Now we have to ask what political party their penis belongs to!?

... about this approach is why sex, for men, is the only stone age behavioral urge that we fight for to be socially acceptable, whereas all other behaviors from eating to sleeping to eliminating are heavily socially controlled and modified, and nobody thinks that should be changed. Imagine I lay down on the office floor and went to sleep because I'm really tired, or I started eating while talking to a customer, or even, imagine!, didn't shave my stone-age hair off my legs.

Conservatives can't have a society in which the responsibility for raising children, and in fact the responsibility for all people who need care, from the old to the infirm, should squarely rest with the family. When they at the same time think it's totally normal for one of the two adults in this arrangement to step out and take up with someone else at any time.

How is this supposed to work? Or are you - gasp! - advocating SOCIAlISM???

What is the value of monogyny? I haven't met too many people who want to enter into relationships where the other person wants to keep their options, "open".

Should we do away with adultery as grounds for divorce? How many people do you know who don't suffer when they discover infidelity in their partner?

I guess this piece raises more questions for me than answers.

If we truly value Monogamous relationships then should we structure society to foster them?

Should we lessen the social and fiscal penalty for people who are just, “being human”?

Is cheating even the right word?

Lots of shrewd observation here--and I love the title.

I think you're spot-on about the hypocrisy issue. Let's just note, however, that the issue doesn't concern nonmonogamy alone. If, say, Sanford hadn't been a complete hypocrite (condemning the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, for instance, along with gay marriage), he would still be vulnerable to charges that he failed to hand over the reins and thus follow the right political procedure. And appropriately vulnerable: We can't really have governors just skipping town for days at a time without leaving even a cell-phone number.

Loving Buenos Aires as I do (I took my male partner there for our honeymoon), I found the rest of his narrative oddly charming. If only Republicans would view this and other recent debacles as the nail in the coffin of their "values" campaign on morality. I for one am sick and tired of that--the insufferable arrogance of them foisting one set of values on us, only to abide by another set themselves.

Finally, just to comment on your monogamy/no sex icon: the two don't *exactly* belong together, do they? It's a tiny bit slanted to imply that monogamy means no sex, or "bed death." I for one am loving monogamy, and finding it a great turn-on, after some years on the dating scene. But I don't of course presume that other people have to live the same way. Just saying it can be great, with years of loving and sexy commitment.

I don't think this is about Republican or Democrat, it's about politics in general. Political leaders from both parties claim to represent sweeping ideas that they themselves rarely demonstrate. The Republican leaders are hypocrits in thier moral mantra while having affairs and the Democratic leaders are often hypocrits in thier environmental and social causes mantra while flying private jets and pocketing millions. The sad fact is that most politicians are slimy and the good ones are still just people with all of thier flaws. This doesn't mean there aren't some highly dedicated people out there and maybe a very few politicians who really do make a point to live by the standards they tout, but it's a small few and an anomoly of human nature. There may a place for monogomy in this world but so far there hasn't been a politician capable of leading the forum. Republicans and Democrats as citizens should not be grouped into the failings of thier leaders but as citizens we should also practice a bit of empathy. Politicians need votes, the people want authenticity. Is it even possible for a single person to encompass every facet of thier political stance in a personal existance? We are all hypocritical in some ways but as non-politicians we have the luxury of changing our minds and excusing our failures. My "life platform" is not under scruitiny. Thank God!