, professional marriages enjoy lower divorce rates that poor people’s marriages, often among social conservatives who are more likely to marry than cohabit. Power couple affairs have gone on for centuries among members of the aristocracy and in modern-day Europe. It seems that the trend has also come to America.

Men Don’t Marry Mistresses

Researchers quoted in the Women’s Health article report that only a small minority of men marry their mistresses.

One survey, of 4,126 male business executives, found that only 3 percent of those who left their wives pursued a serious relationship with their mistresses. The WH poll agrees, saying that 86 percent of respondents who’d cheated confirmed that the affair didn’t result in a long-term relationship with the man. That’s good news for girls who just wanna have fun, but not for the female seeking a partner or husband.

Are Stay-At-Home Moms Majority of Women on Ashley Madison?

Reviewing other research about women who are adulteresses, married people’s affair website Ashley Madison reported in 2010 that of the 31,427 women who signed up the day after Mother’s Day, 67 pecent identified themselves as stay-at-home moms. Take that, social conservatives!!

Good Morning America talked about life on Ashley Madison in 2010.

GMA on Ashley Madison

Care2 wrote The Ashley Madison Moment this week, reporting that Internet cheating is growing at an estimated 79 percent per year.Ashley Madison reports that women are 30 percent of US signups. Just launched in Australia, where prostitution is legal and women have more rights than in America, Ashley Madison’s 500,000 signups are 40 percent women, reports Perth Now.

Canadian Noel Biderman is setting up Ashley Madison’s global headquarters in Sydney, Australia this year, creating 250 jobs to service its 11 million members in 15 countries. About the company’s unusual success in Australia recruiting women, Biderman says:

“Australian women are not naïve. They know that men have legal brothels as an outlet. I believe they are saying, ‘right guys, you’ve had your fun. Now we’re going to have ours’.”

Most recently, Ashley Madison was in the news for its endorsement of Newt Gingrich for President. In response to the three-time-married Republican, who did marry his mistress of six years, and then took a ‘no-adultery pledge’, Ashley Madison’s Biderman installed a billboard in Bucks Country, Pa.

For all their finger wagging, we know without a doubt that social conservatives buy more pornography.