by Guest Blogger, Robbi Hess, Editor, ByLine Magazine

Apparently almost everybody is “doing it” but not all of them are doing it with their “rightful” partners. This was the conclusion I drew from the pages of Pamela Druckerman’s book “Lust in Translation Infidelity from Tokyo to Tennessee.” While funny – especially the terms the cheaters applied to themselves – it left me wondering “where is my happy ending?” Um, perhaps I should rephrase that to be, “Does anyone have a happily ever after?”

I didn’t pick up the book thinking that I would be entertained. I imagined the title was going to the most evocative part of the tome, but I was wrong. Druckerman, a former Wall Street Journal staff writer,  injected humor and wry observation throughout, even her recounting of having to say “thanks but no thanks” to the offer of an amorous encounter of her own.

Apparently global sex research is patchy and incomplete and those in the cheating mode don’t even agree on the terms. In Nigeria they call it “sexual networking,” the Finns call it “parallel relationships,” and for the French, what we know as adultery, is called “simultaneous multi-partnerships.”

France was the country I expected would be the pinnacle of adultery, but surprisingly it wasn’t. More than 3.8 percent of the married men and 2 percent of the women said they had more than one sex partner in the past year – fewer than in similar surveys conducted in the U.S.and the U.K.

As a disclaimer, though, Druckerman points out French presidents have an infidelity record that is approaching 100 percent. Perhaps the presidents have more time on their hand to pursue potential partners than does the average French citizen?

What constitutes cheating? In South Africa it’s based whether one of the partners were drunk. In one American survey, sex was described as "mutually voluntary activity with another person that involves genital contact and sexual excitement or arousal, that is, feeling really turned on, even if intercourse or orgasm did not occur." As an aside, if orgasm isn’t occurring… well, why bother?

What about Internet hook-ups? Apparently, Americans haven’t tried to count their so-called “emotional affairs,” in which the “cheaters” might never meet.

In Japan, the enormous paid-sex industry, which is frequented by married businessmen, there is a legal loophole that permits a man and woman to strike a private agreement for sex. Perhaps a business arrangement doesn’t constitute cheating?

In Russia, Druckerman found that merely talking about sex research can be hazardous. Soviet governments barely permitted any public discussion of sex, let alone a survey that might embarrass the government by showing that Russians were engaging in banned activities like extramarital affairs. 
Despite the lack of, um “hard data,” in Russia and elsewhere there are the facts that in Moscow, women in their forties told her that, by necessity, they only date married men. That’s because, since the life expectancy for Russian men has fallen so sharply (to 59) that by age 65 there are just 46 men left for every 100 women.

“An afternoon nap,” or a “wonderful interval”—well to me, those terms conjure up the warm and fuzzies, not carnal couplings.

Race, religion, national origin, none of those had barriers on whether men and women would cheat. Money, however, played a part in the cheating equation. Men in rich countries were generally more faithful than men in poor ones. The reason for that could be because in America, an affair could mean losing your marriage, your status, and your money. Less than four percent of married American men admitted to having more than one partner in the past year (according to a 2004 survey).

I wonder how Druckerman posed the idea to her husband, “Hi honey, I am going to go globe trotting and learn what I can about extra-marital affairs…” She wrote in the introduction that, “Hanging out with cheaters is a bit like hanging out with smokers; pretty soon you start itching for a cigarette.” Thankfully, she said, her American guilt kept getting in the way.

This is not your typical academic white paper it is an engaging look at the bedfellows people keep when their spouse isn’t watching! If nothing else, the title will certainly open avenues of conversation.