What Sleeping With Married Men Taught Me About Infidelity
No, not what it taught me.
What it taught Karin Jones.
The essay is just another sad commentary on modern life by a woman who seems to have little sense of morality. Or maybe what she lacks is spirituality. Or maybe responsibility, insight, conscience—a host of things that all boil down to she just did what she wanted without remorse, and one of the things she wanted was emotionally uninvolved sex with a lot of married men.
So married men who didn’t want divorces were her partners of choice, when she might have tried unmarried men instead (she said there were plenty of unmarried candidates offering themselves, but there was the risk of emotional involvement with them, so the married seemed safer).
So, what did sleeping with married men teach Jones about infidelity? Not much, apparently, although her essay appeared in the NY Times with that promising title. She did learn something about a subset of men: those who had wives who didn’t want sex and yet the husbands didn’t want to leave them. What percentage of men having affairs fall into that group, and purposely choose (as her sexual partners did) to have sex with a woman who attached no strings except the requirement to not have an emotional connection?
Even with this subset of men (however large or small it may be), I still don’t know what Karin Jones learned that wasn’t already obvious. That there are some men who aren’t having sex with their wives and yet won’t leave them? And that most of these men didn’t want to ask their wives’ permission to have an affair? Because that’s the gist of what Jones seems to be saying she learned. As I said, not much.
O the married men
the married men
makes me feel like a girl again
to run with the married men…
I know these [wives] they don’t like me
but I am just like them
pickin’ a crazy apple off a stem
Givin’ it to the married men
the married men
all o’ that time in hell to spend
for kissin’ the married men
–Maggie Roche, “The Married Men”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDPFrtQH6lI
Maggie died last year. RIP.
“And that most of these men didn’t want to ask their wives’ permission to have an affair?”
Most men might think going in that that is a very very stupid thing to do. Even if the wife proposes it. Easier to get forgiveness than permission and so on…. or even with permission such permission is likely to be revoked at any time with no notice given.
As I read Jones’s article, she’s using her affairs with married men as a soapbox to condemn them for choosing not to be honest with their wives.
It’s not a foolish notion, but given she is making her own selfish choice to have sex with married men over single men because it’s less entangling for her, it’s a bit rich.
Dreck. One does not have to read or ‘consume’ NYT dreck.
The Left seems peculiarly convinced that orgasms are the highest state of being that humans can achieve, despite it being highly transient.
“It’s also a tall order to have sex with the same person for more years than our ancestors ever hoped to live. Then, at menopause, a woman’s hormones suddenly drop and her desire can wane.”
What rationalizations.
The woman is a slut.
If Karin Jones is her real name then her phone is blowing up with guys wanting to screw her.
Girls, and boys, just want to have fun. If we normalize/promote it, then we will succumb to our animal spirits, eventually.
Jones did offer one interesting observation: married women have affairs for adventure; the married men she was involved with had affairs for sex because they weren’t getting any or very little in their marriages.
I’m sure there are men who have affairs for adventure or other emotional satisfaction, but from what I gather, including the experience of a best friend, there are a lot of wives not having sex with their husbands and that’s hard on the husbands.
huxley:
You just reminded me of something I had meant to put in the post itself, but forgot.
Yes, there are certainly some wives not having sex. But there are also people who lie about that.
In other words, Karin Jones reports an interesting fact, which is that the men she was sleeping with told her that their motive was that their wives weren’t having sex anymore. But funny thing, she didn’t interview the wives to find out whether it was true or not. So how on earth would she know?
It’s one of the oldest lines in the world: my wife and I don’t have sex anymore, so that’s why I’m driven to do this, cause I’m really a good guy.. Another funny thing (and I don’t mean funny haha) is how many such wives end up getting pregnant and the husband then tells the mistress oops, I guess I did sleep with my wife every now and then, after all.
In other words, he’s cheating on his wife, so why assume he’s telling the truth to his Karin Jones?
I used to work with a woman who often complained that none of the men she dated (and slept with) were interested in having a better or more long-term relationship with her.
I sympathized, sort of, until the day I discovered that all her lovers were married men.
* * *
huxley Says:
April 7th, 2018 at 10:18 pm
the married men she was involved with had affairs for sex because they weren’t getting any or very little in their marriages….but from what I gather, including the experience of a best friend, there are a lot of wives not having sex with their husbands and that’s hard on the husbands.
* * *
Kind of plays into the heteronormative patriarchy oppressor schtick, doesn’t it? The “men only want women for you-know-what” and all that.
It’s also the overwhelming secular rational for polygamy. The religious POV generally adds a concern for increases in progeny and sometimes other property-legacy-type things, and is IMO more honest than the current form of divorce-and-start-over, which is kind of a serial polygamy.
* *
Cornhead Says:
April 7th, 2018 at 9:21 pm
“It’s also a tall order to have sex with the same person for more years than our ancestors ever hoped to live. Then, at menopause, a woman’s hormones suddenly drop and her desire can wane.”
What rationalizations.
* *
Indeed.
My view (not having read the article: pay-wall thingie and not interested particularly) is that, for the Times readers, it’s Okay that Karin thinks that what she does is just fine, but the-married-Mr-Trump having sex with a woman-not-his-wife (who herself didn’t seem to have a problem with it at the time) is the very height of scandal.
Recently postpartum women don’t usually have much interest in sex with their husbands, either.
Maybe Karin gives them a “consent form” requiring an acceptable reason for wanting to have sex with her before she starts the affairs?
neo: OTOH why assume he is lying?
I’m sure some men do lie about it, but there is conventional wisdom, barroom gossip and scientific evidence for males having higher libido than females.
In the past it was a marital duty for wives to provide sex. That’s no longer true and I think we’re better for it. Nonetheless, the reciprocal obligation for husbands to provide sex almost never came up in my recall.
I would bet 50% of Jones’s lovers were telling the truth. Not that we can know.
________________________________________________
For fun here’s an old song from the woman’s POV:
Silly Sisters – My Husband’s Got No Courage in Him
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgEp2MGx30M
How do people expect to be happy living like this?
neo-neocon Says:
April 7th, 2018 at 10:58 pm
In other words, he’s cheating on his wife, so why assume he’s telling the truth to his Karin Jones?
* *
I have never understood the reasoning of women who sleep with a married man and are triumphant when he divorces his wife to marry her, then surprised to find he is cheating on her too.
The men are perfectly understandable, of course.
Sometimes the subsequent marriages work out okay, but it’s a big gamble for the woman.
huxley:
I’m not assuming anything. However, the motive to lie is there, and as I said, he’s already cheating on his wife so we’ve established that he’s not above lying.
In addition, I find it curious that they all had the same story. Points to the probability that some are lying; otherwise it’s an odd coincidence and unanimity of motive.
So…she’s easy.
Now it’s just a negotiation on the price…oh…free?
Well…that’s different. Slut then.
neo: I used the same construction as your: “so why assume he’s telling the truth to his Karin Jones?”
I didn’t hear that as you telling me what I was assuming.
I’d agree it is curious that Jones’s lovers had the same story. Then again, hers was not that large a sample.
In any event that story was the setup for Jones to lecture married men on their unwillingness to be honest with their wives — with the cute little dig that maybe these men don’t really want to hear why their wives don’t want to have sex with them.
huxley:
By the way, that “his” was a typo of mine. I originally had written “his mistress Karin Jones.” Then I decided she really probably wasn’t enough of a regular to qualify for the term “mistress,” which implies more of a regular, ongoing, long-term relationship. So I meant to remove “his mistress” but I was in a hurry and only got rid of the “mistress” part.
Which accidentally gave the whole thing a somewhat different spin.
huxley:
I agree that she wanted to take the high road and say that they should have been more honest and asked their wives—as though she’s the big spreader and promoter of honesty. And I suppose that she had some inside information, as it were (of the experiential, nonverbal kind), on why their wives didn’t want to have sex with them.
It is (or at least, it used to be) more common for women to want an emotional connection with their sexual partners than this woman seems to have wanted. But there are women—like Karin Jones—who are fully capable of and seek out such detachment. I assume they are a lot more numerous than when I was growing up. To me it doesn’t seem like a great development.
“And that most of these men didn’t want to ask their wives’ permission to have an affair?”
Because most men understand that doing so would end their marriage; which Karin Jones says that her lovers expressly didn’t want to do.
To me she is just a selfish user of others.
I suspect what a lot of men who say “my wife’s not having sex with me’ mean is “my wife’s not having as much sex with me as I want”, since lies tend to be an exaggerated and self-serving version of the truth rather than being 100% untrue. Which is hardly surprising considering differences in male and female libidos either.
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What Demoncrats taught me of how Demon Rats like FDR are corrupt.
https://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/history/item/4742-pearl-harbor-scapegoating-kimmel-and-short
“It’s also a tall order to have sex with the same person for more years than our ancestors ever hoped to live. Then, at menopause, a woman’s hormones suddenly drop and her desire can wane.”
“Wane.” Hell! No Way!
Increases if anything. No longer concerned with pregnancy.
So if you believe the business about decreased sex drive after menopause (surgical or age-related), there’s a bridge I’d like to sell you: cheap.
I’ll toss in the wife, too.
I’m hardly an expert but it seems to me that many women want to be married but they don’t want to be wives, let alone their husbands’ lovers.
Gary D G:
It can go either way.
want to be married but they don’t want to be wives, let alone their husbands’ lovers
Incorporation with two principals. The husband can be appointed the CEO and the wife can be appointed the COO, or vice versa. Then there is CFO, and CIO, too. There will be reporting. We’re not kids anymore. Reconcile. Speaking of kids, they, too, can be officers, or employees, in the family corporation.
Above, huxley writes:
Isn’t there an injunction somewhere in the Bible (O.T. I imagine) that a husband is to “make himself available to his wife,” or to “satisfy his wife,” or some such thing?
I’m sure some here can confirm or disaffirm that, and probably provide the exact quote and location as well.
Thanks.
.
Reading all this, for some reason WJC und Frau kept taking up brainspace….
Julie near Chicago:
New Testament here:
In Judaism, Exodus and Talmud:
I read her bio over at the website she works for, Erotic Review magazine, and learned she’s raising a son. What a twisted view of things she’s passing on to him. Of course, maybe she could rationalize it as a good thing — you know, at least maybe he’ll tell his wife when he’s cheating on her.
I suspect what a lot of men who say “my wife’s not having sex with me’ mean is “my wife’s not having as much sex with me as I want”…
Billm99uk: I’m sure that happens, but I can tell you that a good friend of mine hasn’t had sex with his wife since somewhere in the 80s and it wasn’t his idea.
As a consequence he has had affairs. He’s not sure what she does with her sexual energy. They sleep separately. However, they are bonded in various other ways and both prefer to remain married.
There are a lot of ways a marriage can work out. I doubt my friend’s marriage is way off the charts.
Isn’t there an injunction somewhere in the Bible (O.T. I imagine) that a husband is to “make himself available to his wife,” or to “satisfy his wife,” or some such thing?
Julie near Chicago: Sure, but I’m talking about real life and the law. Does anyone recall a husband weeping on the stand about how his wife forced him to have sex with her?
They didn’t write new laws about marital rape because of husbands.
huxley:
I’m not sure what you mean by “way off the charts.”
He’s certainly in the minority in having NO sex all those years. But he is not alone. The estimates for sexless marriages are just guesses, really, but the estimates are 10 to 25 percent. However, many of those are by mutual agreement, and many are due to the incapacity or unwillingness of the man. I’ve never seen exact numbers (wouldn’t trust those numbers anyway), and don’t have time to look it up now. But I remember some of this from when I was back in grad school.
Plus, let me add that it’s his choice to have affairs. And his choice to either tell or not tell his wife. She might be ok with it. She might not. His alternative is to leave his wife, which neither may want. But his decision is still his choice and his decision.
neo: By way off the charts I mean something like less than 1%.
Obviously neither of us has exact numbers.
Eventually my friend’s wife found out about his affairs. At this point it’s a gray area where there is an unspoken agreement that he won’t be blatant and she won’t make too big a deal about it if she discovers it.
Earlier he begged her to tell him how to make it right. Her response was that making love at night started with taking out the trash in the morning, etc. He tried that with no result.
Obviously I’m hearing one side. But my friend is a practicing Catholic and a highly sexed person (not so much in his 60s). She is a highly driven career woman who put on a lot of weight. They did some couples counseling to no resolution.
It’s a complicated situation. But she made her choices and decisions too.
neo-neocon Says:
April 8th, 2018 at 3:32 pm
That being said, a woman is allowed to reject her husband’s sexual advances, and Judaism forbids a man from pressuring his wife sexually.
* * *
I thought the ancient Biblical Jews were supposed to be the very definition of oppressive patriarchy../sarc*
Something here doesn’t compute.
*I’ve seen internet advice that one must now add tags even when obviously dealing in satire, because the observation can be taken out of context and treated literally.
Or seriously.
Whatever.
Then there’s the story of the Penny Jar.
If new lovers put a penny in a jar each time they make love in their first year together, then take a penny out of the jar each time they make love thereafter, the Penny Jar will never be empty.
That’s folk wisdom. There are no scientific studies to back it up. I’m not sure it’s true. I haven’t had multidecadal sexual relationships to test it. But I think most people get the takeaway that sex decreases after the magical first year.
But my question here is, to the extent the Penny Jar is true, raise your hands if you think it was the guy who lost interest.
huxley:
The marriage therapist would have to be someone good; there are a lot of bad or mediocre therapists out there. This is a big enough problem that they should try again with someone else.
Or there are a lot of books on the subject, some of them quite good. It sounds like there’s plenty of leeway in your friend’s situation, plenty of room for negotiation. It’s not as simple as taking out the trash. She said that it started with taking out the trash, not that that’s where it ended.
Of course, the point is not for him to hop when she says hop, or to respond to an ever-escalating set of demands like with the fisherman’s wife. But I bet there are some things that are key here, and could lead to a surprising rapprochement. Maybe.
I suggest the following book: The Sex-Starved Marriage by Michelle Weiner-Davis (no relation to Anthony Weiner!!). Her stuff (she’s written many books) tends to be quite good and very practical. It might be an eye-opener for him to read.
huxley:
Guys often lose interest. Often. Not as often as women, granted. But FAR more often than you think, or than they will talk to their buddies about.
That therapist whose book I mentioned in my most recent comment to you (the book is for husband or wife in a marriage that is sexless or low sex) also did research on the prevalence of women complaining their men have little or no interest in sex. The results might surprise you (see this):
What followed was a book addressed to these wives.
This describes a reality in another galaxy far, far away. I can not grok this. Sex without love is the mating of reptiles.
Ha. Married women will and do say the same thing in reverse. “My husband is so preoccupied with … blah blah blah” What makes anyone think she is not hitting on a new guy at the convention every night, or that she’s telling the truth? What’s a little herpes between friends and casual acquaintances eh?
They have to say it; unless they peg you as some obviously nihilist scumbag that esteems getting off at any opportunity, over physical health.
What kind of grotesquely needy chimp-loser really wants to go where some other man has recently gone before?
That’s why one goes to the hotel bar first, before going on to the hotel room: To forget all the nagging issues.
I’m not particularly “spiritual” but in the last couple of years I’ve done some systematic reading from perspectives that posit, or claim to know, what kind of psychic stance lies behind what we call casual “sin” …
I don’t quite grasp the whole scene, this idea of a veiled reality operating simultaneously on another moral plane – and I am sure those who are not and never have been Christians will find it implausible – but considering it seriously should give one pause.
There’s something to this “body is the temple of the Spirit” idea at least conceptually, which makes self-respect, just one of the reasons one might think twice in avoiding a shrugging, “it’s all meaningless anyway” attitude toward sexual congress.
Just imagine the hell of actually being psychically bound to an eternity of collective brutishness for which you have yourself laid the foundations …
Then there’s simple decency too. Like with a good looking but lonely and drunk woman who repeatedly asks you to stay the night, but is so soused, or anguished, that she cannot remember her kids are in the same house.
Casual sex … meh …
It’s good to be pious if not celibate in this situation. You don’t have to deal with stigma, and you’re mostly emotional and psychological baggage free.
I don’t quite grasp the whole scene, this idea of a veiled reality operating simultaneously on another moral plane — and I am sure those who are not and never have been Christians will find it implausible — but considering it seriously should give one pause.
More implausible than dark matter making up 97+% of the universe’s mass? More implausible than 11 mathematical dimensions?
First one has to understand the subject before coming to a conclusion on whether it is plausible or implausible… apparently high IQ isn’t enough to get humans to understand anything.
There’s something to this “body is the temple of the Spirit” idea at least conceptually, which makes self-respect, just one of the reasons one might think twice in avoiding a shrugging, “it’s all meaningless anyway” attitude toward sexual congress.
Read Plato’s cave wall proposition, preferably with a Greek dictionary for the original wording. It’s the same concept.
In order for the spiritual conduit to the Holy Ghost, Godhead, or Divine Council to work, the temple serves as a gateway. If the gateway is corrupted, the spiritual bandwidth is lessened. In some respects, it’s like EM interference when you can’t get a cell phone signal for your super 4g wireless internet access download.
The clearer the body’s internal energy is, the stronger a signal. Although some people have naturally higher base compatibilities.
Yin and yang is the dualistic nature of matter vs antimatter. Thus male energy and female energy are different and opposing factors. They interfere but they can also combine to create divine energies. Marriage and adultery were originally taken seriously by the Israelites because it was part of their contract/covenant with YHVH. An Israeli woman needed to be pure because the contract stipulated that the next generation shall have X. YHVH is not going to give the inheritance to some bastard children created by sex outside his recognized marriages.
YHVH is also not going to send prophets that he knew before they were born, to a line that has nothing to do with his Work. Thus Jesus and John the Baptist were linked theologically but also via blood bond, as they are both descendants of King David. That’s the scepter of Judah, the tribe.
That cannot be done or easily predicted if everyone is sleeping with everyone. Hence Leviticus puts a stop to that with something easy: die. Everyone just die as a penalty. Go back to the Source. Maybe redo things if you believe in reincarnation.
Now a days people think it is a sin against some god to have sex outside of marriage. Well, the whole issue of marriage is now a state issued contract. It is not something you ask YHVH to authorize and permit, because people are goyim, they are part of the nations divorced from YHVH’s rule. You are under the Watchers and it is the Watchers’ State authority that determines whether a marriage is valid or not for tax credits…
People who dislike a god and become atheists, don’t even make any sense. If they live in a nation and are subject to a nation’s laws, they are subject to the authority of a god. It’s very simple. Obey the Law or Else.
The reason why the Divine Council does not interfere with human affairs with “miracles” is because of a simple thing. It’s the non interference directive seen in Genesis Six. And free will. If a divine artifact, like the Ark of the Covenant, was given to all of humanity to see for themselves, then they could no longer “choose” of their own free will to follow any god or goddess. Their will has been coerced and violated by the power of the Divine. Thus only people who ask (literally ask) for knowledge and power will get it. That’s pretty much a loophole though. Lucifer is considered a rebel because he doesn’t follow any Divine Laws or mandates and just does whatever he wants, like certain US Presidents.
People know that when superior civilizations study tribes that have been isolated for generations without contact with the outside world, that contamination and non interference with a local culture group is accepted as standard for the field study to work. This is the same thing. You think the elohim hasn’t tried to perform miracles and give humanity superior tech and knowledge to “prove” they are gods? Of course they have. It’s referred right in your bible, of course most of it the Vatican and Ecumenical Councils have edited and erased… but that’s a different topic.
For humans to choose to believe in anything, the option must be available that both choices are feasible. If miracles and divine artifacts existed, based on the Vatican, there would be no choice.
It is why faith is the key. It does sound like a neat con game though, right. Believe in the Vatican and when you die, you will be rewarded. Sounds like a con to me.
But faith is precisely the key because for most of humanity, they are given a strong delusion, a strong self deception that tranquilizes their higher senses. No matter how high they think their IQ is, they cannot comprehend the matters of the spirit. That’s on purpose btw. If you could comprehend the existence of the spirit and all the proofs given by human prayer and “miracles” validated by the Miracle Vatican squad, you would almost have to believe in a higher power. But that wasn’t the point. If a god wants you to believe in them, they would personally contact you. You will probably end up a cripple for life like Saul did without divine intervention, but that’s usually what happens when mortals come into contact with Divine power. If they are non existent like Satan Clause, then of course you won’t find them…
Faith is the decryption login key for the account. Once given access to the account, then you can figure things out and decide for yourselves what is or isn’t true.
The people that lack faith and the people that aren’t supposed to know about these things: Jesus had an interesting solution for. He spoke in code and parables, to ensure that the people unauthorized to hear this won’t hear it. Now a days, due to the timing of the coming Last Battle, I get the sense that the security sanctions have been lifted and pretty much everyone is getting a hint here and there.
Most of the humans that called themselves pastors or prophets that predicted the world would end by tornado or something, were trojan fake accounts. That’s pretty much all anyone has come into contact with, in the recent centuries at least. The real ones tend not to get popular or they tend to end up dead.
huxley posted above:
“I’d agree it is curious that Jones’s lovers had the same story.
Then again, hers was not that large a sample.”
Perhaps it was larger than she cares to admit.
“I’m no slut. I’ve only slept with less than {10|100|1000} married men.”
Did she keep count? After all National polls are presumed to be accurate after obtaining ~1000 responses. Maybe she was able to turn that many tricks … uh … sorry … conduct that much research.
One thing you learn from experience about liberals is that experience teaches them VERY little
AesopFan (April 8th, 2018 at 8:08 pm) Anybody who thinks Jews are patriarchal has obviously never been married to a Jewish woman!
That’s not new, either: Proverbs 31:10-31.