The Playboy Fidelity Survey Secret Sex

We are besieged by images of infidelity. Turn on the television and you can feast on betrayal. Desperate housewives play into a national mania as they fool around with pool boys, pipe menders, clients and their neighbors' husbands. On Maury Povich's show, the betrayed rant, rave, throw chairs or discuss the results of DNA tests. On Cheaters, suspicious lovers hire goon squads to track down errant partners. If it weren't for adultery and fooling around, television would be ESPN and the Weather Channel 24/7.

Your e-mail is overloaded with spam for "hot housewives who crave strangers." Websites such as Philanderers.com give advice on how to fool around. At the checkout counter you can read about the sins of others in tabloids and glamour mags. Even scientific journals weigh in with articles on the possibility that nonmonogamy can be explained by a Casanova gene, as opposed to the Calvin Klein type.

What are the facts? To find out, Playboy commissioned a unique survey on sexual exclusivity. At our request, Sovereign Marketing Research, a respected online polling firm, contacted 1,432 Americans (643 males, 789 females) and asked them to take a blind 30-question survey. The subjects came from every state in the union and represented every age and social status. (Unless otherwise noted, all statistics will refer to this group.) Once we had a snapshot of mainstream American attitudes, we turned to Playboy's online audience (a group admittedly younger and more likely to be male, single and comfortable with sex than the average sample). We asked more than 15,000 visitors to describe both fidelity and infidelity in their own words. Finally we posted a second version of the poll, for adulterers only, to create a candid profile of those who stray.

The facts on fidelity

Seventy-five percent of the men and 82 percent of the women surveyed said they had never cheated on their partner.

Almost half the men and two thirds of the women said they had never even considered having sex with someone other than their partner.

Sixty percent of the men and 77 percent of the women said they wouldn't cheat even if they were guaranteed not to get caught.

The vast majority of our subjects (85 percent of the men and 93 percent of the women) said they prefer exclusivity.

But these pillars of society may have cracks. Like teenagers, adults have come to define sex strictly. Most but not all consider acts of penetration to be cheating. The rest of the behavior leaves room for fun.

The myth of infidelity is pervasive. When asked to estimate how many men and women have affairs, people overestimate: The most frequently cited figure was 50 percent, more than twice the actual number. If nothing else, the hype contributes to an unpleasant paranoia. About half our sample had suspected their partner of having an affair.

Without a doubt, extramarital sex is the unfinished business of the sexual revolution:

About half our subjects (49 percent of the men, 58 percent of the women) view adultery and infidelity as sins.

More than half (57 percent) view adultery and infidelity as neurotic, a symptom of a personal problem on the part of the one who cheats. Almost three quarters see cheating as a danger signal, a sign of deeper problems in the relationship.

Men were twice as likely as women (11 percent versus 5 percent) to believe that cheating is inevitable because monogamy is unnatural. Those who cited this option were the most inclined to act on their belief (four in 10 said they had strayed).

We will return to the faithful at the end of this article. First we'll focus on those who fool around. According to the confessions offered by our Playboy.com sample, the unfaithful are doing it in parking lots outside bars, caught in the glare of floodlights. Risking discovery, they stay late at the office to couple atop desks, conference tables and copy machines. They hook up with old friends at high school reunions and weddings and allow wisdom to rewrite memories of young lust. They listen--to telephone calls, for the sound of a key in a lock, for the rising wail of a stereo played full volume in the apartment next door, the signal that the spouse and kids are away.

When we broke down the numbers of those who said they had strayed (25 percent of the men, 18 percent of the women) by marital status, the incidence of fooling around remained constant. Among the married it was 24 percent and 17 percent; among the supposedly exclusive, 27 percent and 20 percent.

Is there such a thing as the seven-year itch or a midlife mistress? Sort of. The incidence of fooling around does go up with age: 18 percent of males and 14 percent of females ages 18 to 34 had had partners outside their primary relationship. Among those over the age of 44, 30 percent of the men and 18 percent of the women had strayed.

A surprising finding: Those who cheat do so almost immediately, within the first six months of a relationship. Of the cheaters who answered the Playboy.com poll, four of 10 said they had fooled around within the first year of a relationship.

Why we stray

Why do you seek sex outside the relationship? It's the million-dollar question--or whatever amount you work out in binding arbitration. This is where survey design comes dangerously close to what lawyers call "leading the witness." We suspect our list of options may not have captured the true flood of details that goes into sexual decision making. And we believed a multiple choice question might play to stereotypes. Not surprisingly, that's what we discovered.

Men cited excitement (50 percent), variety (42 percent), emotional needs (37 percent) and spontaneity (36 percent). One in three men cited the President Clinton line "I did it because I could."

Women cited emotional needs (57 percent), reassurance of desirability (48 percent), a desire for companionship (40 percent) and excitement (39 percent).

We found significant gender differences with almost every option. Men seemed to explain their actions in terms of autonomy and turn-ons, women in terms of connectedness. About the only things men and women agreed on in similar numbers were curiosity (23 percent of males, 22 percent of females) and the desire for better sex (21 percent of males, 17 percent of females). Women were twice as likely as men to say they fooled around because they were looking for a way out or seeking revenge.

In their own words

We asked our online participants to provide us with examples of their experiences. Here are a few of their first-person reports:

"My lover used to call me at two in the morning on any random night. I would jump into a black cab and go straight through his door and into his bed. We would have fantastic, animalistic sex until dawn, and I would leave in the morning--no discussions about feelings or the future, only pure sex. Which was great."--female, formerly married, now single

"I met my lover in an online chat room. I was 20 and he was 46. I knew he was married and that his children were older than I was. We met at a hotel, and the only thing on our minds was sex. He undressed me seductively and caressed every part of my body. He sucked my nipples until they were rock hard. He performed oral sex on me as no other guy ever has. I had such an orgasm, I couldn't stop shaking. It felt so great."--female, never married

"We met at a somewhat dangerous roadside hotel where the check-in clerk worked behind a caged window. We did a wide range of sexual activities and shot Polaroids of each other as we did."--male, formerly married

"She was spending the night in a nearby hotel, and I was in and out in about an hour--we never spent the night together despite seeing each other for several months. This time we ripped up the sheets with our lovemaking. You might think that as the man I wanted no commitment, but we'd always do our thing and then she would hint for me to leave. We did socialize from time to time, but emotional intimacy was never our thing."--male, married

"My married lover was up-front about everything when we met at a club. No strings, no commitments. I liked the idea of a man not getting clingy, because I like my freedom. Yet I want a man who can fuck. We do lots of wild things. I'll dress up like a prostitute, and we'll meet at my second home and fuck outside during a thunderstorm. Discretion keeps us from acting on more public fantasies. The sex is incredible. He has a fantasy come true, we both have our own lives, and I get to fuck whomever else I want."--female, never married

It's the sex, stupid

Today nearly everybody does nearly everything--and we have the statistics to back it up. We asked our mainstream volunteers what sorts of acts they had done with their regular partners. Both sexes reported almost unanimous participation in kissing and intercourse; 85 percent had indulged in oral sex, with a similar percentage having taken showers together. More than half had participated in mutual masturbation, while a smaller percentage had watched pornography together (41 percent of males, 49 percent of females) or used sex toys (28 percent of males, 41 percent of females).

On virtually every measure, more people did it with their spouse than with their lover. Note in particular the discrepancy of participation in oral sex.

People who had cheated were significantly different from those who hadn't on almost every measure. They were more likely to have participated in oral sex, mutual masturbation, sex toys and porn with their regular partner. In addition, they were more likely to have watched themselves having sex in a mirror, had sex in a public place, made videotapes, posed for nude photographs or invited another person to join them and their partner for sex.

It was a question worth exploring further. We asked our online volunteers to report on the same list of behaviors but to put a time frame on them. What had they done with their partner in the past 12 months? What had they done with their outside lovers in that time? (The two questions allowed us to get at an old wives' tale--the notion that a second sex life somehow detracts from the first.)

Some of the behaviors--watching yourself in the mirror, watching and appreciating the way your partner undresses, taking a shower together--were easily understood as something you do with an intimate. There used to be a notion that spouses looked outside their marriage for sex acts a partner would not perform. That's the polite way of saying men sought blow jobs--the stock-in-trade of prostitutes--or things too kinky to hoist on the missus. It was the stuff of foreign films.

We tested this notion back in 1983 in the first Playboy Readers' Sex Survey and came away puzzled. Oral sex was a predictive factor but not in a way that made ready sense. Those who got and gave oral sex frequently or not at all were less inclined to stray than those who got and gave every now and then. At first glance it's not the need for specific behavior that causes partners to seek their satisfaction outside the family home. So why should they run the risk? When we asked the Playboy.com panel to describe the difference between sex with their regular partner and sex with their outside interest, the results were eloquent, articulate and occasionally painful.

Attitude is everything

"A lover is like flying first-class; a wife is like flying in the baggage section."--male, married

"Sex with my husband is like balancing my checkbook. I know it needs to be done, but doing it doesn't excite me in the least. I know exactly what he'll do, when he'll do it and how he'll do it. With my lover it's spontaneous and we're both nervous to be caught, so we work in as much as we can sexually until we meet again. And he's a lot rougher than my regular partner--not physically but more in a way that he knows what he wants and gets it."--female, married

"My lover is more aggressive. She gets turned on quickly, and she gets wet just from a kiss or any touch. It's more fun and a great change. They're completely different people in bed. My wife likes to have fun, but it's too much work to get it out of her. With my lover our sex seems to be the most important thing in her life, so we make the time and really enjoy it."--male, married

"The sex is good, but the foreplay really gets me going. He gives back rubs and other things my husband finds boring. My husband and I have had sex so many times in so many different ways that it's almost expected. With my outside partner it's still a challenge to go all the way."--female, married in open relationship

"My outside lover is more willing to wear risqué clothing and have sex in places outside the bedroom--including classrooms, public bathrooms, the woods, movie theaters and parked cars. And my outside lover is more willing to try different things in bed--fetish toys, S&M, bondage, anal. My regular partner is conservative, interested only in missionary sex in bed. Good but boring."--male, married

"Different people, different sex. My wife is more open and adventurous--she's also bi--so there are few fantasies she's not willing to satisfy. Other lovers are learning experiences. Even at the age of 33 there are new things to discover about sex. And since I share everything with my wife, including partners occasionally, it's an enriching experience for both of us."--male, married in open relationship

Truth and consequences

Do you think cheating is easy? Passion clouds the mind. Consider this question: Have you ever called a lover by the wrong name? Among those who responded to our Playboy.com survey, 18 percent of the men and 23 percent of the women had, and about half of those were cheating. So on its own it's not conclusive evidence of cheating.

Avoiding discovery is in the details. Subjects who got caught told us about text messages left on cell phones, bank statements detailing visits to an escort service, an unused condom left in the cab of a truck, a stain on the carpet after a wild night of chocolate syrup, the experience at Starbucks that you just had to write down in a diary, the sexy letter from a lover who confessed she shaved her pussy just for you, plus other lovers caught in the shower, spread-eagled on the conference room table, half naked in the car parked in the garage with a lover still primed for action. One online poll question dealt with close calls.

Do cheaters take precautions? About half know that discretion is the better part of ardor: 57 percent of the men and 44 percent of the women had told no one else about the affair. When confronted, one man relied on denial:

"Of course I've never been caught, nor do I plan to be. Isn't that the idea? There's a thing in politics we call plausible deniability. Deny, deny, deny. It did not officially happen until the moment you admit it."--male, married

The mrs. robinson effect

One fact we found to be remarkable is what we dubbed the Mrs. Robinson Effect. We asked our national audience if, while single, they had ever knowingly had sex with a married person. One in three men and one in four women answered yes. This could be the most compelling finding in our survey: Males and females who had sex with a married person at a time when they were single were far more likely to find sex outside their marriages (38 percent of the men and 39 percent of the women, compared with the average 24 percent of men and 17 percent of women in the mainstream group).

A follow-up question asked subjects to characterize their married lover. Half the singles who had been "the other man" loved that their married partner was "more focused on sex." Thirty percent of the singles who as the other woman had enjoyed a married man liked the obsession with sex. More than a third of men and women said their married lover was "more appreciative." A significant number (23 percent of males, 15 percent of females) found married lovers to be more experienced than single partners.

For some (25 percent of males, 21 percent of females) the need for secrecy was a turn-on, but others (19 percent of males, 30 percent of females) found the skulking about stressful. The notion that there is no time for foreplay or talk or nagging or balancing the checkbook underscores the affair's sex for sex's sake. And indeed, the most frequently cited positive aspect of such affairs was "no commitment hassles" (62 percent of males, 53 percent of females). One third liked that there was no pressure and none of the typical escalating courtship questions.

(concluded on page 173)Secret Sex(continued from page 120)

A woman's place

Adultery has always been with us, of course, but some of what we see now is an expression of new sexual politics. We've found that work plays a role but not the one you think. Newsweeklies lay the blame on working women tasting the freedom of hotel rooms, business trips and close associations with colleagues. Our statistics suggest the workplace is a contributing factor. Twenty-seven percent of the men and 19 percent of the women cheaters met their lovers at work; not a few pursued frolicking on business trips. But work is a two-way street (21 percent of the men and 28 percent of the women who had illicit lovers got together while their primary partner was at work or out of town). We asked the Playboy.com volunteers to look at what else was going on in their life when they began an affair. Topping the list were three work-related events: One in five cheaters began the affair after taking a new job; the same number did so when a regular partner became busy (for example, going back to school or work); almost as many (19 percent of men, 15 percent of women) noticed the affair coincided with a promotion or increased duties at work.

More facts about Cheaters:

• One in five never meets the outside lover in public.

• One in four never gives out a home phone number (substituting the cell).

• Slightly fewer (22 percent of men, 15 percent of women) avoid using a credit card to pay for dinners and hotel rooms.

• Nearly one third of the cheaters admitted to lying about their marital status in order to get sex.

• About one in 10 never uses a real name or gives a real place of business and chooses to have affairs only on the road.

Why stay faithful?

What is the most frequently cited reason for fidelity? Men were most likely to say "respect for my partner" (24 percent to women's 22 percent); women were more inclined to say they had found a partner who was "perfect for me" (33 percent to men's 18 percent). Men were half as likely to cite honor or contract ("I gave my word") as women.

About one in 10 cited religious upbringing, fear of hurting a partner or comfort (preferring monogamy to the hassles of dating around).

We can say this about the faithful: They don't even think about fooling around--at least hardly ever. Only 37 percent of the faithful men had ever considered having an affair (and most of those "not often"), compared with the 94 percent of the men who ultimately cheated. Only 22 percent of the faithful women had considered having an affair (again, most of those "not often"), compared with 89 percent of women who went on to cheat. Put another way, cheaters were at least three times as likely as the faithful to give the possibility serious consideration.

Americans have no consensus about what constitutes cheating. We were amazed by the loopholes and levels of distinction. Most subjects feel comfortable with flirtation: Look but don't touch; flirt but don't fondle. But even the line between the fantastic and the physical has rules. For some people, the line is crossed once they go out of their way to increase temptation. For others, leading someone on is the crime.

"I handle curiosity or temptation by fantasizing while masturbating. You cross a line when you do something that would bother you if your partner were engaging in the act with another person."--male, married

And then there was this guy, someone for whom temptation is biblical:

"I handle it poorly, for I am weak. Sexuality is good, God made me sexual, and he made marriage the place to use that sexuality as a glue in a lifelong relationship. I handle temptation primarily by avoidance--like an alcoholic avoiding a bar. The primary temptation toward sexual infidelity is to believe that I am my own person, isolated, and that what I do will not hurt anyone else. Remembering that my God does not isolate himself from me reminds me to turn again to him for help to love my wife as he loves me."--male, married

In the past 12 months, which of the following have you done with your primary partner and with an outside lover

with regular partner with other lover

Oral: 75%M 70%F 57%M 55%F

anal: 30%M 37%F 27%M 30%F

toys: 32%M 38%F 20%M 27%F

porn: 38%M 41%F 22%M 26%F

Source: Playboy.com.

Have You ever had to explain any of the following to your regular partner?

Male Female

Scratches or marks on your body:

25% 25%

A phone call to your house:

32% 33%

E-mails

26% 26%

Being seen by a friend

20% 23%

smell of your lover's perfume or cologne:

22% 19%

Photo or souvenir:

15% 19%

Hotel or phone bill:

18% 19%

Item of clothing left behind:

14% 13%

Visiting sexual websites:

26% 17%

Source:Playboy.com.

Have your lover and regular partner or spouse ever been in the same place?

Male Female

No:

43% 38%

Yes, but my spouse/regular partner didn't know:

35% 35%

Yes, and both knew:

22% 27%

Source:Playboy.com.

Have long were you in primary relationship before having an affair?

Male Female

Less than a year 41% 45%

One to two years 23% 25%

Three to five years 16% 15%

More than five 20% 15%

How many outside partners have you had since entering primary relationship?

Male Female

One 26% 30%

Two to five 33% 29%

Six to 10 9% 10%

More than 10 11% 11%

Source:Playboy.com.

"Sex Outside of my serious relationship is like a fresh taste of what other women have to offer. With my lover it is very risky, and I think that adds a lot more excitement. We are not afraid to try new things with each other, and we don't care about feelings. All we care about is how to have the best sex every time."

Would you say that you had cheated if you engaged in the following with someone other than your regular partner

Male Female

Sexual intercourse 93% 95%

Oral sex 88% 93%

Anal intercourse 88% 92%

Fondling(touching breasts or genitals) 74% 88%

French kissing 65% 80%

Phone Sex 43% 69%

Exchangingerotic e-mail or online chat 39% 65%

Lap dancing 30% 56%

Flirting 14% 15%