Last Thursday comedian Chelsea Handler, one of Demi Moore’s friends, told Piers Morgan on his CNN show about Demi and Ashton: “I think they probably had a lot of good times with some other women… Clearly they had a lot of threesomes, that led to twosomes without Demi and that leads to a divorce.”

Clearly Ms. Handler lives in an alternate universe where monogamous people never cheat, because that is what she is implying: If they have been monogamous Ashton Kutcher would never had cheated on Demi Moore.

I call bullshit. Cheaters are cheaters regardless of whether or not the relationship is open-ended or closed-ended.

If Ashton Kutcher cheated on Demi Moore it’s because he’s a dick. Nothing more. Open relationship or not Kutcher would have cheated. I don’t know why he cheated if they had an open relationship, but I assume because maybe A) it wasn’t as open as everyone thought and it was easier (less confrontational) for Kutcher to cheat than to ask permission, B) Kutcher couldn’t or wouldn’t follow the ground rules they set, C) he got a bigger thrill from cheating (danger sex) than he did from having permission.

Regardless, Ashton Kutcher betrayed Demi Moore in some manner and that is the reason they are getting divorced. It’s not because they had an open relationship, it’s because of the way the people in the relationship acted. Plain and simple.

Lastly, only they know what really happened. Nobody knows what really goes on inside someone else’s relationship or marriage. You only see what they want you to see. And things like open relationships, polyamory, swinging, etc. are just easy scapegoats for people who don’t want to take responsibility for blowing-up their own relationship, because a constant of the universe is nobody takes responsibility for their own actions until they run-out of other people or things to blame them on.

I was listening to the Radio from Hell morning show on KXRK this morning and they were doing their “Painful Circle” where the show hosts and a guest dole-out relationship advice to those that call-in. One caller wanted to know how to get her husband to have more sex with her because he just wasn’t interested and they go months between doing the deed. Of course one of the questions that comes-up is: “Do you think he’s cheating on you?”

I thought about this. In my experience I’ve always got more sex from my partner when they are fucking other people, whether they were cheating (in 20/20 hindsight) or in an open-relationship.

It seems the more you get, the more you want. The less you get the less it matters after a while.

What do you think?

Since 2008 Dutch government has been trying to track sexually transmitted infections amongst swingers.  They set-up a system in the free health clinics whereby workers ask those coming in for STI testing whether or not they are a swinger.  Their findings are shocking, but only having seen numerous media reports in the past couple of days about the study (the report isn’t available on the British Medical Journal website, yet), I feel their findings are inaccurate.  First, here’s their basic finding according to the news outlets:

• 1 in 9 heterosexuals that were tested were identified as swingers.
• The combined rates of Chlamydia and gonorrhea were 10.4% for those they identified as swingers.  People who identified as simply straight had an infection rate of 10%, gay men had a 14% infection rate and prostitutes had a 5% infection rate.
• Swingers over 45 had higher rates of infection than those under 45.

The biggest problem I can see with their research is how they identified swingers.  From the news articles I have read the Dutch researcher’s criteria for “swinger” is anyone who came in that identified themselves as a heterosexual, is part of a couple and has sex with other heterosexuals besides their primary partner.

By this definition this could also be people who are cheating on their partner.

By definition swinging is when partners in a committed relationship agree, as a couple, for both partners to engage in recreational sex with other people.

The Dutch researcher’s contend that based on their research 12% of the population is swingers.  Every other estimate in the world puts this number closer to 1% or less.

My personal findings show less than this if you are only looking at those couples actively seeking others to have sex with them.  Looking at the most popular dating site in my area, and just at couples in my state over the age of 25, with a photo (figuring those without at least some kind of photo is not a serious profile), muliplying that by 2 (since they are a couple) and dividing that by the population of the state shows that about 0.2% of the population of this great state is actively looking to swing. Or in simple math, 1 in 500 people.  Or, about 40 people at an average NBA game (don’t ask why I calculated that much less looked-up average NBA game attendance).

Of course there are those that are what I call “opportunistic swingers” who don’t advertise or are actively looking but if the opportunity presents itself with the right person/people they are all in.  Still, they are not enough to bring that number to 12%.

My experience in the swinger community is that safe sex and condom use is the rule, not the exception.  There are those that play bareback, however most of those are only with an individual or couple they are exclusive with.  No swinger wants to get an STI much less infect their spouse, also.

Let’s look at cheaters, though. I’ve covered this in several other posts and statistically conservative estimates are that somewhere between 40% and 50% of men cheat and 30% to 40% of women cheat.  That puts our NBA game attendance of cheaters somewhere in the neighborhood of just under 4,000 women and 5,000 men sitting in the arena.

Knowing this, and knowing the researchers only asked about heterosexuals in couples who have had heterosexual sex with someone besides their partner; and knowing that safe sex practices are low amongst cheaters, doesn’t it seem plausible that many of those the researchers are labeling as swingers are in fact cheaters and it’s skewing the data to the tune of 30X plus?

And finally, the most overlooked statistic from the study: “Swingers” had a 0.4% higher instance of STI’s than heterosexual non-swingers in the study.  You know, the general public.  So where’s the news here?  That those tagged as “swingers” in the study have the same instance of STI’s as anyone else in general society?

Just ranting out loud here…

EDIT:  A point that was brought-up to me on Twitter, and I feel is a great point, is that the research was done at clinics testing for STI’s.  People don’t usually go to a doctor unless they are sick, and in the same respect many people don’t go to a clinic to be checked for an STI until something starts to itch or burn or for some other reason they think they should get checked.  So the data you would get from a clinic of people testing positive for STI’s compared to those that test negative would be skewed when compared to general society.

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• Disease risk higher for swingers than prostitutes (reuters.com)

There seems to be a lot of confusion regarding the definitions of particular relationship matters and structures.  So in an effort to make the world a better place I hereby attempt to clarify things a little.

Cheating: Cheating is an act of lying, deception, fraud, trickery, imposture, or imposition. Cheating characteristically is employed to create an unfair advantage, usually in one’s own interest, and often at the expense of others. Cheating implies the breaking of rules.

Open relationship: An open relationship is a committed relationship in which the partners are free to have emotional and/or physical relationships with other partners, often within mutually agreed limits. If a couple in an open relationship are married, it can be called an open marriage.

Swinging: Swinging or partner swapping is a non-monogamous behaviour, in which partners in a committed relationship agree, as a couple, for both partners to engage in sexual activities with other people.

Polyamory: Polyamory is the practice, desire, or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved.

See the difference in the bolded print? “Deception” vs. “agreed upon with full knowledge and consent of all parties involved”.

That’s a big difference.

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• Honesty (only-more-so.blogspot.com)
• Serial Monogamy,Open Relationships & Polyamory (atomiurl.com)

With the Tiger Woods and Jesse James cheating spectacles I thought it might be good to do a reality check about cheating.  It’s not uncommon, and many of those pointing fingers are in the thick of it themselves.  Of course, they get plenty of publicity because they are stars and in the public eye to begin with, but cheating is as common as pigeons under a freeway overpass.

On my street there are 12 homes.  Statistically, 5 husbands and 4 wives on my street have in the past or are presently cheating (then there is Mrs. and I with standing “hall passes”).

A Utah Jazz basketball game has an average home game attendance of 19,400 people per game.  For sake of argument lets say that it’s all heterosexual couples attending the game.  Based on known conservative statistics of those that cheat 3,880 women and 4,840 men in the crowd have or are cheating.  You can basically go down the rows and say 1..2..you’re cheating. 1..2..you’re cheating.

But yet celebrities like Tiger and Jesse get caught and put the “I’m a sex addict who needs treatment” spin on things to be more publicly acceptable, instead of just being honest (like everyone else has to do) and say “I got caught having sex with others behind my spouse’s back.”  And the public loves a spectacle as long as they’re not the subject of it.

As far as the “how is Tiger’s competitors taking it and will they welcome him back?” The other players are coaching him on how not to get caught next time.  It goes like this: “Listen, Tiger. I’ve been doing this whole tour thing since you were in diapers and I’ve banged more golf groupies than I can remember, so let me give you some tips on how to not get caught next time. 1) Don’t hook-up with a psycho…”

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• Men Only Cheat When… (notyourmothersplayground.com)