Digital Adultery
How many women do you meet secretly every day? When your wife is out working, off to the gym or running to the mall? You have these women hidden in your own home. You have kept them out of sight, until you can be alone with them. When your wife is a safe distance out of the driveway, you engage in sexual activity with these women in your living room or even in your marriage bed. You meet with them wherever there is a smart tv or a computer.
Adultery is defined in the Scribner-Bantam English dictionary as "sexual relations between two persons either of whom is married to another."
"Sexual relations" are not necessarily physically reciprocated encounters. Sex is largely in the mind, and a man utilizes all of his God-given talents of imagination to prompt the video relationship into a `real life' involvement.
Regardless, most relationships are well over ninety percent psychological or emotional (ie- mental) and ten percent physical. Simply add up the amount of time in one day or one week spent in the raptures of sex with your wife (or husband. This applies equally to women) and the percentage will drop well below ten percent. Even having physically reciprocated sex for one hour per day every day of your life means your relationship is comprised of only 4% physical sex. The remaining 96% is in the mind. And there are countless relationships that even devote the full one-hundred percentage points to the psychological and emotional. In other words, some couples just don't have sex. Or others might engage in sexual activity without touching one another. Some couples practice telephone sex. Regardless, there is a definite relationship flaunting itself amid all the grunting and groaning.
A relationship is often difficult to define, to put one's finger on. It can be as subtle and intangible as a digital transmission signal, or the pulse of images from a television screen or monitor.
A man develops a psychological attachment to the female companion he is viewing in an X-rated video. If there was no psychological (ie- emotional) trueness then there would be no point in carrying out the exercise. It would merely be a bland biological act, less elevating and exciting. And if it were merely a biological act of relief then no video woman would be needed for the fruitless solitary act that lacks the possibility of procreation. There is an emotional relationship, as well as a sexual one, going on between the man and his video partner. This is what increases the mere biological state of excitation. It is this psychological actuality of having sexual relations with another woman, this sense of adventure, of illicitness that fuels the man's compulsive urge to cheat with her (and countless others) again and again, behind his wife's back.
Because we are creatures who seek out the most convenient, labour efficient ways to accomplish any task, we have fashioned a handy expedient way to cheat on our partners. We have invented a grey area that eradicates the guilt, that sanctions and satisfies our urge to bed other women or men, to discover and investigate the physiological differences of a multitude of bodies. Video is accessible to all. There is no risk of disease, no day-to-day complications. But it is attachment all the same. A man becomes intimate with these women, holds them longingly in his mind, and returns to the ones he most admires innumerable times throughout his life. And they welcome him into their loving arms.
It could be argued that a video woman is not actually `real'. But if so then would that argument then prove the point that pornography makes objects of women? If these video women are not considered `real' (ie- solid living flesh and blood) then they must be objects, used merely for the gratification of men's sexual urges. Such an argument is utter nonsense. Why would a man wish to objectify a woman, to make her one-dimensional when the purpose is to have her appear as `real' as possible? The more `real' the image, the greater the thrill. Eyes glued to the screen, taking in every detail to boost reality.
But objectification is not the argument here. The key words are “sexual relations.” Video women speak to him, customize their actions to suit his wishes. And with the advent of virtual reality and interactive computer pornography the boudoir scene takes another step nearer reciprocation. A man does— indeed— have sexual relations with the women at the receiving end of his mental advances. Why else would the viewing be kept secret, hidden away behind a password, unless there was the implication of contact and— following contact— the subsequent afterglow of guilt?
The sale of pornography is a multi-billion dollar business. With figures as high as these, the real question is: Who is not cheating on their wives, husbands or lovers. A man— with his private links to video women— might think he is not committing adultery. He might even pride himself on the fact that he has remained faithful all these years. Yet he holds the explicit actions of a multitude of women in his mind. He is familiar with the sounds of their voices, the details of their faces and the contours of their naked bodies. He compares his secret companions with his wife: their looks, their diversity in sexual technique. How could he possibly engage in such comparisons unless privileged to the information gathered from his involvement in a variety of sexual encounters?
An earlier version of this article appeared in The Globe & Mail
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