Always our mistresses

I have watched with interest our culture developing over the last thirty years as one cultural taboo after another fell to our modern society. Much progress has been made yet there is still one behavior that is still stigmatized. Those of us who suffer from Multiple Partner Attraction are still mocked and ridiculed and while we are partially accepted we are still the scorn of many. I wish to come out hiding from the bedroom closet and announce myself as a proud adulterous american. I take this brave step knowing that I will be attacked, but I do it so that future generations of adulterers can proudly take to the streets and bedrooms of our country without being branded with the scarlet A as if it was morally wrong.

There is an unreasonable hatred to those with adulterous tendencies and I term it stray-from-home-aphobia. Too long have us adulterers suffered violence at the hands of husbands and wives. There are so many movies and shows where we are spreading our love to those and need and their unrational angry partner returns home and kill us. Is there shock at this discrimination? No, in fact the murder of adulterers is even seen as justice being served. This is totally hateful and uncaring to those of us with adulterous tendencies. Where are the social action movies-of-the-week that proclaim love and acceptance of your spouses temporary partners. This movies incite violence towards adulterers and yet there is no outcry. We are forced to sneak in and out of bedrooms instead of freely being able to walk in and out. Is it any wonder the suicide rate among adulterers is so high? That we are always suffer from nervousness and concern about some husband with a shotgun perforating our backsides?

If you leave your family to take up with your next soul-mate you are hated by your ex-spouse and children. Yet if you do the same thing and marry someone of the same sex you are allowed to become an Episcopal Bishop. There is such a double-standard in today’s society that embraces one group but distances itself from the other. Our whole language uses words that show adultery in an unfavorable light. Harsh terms like "caught" in adultery as if we should be shamed of our natural tendencies. Our children as a result of extra-marital proclivities are ostracized and labeled bastards instead of being freely accepted as a bonus to their families by varying their gene pool.

Argument from nature: In the animal kingdom we don’t see this irrational prejudice against animal who mate with multiple animals. Nature shows emphasized that the strongest male gets their picks and how this both helps and protects the community. Why is a behavior that is so prevalent among the animals of the earth not accepted by the thinking animal? Why is what God has made the natural instinct for so many shunned by humans?

We are born this way: Some of us have a genetic predisposition to the wondering eye. Common sense observations will show you that very early people start noticing the opposite sex. They do not latch on to just one to think about, but will often try to date as many as they can. This is a natural proclivity and it is only outdated society mores that force relationships into seeming monogamy. Many couples on the outside appear to be forced into this model but privately live outside of it. This shaming of individuals just forces them to lie and to live a hypocritical life instead of openly living out how they naturally feel. Currently there is no medical research proving this to be true – regardless it is true.

Hate Speech: The language used towards adulterers is very judgmental and negative. Our actions are portrayed as cheating, cuckold, backdoor man, playing around, infidelity, unfaithfulness. These words enforce a negative stereotype and incite hate when discovered. Even when we leave one spouse and start another family we are still called such things as serial adulterers. The fact is we have nothing against marriage and in fact are willing to have more then one. If you feel differently please keep your morals off my body.

Equal Access: If your mistress is injured and you go down to the hospital to see them – often you are barred by the staff for not being close family. This hateful attitude is extremely cruel during these difficult times Even if you are allowed in you are sneered at by other family members as if you are not a valid part of their extended family. What is worse is that most insurance plans will not cover your mistress and her medical plan will not cover you. This is just pure discrimination of adulterous relationships.

Live your own life: If you feel that you want to be with only one partner for your whole life, then that is fine for you. But please don’t enforce your values on me and making me stay home and to be faithful to my spouse and committed to my children. This is something that is just not possible for us to do – so why force us into your lifetime fidelity mold.

Throughout the centuries: In previous times adulterers have been murdered, stoned to death, mutilated, and imprisoned. This still happens today in some countries. In modern times society has become more advanced and reduced many of these society enforced penalties, yet vigilante justice still occurs and people will look the other way just because the person had a wandering eye.

Organized Religion: Religion has been used time and time again as an excuse to oppress adulterers. People who are unable to keep their spouse from straying blame the third party instead. They should thank us instead for providing a valuable service and indicator of the strength of their marriage. Some people will ask about seemingly scriptural passages that condemn adultery.

The Ten Commandment proscription against adultery is obviously passed. We are living in the new testament so that Old Testament stuff can be safely ignored since they also proscribed the eating of shrimp.

King David was punished by God not for adultery but for murder. If adultery had been accepted he would not have felt it necessary to kill Bathsheba’s husband. God punished him but he was allowed to retain her in his house.

Jesus said in reference to divorce "but from the beginning it was not so." Well obviously if there is only Adam and Eve it was not possible to commit adultery. So it might have been easy enough for them but there is a larger pool or resources now.

Jesus prevented a violent stoning of the women caught in adultery. Many people confuse Jesus’s admonition "go and sin no more" as directed towards adultery. Actually this was just a general warning against sin and not specifically adultery.

The many references of Jesus saying do not commit adultery should be taken in the spiritual sense. The Old Testament unfairly used adultery as a parallel to not being faithful to God. There is only one God so we truly can’t commit adultery with another God. So just remember that biblical adultery is only a reference to faithfulness to God not an actual condemnation of human forms of adultery.

We must work to bring our faith communities into the modern world and to live behind these vestiges of dark-ages prejudices. The Roman Catholic Church is the worst of them all in their flexibility on adultery. They actually want people to se it as a disorder and a grave sin and force people to admit their natural proclivities in the confessional. Progress has been made but the embedded Church hierarchy is still hateful towards adulterers.

We are all God’s children and beloved by God so why all this venom directed towards us.

What can we do to change attitudes: I suggest that we organize adultery pride parades. That we march down the street with our various mistresses showing just how well-adjusted we truly are. We can march naked, wearing leather, or dressed up like nuns. This approach is counter intuitive in that you would think it would have a negative affect on paraded viewers. The opposite has been born out as true and the more decadent you appear the more likely you are to have another parade next year.

We should all meet yearly in Orlando and announce a Disney Adultery Days. Possibly the date could be set to February 16, 2004 President’s Day since many presidents were also secretly and not-so-secretly part of our group. We could put pressure on Disney to give Mickey other choices then just Minnie.

Petition Bravo, Showtime and other channels to portray adulteress characters not as stereotypes but as sympathetic and likeable characters. This will go along way to modify societal prejudices against adulteress persons. Many plots involve adultery and yet it is rarely favorable. Too often we have movies like Fatal Attraction that displays adulterers as vindictive psychopaths. We would like to see husbands interrupting a tryst and apologizing for invading their privacy. Children should be shown that the extra adult visiting at times not as something shameful but perhaps as a source of gifts and other benefits.

We must rebuff and show as unscientific all attempts at reparative psychology that tries to force us into monogamous relationships. Adultery is not a defect but is a perfectly valid lifestyle.

In our faith communities we can educate families and friends of adulterers to encourage acceptance since we all all God’s children. We can remind them about casting the first stone and that they shouldn’t be judgmental. By informing them about how we have been mistreated in the past by the institutional church they will realize that the church needs not to be against societal progress but open minded and welcoming. Sufficient dialog will enable appreciation of the value of adulterers to society.

We must not lose heart but remain strong. If someone thirty years ago had proposed to me that I come out of the bedroom closet, I would have said they were crazy. Progress on the societal front has encouraged me to come out and to help destroy this vestige of society prejudice. When we all are free to cavort as we want then all will be free.