Defiling the Marriage Bed

The English word “adultery” comes from the Latin adulterare, “to corrupt,” meaning, “debauch; debase.” That which is pure is made impure.

I had defiled her marriage bed.

My only regret is a lack of regret.

She had proved herself an adulteress. She had promised to remain faithful, to honor her sacred vow. But forbidden fruit is delectable.

“Contrary to all public verdicts on adultery, the lack of any wish whatsoever to stray is irrational and against nature, a heedless disregard for the fleshly reality of our bodies, a denial of the power wielded over our more rational selves by such erotic triggers as high-heeled shoes.”

Alain de Botton, How to Think More about Sex

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I was on Ashley Madison before it was hacked. I didn’t have much luck on it. It turns out most married women want to cheat with married men, as did the single women on the site.

I did meet “Suzie” online (Her nom de sex was “Suzie Sux_a_Lot.”) She was an elementary school nurse just shy of 40, overweight with an unremarkable face. Her husband was a pilot who was frequently away. When she contacted me, she assumed I was married and asked, “Have you strayed?” She grew up in the church but no longer considered herself religious. She confessed to fooling around with the dads of her daughter’s sports teammates. “Mostly titjobs and blowjobs,” she said. A friend helped facilitate her transgressions. She suggested possible signs of flirtation from a married woman at church. Then we got together.

One time I pulled up to the back of her school in the early winter twilight. She was waiting in her SUV. When she saw me, she got out and opened the back of her truck. Then she shimmied out of her slacks. I felt a chill as I hurriedly unzipped and pulled down my pants. We crawled into the back of her SUV. She had spread a blanket down over the seats folded flat. She shut the door, lay down. and spread her legs. I got on top of her. Soon the truck began to rock.

We hooked up a several more times at her friend’s house. (I regret we didn’t have sex in her own bed.) She revealed to me that she had been promiscuous since she was a teenager. She said she used sex as a way to receive validation from men. Her neediness turned me off, and I quickly cut off our “affair.”

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The guilt of transgression is smothered by the thrill of the naughtiness of it all. One wife said of her first act of unfaithfulness, “It felt surreal, so wrong, evil and infinitely arousing.” The arousal negates any concern over who gets hurt. The risk intensifies the experience. The thrill of adultery overwhelms any moral objections.

I once engaged in an online sex chat with a married woman. (“OMG you’re a pastor?” I explained to her that I was a lay minister. I don’t think it mattered to her.) She confessed to frequent extramarital encounters and was forthright about her motives: “Cheating is fun.” The prohibition against adultery gives it its allure. Personal experience has taught me that religiosity is no impediment for a woman who seeks to stray. I’ve heard several rumors of infidelity among pastors’ wives.

Why would a woman like Lindy — a pastor, a prominent figure in her church, a mother of two small children — risk it all for a furtive encounter in her office? Were her “harmless fling” to be discovered, it could jeopardize her ministry and tear her family apart.

Sometimes women are just bored in their marriages. Emotionally disconnected from their spouses, they feel unappreciated and lonely. They seek attention, being objects of desire. They seek intimacy. They’re sexually dissatisfied. Their husbands’ sexual performance leaves much to be desired. Sex in an affair can feel “dirty,” making it exciting, wild and liberating. They experience a longing for passion and new opportunities. In marriage, according to Zygmunt Bauman in Liquid Love:

There is always a suspicion … that one is living a lie or a mistake; that something crucially important has been overlooked, missed, neglected, left untried, and unexplored; and a vital obligation to one’s own authentic self has not been met or that some chances of unknown happiness completely different from any happiness experienced before have not been taken up in time and are bound to be lost forever…

Adultery is a form of theft. One enjoys the possession of another. “Stolen water is sweet; and bread eaten in secret is pleasant” (Proverbs 9:17). There is a certain pleasure that comes from the knowledge that I’m screwing another man’s wife.

And it’s really hot when she wears her wedding ring while she fucks you.

“Cheating is fun.”