Oh God, give it a rest already with this whole Tiger Woods infidelity outrage. For crying out loud, don’t you know? Everybody cheats: We cheat on our taxes, we cheat on our résumés, we cheat on our facepage entries for age and weight and, yes, we have cheated—or are about to cheat—on our husbands and wives.
According to the Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy, 45 to 55 percent of married women and 50 to 60 percent of married men “engage in extramarital sex at some time during their relationship.” And that’s just those who admit to it. If you add 15 percentage points for those who are lying, 15 for people who would cheat but can’t—because they are too ugly, dumb and smelly to seduce somebody other than their ugly, dumb, smelly spouses—you’ve got a 85-90 percent chance that normal people in normal situations cheat.
“We wanted to believe Tiger was… true to his family values,” wrote sportswriter Jay Mariotti on Fanhouse.com. “[We wanted to believe] he was good and wholesome enough to help shape the world well into the future….”
Hey, Jay, are you daft!? You put the world’s future in Tiger Woods’ hands? Well, I say, thank God his wholesome image has been tarnished. Because it was a fraud to begin with. Wholesome images are always a fraud. There are no wholesome people, only wholesome reputations. And now that Tiger has shanked his, it means there’s less pressure for the rest of us to live up to a lie. It’s time for the cheaters of the world to come out of the closet. Stand and be counted cheaters! Let everyone see how normal and natural it is to stray. Let them see that cheating is human nature and there is nothing wrong with human nature. Let them know that maybe, just maybe, what is wrong is this unreasonable demand to be ever-faithful when every grain of your humanity is screaming, “Get some strange! Get some strange!”
Fidelity is so ’80s. Vows are for saps. Marriage is an eternity. Monogamy was never meant to withstand that kind of monotony. It’s unrealistic. That’s why I propose that all marriages should have an Infidelity Mulligan for every five years of bondage—er, marriage. That’s one affair per every five years of wedlock which I truly believe will help keep boredom at bay and be useful as a marital negotiating tool: “Honey, dear, baby—how about a two-hour hot-oil and full body massage in exchange for an extra Infidelity Mulligan?” If that isn’t win-win, I don’t know what is.
Of course, we are drifting into dangerous waters here. Guidelines must be established so as not to critically injure the marriage. Naturally, the rules would be slightly different for each spouse:
Mulligan Rules for Men (stepping out on wives):
1. Condoms Mandatory.
2. One Night Stands Only (emotional or romantic connections are prohibited. No returnsies).
3. No Friendsex (unless her friend is super hot and promises to keep her mouth shut)
4. No Sugar Daddying (purchasing expensive gifts for your mistress, such as jewelry or breast enhancements, is expressly forbidden. That money should be spent on cleaning and cooking appliances for your wife).
5. Ménage à Trois Management (if you manage to pull off a complicated Ménage Méneuver and convince the mistress to join you and the wife in bed, then it’s not really cheating, and the mulligan is restored).
Mulligan Rules for Women (stepping out on husbands):
1. Condoms Mandatory (two condoms are required: one by him and one giant, nonoxynol-drenched, 5-foot body condom to be worn by her).
2. Penis Inferiority Respect (size of lover’s penis must be considerably smaller than husband’s).
3. Re-Sanitization Procedure (every home should have a Marital Re-entry Decontamination Shower and Fumigation Chamber to eliminate any germs she may have picked up).
4. Sugar Daughtering Permitted (wife may receive expensive gifts from lover, especially big-ticket items, such as automobiles or jet skis. Breast enhancements are acceptable too, provided the husband chooses the shape and size).
5. No Lover Bringing-Homing (Bringing home a lover for a three-way is not acceptable, unless the lover is a woman, in which case, um, yeah, that’d be OK).
6. No Oral.
7. No Anal
8. No Vaginal
9. No Land Dwellers (wife may not have sex with any of your friends, nor her coworkers, nor neighbors, nor, for that matter, anyone who lives in North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Australia, Asia or Antarctica. Basically, she may not have relations with any man who lives on an occupied landmass. She may have sex with an Eskimo from the Arctic ice shelf, on the ides of January, on an iceberg—populated by a flock of agitated penguins—if that’s the sort of thing she goes for. Perv!)
Ed Decker
12/09/09
Originally published in San Diego CityBeat
You are hilarious…one of the few literate monkeys who can make me laught out loud.
Really, Ed, things would be much much easier if they banned marriage outright. Either that, or they only let people sign up to a marriage for five or ten year contracts, sort of like the military.
You need Jesus more than anyone I fuckin’ know. These embarassing sex statistics you’ve invented like a British climate scientist are a mockery of our national purity.
You need to bend over and donate, you need to cleanse your filthy semen filters. I see a lot of two-headed sperm in there. You have fouled God’s ATM. We may not be able to count the evening take. . We may not accept your dough at pledge time. This time of year is the time to remember the sacredness of our nation’s decency fantasy. Christian Men are dying for sex and booze in Afghanistan while you undermine everything that props up the American Dream. I rebuke you Decker !
This is hilarious and rock bottom true. Everyone has sex, hopefully. Let’s just get over it and move on with life. What is this fascination the media has with sex lives of the rich and famous? Still, it is good to know that Tiger was rated a 12 in bed by one of his mistresses. hmmmm…..
Decker, *that* was some of the best, funniest comedic essay writing I’ve read all year. Keep rockin’ it. So true.
I agree Judy, I think government should get out of the “marriage” business altogether. As Robert Louis Stevenson once said, “Marriage is a friendship recognized by the police.”
Carlos, I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not, but funny comment nonetheless. Best line:
“This is the time of year to remember the sacredness of our nation’s decency fantasy.”
Judy, was Tiger rated a 12 on a scale of 1-10, or 1-100?
Thank you!!! I totally agree. Although, the rules for women are a little stiff. Good thing I’m into Eskimos!
See you at the SCWC*SD, buddy!
))
I have to agree w/ Jilly although I would venture to say they are very stiff. (Ha “stiff” my mind wanders elsewhere…)
I’d love to hear what “W” has to say about your rules for women.
Don’t have a problem w/ the sharing of partners so long as both people in the relationship is in agreement.
Great to see you haven’t lost your sense of humor though Ed.
Have to agree with you though Ed on Carlos…
Actually, Colleen, W. was all for it. In fact, this whole column was her idea.
You ladies should know, the part at the end, the part that screws women out of their Infidelity Mulligans, was intended to be self-deprecating humor. I meant it to poke fun at the fragile and hypocritical male ego.
It was a late addition to the column. In the first draft, women were going to get the same Infidelity Mulligan rights as men, but I changed it cuz it seemed funnier to me this way. W. agreed. In reality however, I am in favor of the mulligan going both ways (hey, a bisexual mulligan – love it!)
ed
Decker, you american-value-underminer you! Tongue placed firmly in cheek and bitten down upon. Great job, pal. But the women’s mulligans rules of no oral, no anal, no vaginal….NO VAGINAL? What’s left? I know you’re up for a clever answer. HA!
V-
Ed,
When I go to bed tonight, I will be sure to thank Thoth and Bes for their contribution to your Men’s #4.
“purchasing expensive gifts for your mistress, such as jewelry or breast enhancements, is expressly forbidden. That money should be spent on cleaning and cooking appliances for your wife”.
Edwin,
If this is your way of trying to get into my panties, it’s not going to work.
it already has worked Karyl, it already has…
Nothing’s left V., that’s the whole point. If she’s gonna cheat on me she’s just going to have to make do with handjobs with Eskimos on the Arctic ice shelf. Enough of this now, i’m off to the brothel!!
That penguin picture makes me sad…
You had me mildly pissed off, until the twist at the end, irony fully accepted, thankgod. Up to that point you suddenly sounded like you’d been reading the Old Testament too often, perhaps too much time spent you know where. Because i think it’s important for women to be comfortable bringing men home
. Actually, what really pissed me off is that the UT published the whole TWs scandal on the front page! Isn’t that where news belongs? Poor TW needed to be placed in arts&entertainment (“currents”?) where one hopes and expects to read about infidelities, usually in Ann Landers & co. Hey, I heard As the World Turns got canceled today. THAT’s why the U-T is keeping up front page tiger-with-a-white-woman-in-his-tank stories. Keep it up, Ed! Keep pushing the edge!