An everyday affair: deciphering the sociological significance of women’s attitudes towards infidelity

Abstract

This article draws on interview material to examine the recent hardening of attitudes towards infidelity. The visibility and apparent frequency of both consensual non-monogamy, as well as more common covert experiences, would suggest a challenge to dominant mononormative assumptions about the feasibility of lifelong monogamy. However, infidelity remains the lone area of adult sexual practice that is disapproved of under any circumstances (National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles, 2013). I argue that increasing hostility towards affairs is located in the discursive context of the 'specialness' of sex and the centrality of trust and communication to constructions of contemporary relationships. With the monogamous sexual couple at the centre of personal life, infidelity is regarded as a particular threat, revealing wider limitations to claims about the extent to which relationships have been detraditionalized.

Too much? Excessive sexual experiences in bisexual women’s life stories

“…Yet even more prominent was the second factor: the monogamous norm in Western cultures, which stresses the importance of couple relationships and fidelity. Paradoxically it also assigns special meaning to sexuality that takes place outside a couple commitment, contributing to the experience of it as excessive from a moral point of view; a sentiment still applied more harshly to women than men (van Hooff, 2017). This was evident in the various explanations the women gave of the life phases during which they had sex with different partners.…”

“…After phases of experimental sexual experiences "at the edges", the women usually returned (or wished to return) to long-term committed relationships. The non-monogamous ideas they contemplated in the interviews were often abandoned as unrealizable in the 'real world', reflecting the limited choices available for people living conventional (heterosexual) lives (Lahti, 2018;Barker, 2013;van Hooff, 2017). Yet, my analysis opens up a new way of thinking about the transgressiveness of bisexual women's sexual and relationships choices beyond simply taking positions in monogamous or non-monogamous relationship discourses.…”

“…Despite growing academic and public interest, non-monogamous ways of arranging intimate life remain marginalized (Barker and Langdridge, 2010;van Hooff, 2017). Yet there are ambivalences and tensions around contemporary monogamous couple relationships (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1995;Perel, 2007;Shaw, 2013).…”

“…Attitudes towards infidelity in relationships have become judgmental to an increasing extent since the turn of the millennium (Kontula & Mäkinen, 2009;van Hooff, 2017).…”

The Dynamics of Rebuilding Trust and Trustworthiness in Marital Relationship Post Infidelity Disclosure

“…This level of concern can be seen from the prevalence rate of infidelity recorded in the United States, which ranges from 20% to 40% (Allen & Atkins, 2012;Marin et al, 2014). This fact shows that infidelity has touched nearly half of all marriages in the United States, and can be a serious Pramudito & Minza The Dynamics of Rebuilding Trust threat to the survival of the couple who experience it (van Hooff, 2017). In Indonesia, cases of infidelity also occupy one of the top positions as the main cause of divorce.…”