What Goes On The Road...

Whenever guys "step out" on their girlfriends or wives, the reaction -- whether we like it or not -- is typically, "Hey, it's guys being guys." After all, we're the ones being led around by out trouser snakes. We can't help what the little guy gets us into; he's clearly steering the ship.

When women cheat, however, it's a different story. Here, we get the guys in labcoats and slide rules, with their Venn Diagrams and four-color pie charts, who toss off such conclusions as, "There must be something missing in their lives." Or, "Clearly, she's rebelling against the traditional role." Or, "Her father probably never bought her a pony, so she's acting on long-suppressed childhood rage."

Hey, here's an idea: Could it be that some of them just really like fucking?

Consider a female friend of mine. She's young (34), strikingly pretty (blonde, exquisite lips, and a distractingly curvy figure), with a hubby and three kids and a nice house in a tony suburb on Boston's south shore. She goes away on business trips at least once every couple months. And each time out, she ends up sleeping with someone.

She says still loves her husband, adores her kids more than anything else in the world, and would never even consider walking away from it all. What she finds inebrieating, to put it in Seinfeld-ese, is "the timeless art of seduction." She likes to have a few drinks when she's away from home -- something she doesn't get to do a lot of with a 22-month old tugging at her apron. She likes the feeling of being hit on by attractive men. She enjoys the sensation of kissing someone for the first time. The rush of screwing someone new... it's all good to her.

When she first confided in me that she swings this way, it was roughly seven years ago. She was only two years married at that time, and I laughed it off as a sort of panic move. Since then, she's had three kids and seven anniversaries... and she's still at it. I've given her every speech in the book, from the laws of karma to the joys of crabs, but she's ignored me so much, now I just sit back and wait for her stories, like the dude she tied up to the hotel bed, the older guy who screwed her on the dunes behind the hotel, or the gentlemen she almost blinded when she moved back to sit on his face while wearing her stilettos.

Confining this activity to business trips, behind locked hotel room doors, the chances of her husband ever finding out are slim. Okay, God's watching, but she doesn't seem to care. She's got no "hidden demons" as I can see; no pulling from a vodka bottle at home as she diapers her kids, longing for the muscular dude she boffed out in San Diego. She turns it on and off almost like a switch. When she's at home, that's where she wants to be. When she's on the road, she's looking to meet.

So I ask you, where's the rub? If her conscience has enabled her to continue this for seven years, with no end in sight, it's safe to say she's sleeping pretty easy. Her family is oblivious. And she's enjoying some pretty hot "bonus sex" at least six times a year. Has she truly found the best of both worlds, or do we write her off as doomed, sad and spiraling toward hell to make ourselves feel better for not having the guts to try it?