Personal Sexual Policy
Psychology 277
December 5, 2018
Infidelity/Adultery
I am a person of honesty before
I am anything else. My husband and I
have a secret pact, a contract, if you will, where we outlined the boundaries
of our relationship. On our first date,
I asked him to provide me with radical honesty in all things. Sex was one of the first topics to come up
and the conversation about sex flowed freely.
In the past six years, we have had innumerable conversations about our
sex life and the boundaries we observe.
One such boundary involves marital fidelity. Having been in an open relationship prior to
this one, I know for myself that sexual infidelity is something I am able to
deal with and is not a “deal breaker.” The deal breaker for me is the lie, not
the sex. We agreed to be open if we
choose to have sex with other people and never to hide our desires.
Knowing the main causes of
infidelity (biological drive), and that most women pursue emotional infidelity,
while men pursue sexual novelty (Rathus, S. A., Nevid, J. S., &
Fichner-Rathus, L., 2018. p. 370), it is less challenging to accept a small infidelity
in a relationship than it is to be jealous and closed off when acknowledging
that there is a biological drive to seek out new partners. While my husband has yet to stray and, indeed,
credits the ability to express crushes without fear of reprisal as the main key
to keeping him monogamous, I also am aware that it is hard to remain completely
monogamous for a 40+ year marriage with the biological drives to spread your
seed. I am a fan of the Seattle
columnist, Dan Savage, who calls this event of a rare moment of infidelity in a
long-term relationship “Monogam-ish” (Oppenheimer, M. 2011.) and refuses to
condemn people in otherwise successful marriages who have a lapse in
fidelity.
Legally, infidelity may still be
a taboo, if not legally punishable, topic.
In years past, it was illegal to commit adultery and was one of the few
reasons for divorce prior to the no-fault divorce. Though Rathus states that a very large
percentage of marital partners remain monogamous (90% of women and 75% of men –
Rathus, et. al. p. 371), the possibility of infidelity is still taboo, and it
can still be illegal. There are still
adultery laws on the books for the state of Arizona. Violation of ARS 13-707 is
a class 3 misdemeanor, punishable by up to 30 days in jail, a $500 fine, and 1
year of probation (Jackson White Attorneys at Law, 2018; and AZLeg.gov. 2018).
Seidman goes on to state,
The state criminalizes certain
desires, acts, and identities; it regulates which sexual selves gain entry into
the nation and which are refused; it monitors media representations
through authorizing federal agencies to
set standards for public talk and images; and with the force of law the state
has sanctioned the exclusively heterosexual character of marriage. (Seidman, S.
2015. p. 169)
In
short, infidelity and adultery are considered socially inexcusable actions by
monogamous people and the law. However,
as Rathus goes on to state, there are many different kinds of infidelity, some
considered worse than others. He states
that there is “conventional adultery,” where the partner is unaware of the
infidelity, “consensual adultery,” where the partner knows what is happening
(as in the case of myself and my husband), and “swinging” or partner swapping
(p.371). I only have a problem with the lie that happens when a partner enters
into “conventional adultery,” not the actual act itself. That is my personal sexual policy on
infidelity.
References
Rathus, S. A., Nevid, J. S.,
Fichner-Rathus, L., (2018) Human
Sexuality in a Changing World. New York, NY.
Pearson
Seidman,
S. (2015). The Social Construction of
Sexuality. (Third Edition). New York, NY: W. W. Norton &
Company.
Oppenheimer, M., (2011, June 30) Married, with Infidelities. Retrieved
from
Jackson White Attorneys at Law
(2018) Is Adultery Illegal in Arizona?
Retrieved from
Arizona State Legislature (2013) Misdemeanors; Sentencing. Retrieved from
Grade: 26/30
Professor Comments: Paper was to have four heading in which Adultery or Infidelity could have been on such topic.
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