Title: The Truth About Infidelity: Hypocrisy in North America Author: Sarah E. Bailey Publisher: Burman Books Publish Date: 2005 Pages: 198 Genres:: Non-Fiction, Evolutionary biology, Gender Studies, Sociology Reviewer: SexHerald Staff

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Author Sarah Bailey, the head researcher at the Ashley Madison Agency, an online dating service for married or attached individuals seeking discreet affairs, has written a book built around interviews with the firm’s clientele. When they reveal what drives them to seek sex outside their marriages, one thing is for sure: Lots of people see the positive side of sexual infidelity as long as they’re the ones doing the cheating. That said, it’s also clear that genuine mistreatment and lack of appreciation by their partners have driven many into the arms and orifices of others.

Others are hooked on sex and love, while some feel supremely entitled to extracurricular pleasure even when happily partnered and justify it by saying making themselves happy ultimately enhances their primary bond. Women are generally motivated by needing attention and nurturing along with sex when they cheat whereas men are often just sexually bored, need to escape family pressures and want the adrenaline rush of something new.

Bailey’s coverage of the subject is thorough, exploring the extreme difficulty most people find in resisting the urge to cheat caused in part by human biology. We are beasts with the instinct to mate, to spread our genes (and our legs) and maybe in the final analysis, Bailey wonders monogamy is an attempt to check the uncheckable. She does acknowledge, however, that even a difficult choice is still a choice. The men interviewed agreed that women are often judged more harshly for infidelity than men.

The crux of the hypocrisy of infidelity is, with rare if any real exception, as long as people can fuck, cheating will happen.

Sarah Bailey’s frank style complements the statistical information and helps the numbers part of the book crunch a little easier. In one chapter, she cites statistics linking extramarital sex with more frequent heart attacks. Infidelity doesn’t only affect emotional health. Although sex is a catalytic factor in only 1 percent of heart attacks, 75 percent of that 1 percent happen during sex outside of marriage.

Although the other woman in an affair has often been portrayed as the marriage-hungry mistress who wants to steal her lover from his partner, and in fact sometimes is, the case histories cited here often tell a different story, of women who are excited by their married lovers only circumstantially and have no romantic interest in them at all. They want exactly what the affair provides and nothing more.

Bailey’s subjects send a clear message: Infidelity is equal parts ecstasy, relief, satisfaction, betrayal, self-preservation and consequences.