infidelity in the digital age

a letter from Duped By My Lover

Dear Duped,

You’re right - love depends heavily on trust. However, there’s four separate things to address here: the lying, the porn, the messaging, and the inherent problem of his sexual needs going unfulfilled.

Rest assured: this problem is not unique to him or you. In the past, things were easier to define. Either you met up with someone outside your marriage or you didn’t.

Today, there’s endless ways to gain sexual gratification from someone else, even from an AI bot. Infidelity has many shades of gray. So: to avoid hurting each other, every couple unfortunately has to have an awkward and honest conversation about where to draw the line.

Firstly, there’s a big difference between outright lying and lies of omission, especially in this case. Most people grow up seeing masturbation as a private, personal, and icky thing.

It doesn’t occur to them that they can or should share it, any more than they share the details of their latest visit to the bathroom. I can’t blame him for not volunteering this information, but I would blame him for nor being transparent when it become a topic of discussion.

Was your boyfriend forthright with you when you asked him, or did he keep hiding things for you to uncover?

Honesty is also a two way street: if you react explosively to someone telling you the truth, it’s natural that they end up cagey. You have to encourage honesty by reacting neutrally, even when they’re telling you something you hate to hear. That doesn’t mean being a doormat: you can and should draw your boundaries firmly, but staying calm and empathetic is vital.

Men and women experience sexual desire differently. I can sympathize with why his behavior might seem gross to you, panting like an animal after flesh, the body of someone he barely knows and would never be with.

I think it would easier, and more accurate, for you to think of it like hunger rather than desire. The male sex drive does not pause when the man is not in love or his lover isn’t around. It intensifies until it’s all-absorbing and impossible to ignore.

Porn is like junk food: some people are addicted to it, and that’s bad, but anyone would eat it if they were hungry enough and something more nourishing and fulfilling was not available.

For many women, porn is not appealing because arousal requires a holistic connection. Men are much more visual, so the imagery is often enough to give them release.

Whether you are a man or a woman, it is very, very difficult to want sex more than your partner wants it. Visit the r/deadbedrooms subreddit and you might understand his perspective a bit better. It’s nobody’s fault, but it is a difficult situation that requires compromise on both sides.

The messages are a whole other story, but there is a chance (slim, but bolstered by how well he treats you in other ways) he really did not see it as cheating.

The problem with 24/7, easily available sex work is that it’s a very slippery slope from photos to paying for photos to paying for messages. Would it be cheating to have pay a writer to write you custom erotica? What about paying to chat with a sexy chatbot? Is paid porn different from free porn? What about paid porn versus paying to join a sexy livestream? Does it make a difference if the livestream is group or individual? What if it’s a real girl’s body but with an AI face?

You get the point: when you think about all the options men have today for easy gratification, the line is indeed quite blurry.

I can see why you think it’s cheating; I can also see why he thought it wasn’t, and why it didn’t occur to him to share his private…pleasures with you. Again: this problem is not unique to him. He could be a truly decent guy who was simply delusional about what you’d be fine with.

The only question is this: now that you’re drawn your boundaries, will he respect them? If you catch him lying again, leave and don’t look back. If he does what he said he’ll do, leave the past in the past and count yourself lucky to have an honorable lover.

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Someone in your life being impossible to deal with? Troubles of the heart? Don’t know if you’re crazy or they are? Suffering from a moral dilemma? Issues with your parents, your cranky boss, your cat? Open to having your problem (and potentially, yourself) publicly dissected and philosophized over?

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My very dear readers, I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

Love, Divya.