Faces of infidelity: two sides of the stereotype

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Two of the most dangerous words in the English language are normal and common-sense. The reason they’re dangerous is because of their self-contained meaning: Simply, the words – and the concepts to which they’re so comfortable shackled – do not need to be examined.

Stereotypes work in this same vein. We make broad generalizations that may (or may not) contain an element of truth and then hold on to them with an unexamined fervor akin to that of the most zealous fundamentalist. For the woman who engages in acts of infidelity, the stereotype is a target of calculated condemnation: a dual-edged contradiction that is, in equal parts, both vicious and vapid.

On one hand, the woman infidel (the religious connection/pun is wholly intended) is cast as an evil, scheming Jezebel: the vicious, selfish “homewrecker” who, in the sage world of Internet forum boards, needs to “keep her hands off taken men.” On the other, she is portrayed as a vapid, lustful twit who, allegedly, lives in a constant state of wistful delusion that her lover will one day leave his wife and family. 

If that despair isn’t enough, how-to books on “designer cheating” don’t do much to counter the stereotype. One in particular, J. Frances’ Designing Infidelity: A Reference Guide to the Art of Cheating to Perfection, is a testament to colorless clichés about women who cheat, neatly encapsulated by the back cover. Here, we see a smug, self-satisfied caricature: A black-and-white shot of a 40-ish woman with Botox lips and bejeweled fingers sitting at a piano (really) with two champagne flutes and(yes, you knew it was coming), a “starkly-in-contrast” red rose draped, for drama, aside them.

The words of wisdom contained within “Designing Infidelity” constitute a continuing coda of insults to the intelligence of women. Consider the following, taken from a random two-page sample: “Patty … was clueless to the fact that Internet Explorer allowed her husband to view the sites she recently visited” (34); and, under the guise of advising us to use “the song code” to remember passwords, that “if you like the song ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head,’ your password could be RKFOMH’” (35).

ROFLMAO – or, better, perhaps, WTF?, is more like it.  At this point, refrains of Pink’s “Stupid Girls” come to mind as a more apt song choice, along with a lament at the loss of a sharp editor who may have been able to slice through much of the mish-mash that is passed off as intelligent discourse in this text on the topic of infidelity and human relationships. Spend five minutes with the women portrayed in this book, and it may be a fairly safe wager that any intelligent, articulate man would be seeking the nearest exit back to his wife.

The text is full of helpful hints (Martha Stewart, anyone?) of high-tech avoidance strategies such as counseling us to purchase a shredder, that ignorance is “no excuse for the law,” and “affairs are like snowflakes – no two are the same” (xv), to the plain distasteful, such as “change your password like your underwear” (37) and the stupid, such as “frienemy” – Frances’ cute little neologism for “friendly enemy.”

What makes this whole mess of a book even worse is the back-cover blurb that glibly reassures us that this text has been “[w]ritten by an authority on deception and extramarital relationships.” This “authority” on such matters, however, constitutes little more than condescending clichés and gauche platitudes that do nothing to promote the cause of the sensual, intelligent seductress; instead, sadly, it paints women – and, particularly mistresses – as the empty, shallow, hedonistic airheads that the stereotype of common folklore would have everyone believe they are.