True Lies

Those supple limbs, that satin skin\Temptation''s hard to fight\ This game is one that''s great to win\ Though playednot out of spite. The anonymous poet is right. It''s easy to beunfaithful. Consider this statistic: At least one or both parties in 50 per centof all couples, married and living together, straight and gay, will break theirvows of sexual or emotional fidelity during their relationship. Thestudy is, of course, US-based. We''re Indian. It can''t be true of us? The answerlies more in the definition than in the act. In Not Just Friends,her best-selling handbook on saving relationships, Shirley P Glass, USA''s"godmother of infidelity research" says: "One doesn''t have to have sex to beunfaithful. Secret emotional attachments outside a marriage can be just as greata betrayal as extra-marital sex."Our own sexperts agree to disagree."An affair in the mind or lustful feelings towards someone outside marriage isnot infidelity - they are useful in arousal and increasing the intimacy of arelationship," says Kolkatta-based sexologist Govind Gupta. Hisviews match those of Mumbai-based adman Alyque Padamsee: "The only person in theworld who believed lustful thoughts about another person amounted to infidelitywas Jimmy Carter in a Playboy interview!"So we''re okay with lustingin the mind? Wh-at about the act itself? Another kind of doctor in another cityis equally open-minded: "We don''t eat the same food or wear the same clothesevery day. A person gets char-ged by doing something he or she doesn''t normallydo, sometimes by breaking rules," says Chitta-ranjan Andrade, a psychopharmacistat Nimhans, Bangalore. The sexologist goes a step further, "A shortaffair or one-night stand makes you see more clearly the negative points in yourtemporary partner and reinstates your love for your married one. At least thisis what happens in 99 per cent cases."So far so good. But what aboutdiscovery time? Do we kiss and forget? "A one-night stand amounts tomasturbation with another person, and therefore should not cause a break-up. Ifeither partner wants non-love sex, pay for it and get it over with," saysPadamsee. Sociologist Shiv Vishwanathan has his own take: "Marriagesdon''t break up because most women would have to manage their children alone. Ittook developmental economists three decades to discover that fact."So much for evolution. Should we go a step further and discuss itall in our bedrooms then? "Transparency is great in business relationships butdeadly when it comes to marriage," admits Padamsee. He gets 100 percent support from the people we spoke to. If you are doing it why talk aboutit? At least not till economist Soumantra Ghousal''s prediction comes true:"Marriage is one institution that might have to be redesigned for the future,but which way it will go is anyone''s guess."