To Cheat or Not To Cheat...That is the Question

I don't class myself as ever cheating but I guess it depends on what your definition of cheating is. If it's kissing or fooling around with someone else other than your partner then I've cheated. But I've never cheated by having full sex with someone else. Does that make it right? No, of course not and I regret it but because of the situation at the time it was justified. That may be hard for some people to understand but that's how it was.

A dictionary definition of infidelity is:


1.
marital disloyalty; adultery.
2.
unfaithfulness; disloyalty.
3.
lack of religious faith, esp. Christian faith.
4.
a breach of trust or a disloyal act; transgression.

Personally, I don't constitute it as cheating unless it was full sexual intercourse. But what leads most people to do it? Lack of self-control? Influence of alcohol? Or maybe it's "Just because I can!"

Now I'm not going to start man-bashing here but according to statistics, men are more likely to cheat than women:

To show how fast the world is changing, only 10 percent of married women admitted to infidelity in 1991, according to a poll by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. Ten years later, that number jumped to 15 percent for women, while the level of unfaithful men stayed a constant 22 percent. (http://www.womansavers.com/articles-for-women/65.html)

So it's fair to assume that in recent times women are gradually becoming more sexually immoral and liberated - or maybe they're just looking for sexual attention outside of their relationships because their partners don't show them enough affection between the sheets. Women need to feel wanted and loved, whereas men most likely cheat because they have a serious lack of self-control and willpower, and to be frank, just can't keep it in their trousers.

Women are also more likely to feel guilty about cheating, generally because they are more emotional beings. Again, this does not make it right.

From a religious point-of-view, the Bible's standpoint on adultery is just simply "Do not commit adultery" - plain and simple. Yet if you read the following passage you will see how Jesus dealt with a woman caught cheating on her husband:

"1": Jesus went unto the mount of Olives. "2": And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them. "3": And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, "4": They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. "5": Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? "6": This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. "7": So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. (KJV)

So to conclude my point, infidelity is wrong but who are we to judge? No one is perfect; the way I see it is that we're all as bad as each other...