New Infidelity Book Looks At Cheating Around The World

"Americans are the worst, both at having affairs and dealing with the aftermath. Adultery crises in America last longer, cost more, and seem to inflict more emotional torture than they do anyplace I visited."

-- Pamela Druckerman, author of the new survey of infidelity around the world "Lust in Translation" (click here to see it at Amazon), quoted on MSN.

In what sounds like a fascinating book, Druckerman looks at infidelity across nations. The Economist describes her findings as "Americans do it guiltily, Russians casually, Africans lethally, and the French habitually."

And if that's not interesting enough, she looks at how the emotional impact is dealt with. Blogger Bradford Plumer quotes Druckerman on America's confession industry -- part of what she terms the "marriage-industrial complex:"

Since lying is the problem, truth-telling has become America's cure for infidelity. Many therapists believe that a wife is entitled to ask her husband for the details of every text message and encounter. The rationale is that the relationship between a husband and wife should be transparent. Some couples create a detailed chronology covering the entire period of the infidelity, even if it lasted for several years.

The process stops when the wife can't take it anymore, or when she's satisfied that she's overturned every lie she's ever been told. If any stray lies trickle out after this, the wife can have traumatizing flashbacks. There's no empirical evidence about whether this does any good.

People in some other countries didn't believe me when I told them about America's confession cure. They assumed that knowing the details of what happened would make someone feel worse.

Reinforcing the uniqueness of the American take on infidelity, the Times of India -- commenting on Lust in Translation -- reports that "in urban India ... affairs are becoming an accepted part of relationships and marriage. ... High society flings and travel adventures are quite common. ... today most people avoid ugly scenes and situations and are more than willing to forgive and forget."

Plumer notes "it was interesting that the people in France whom Druckerman interviews were mostly dumbfounded by the notion that couples should never have any secrets between them. That largely seems to be an American idea." And on the same point, The Economist writes that "Americans, she reckons, are a bit neurotic about adultery; in other countries it counts as a regrettable lapse, but not necessarily an unforgivable act of heinous betrayal."

It's an excellent question: is knowing the entire truth really best? And where did this (apparently) uniquely American belief come from? The women's movement? Religious faith, which runs deeper in the U.S. than other developed countries? The popularization of psychoanalytic techniques? The self help movement?

These may not be answered in Lust in Translation, but the book sounds like an great starting point for thinking about what's actually best for long term marital success.

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Other interesting facts from the book:

• 37% of married men in Togo said they'd had a sexual partner other than their wife in the last twelve months. In the U.S. the rate for men is 4% and women 3%; stereotypes aside, about the same as the French. The most faithful seem to be the Swiss (3%) and Aussies (2.5%).
• 1/3 of marriages in Japan are sexless, and extramarital sex is practically institutionalized. Buying sex does not count as cheating.
• Similarly, in Russia, adultery during beach vacations does not break the marital vows. One poll found that 50% of men and 25% of women had cheated on their current spouse (no mention of the rate for their previous marriages). Affairs are, at worst, a "benign vice," according to MSN reviewer Jardine Libaire, at the same level as "cigars and scotch."

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Update: The UK's Telegraph says "Lust In Translation is an entertaining tour of the extramarital goings on of the French, Russians, Japanese, Indonesians, Hasidic Jews and Americans." Writer Cassandra Jardine interviews Druckerman as well.

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