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"My eyes are blurry from too many post-midnight hours in front of my laptop, trolling through scores of Internet-dating profiles of women. I\u2019m carpet bombing them with the same boilerplate message, suggesting, with unsurpassed creativity and seductiveness, that we get together for a drink.\n\nJust one catch: Most of them are married.\n\nActually, a second catch: I have a girlfriend.\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\nI\u2019m on AshleyMadison.com, the behemoth of extramarital-dating sites, whose controversial slogan is &amp;quot;Life is short. Have an affair.\u00AE&amp;quot; You\u2019ve probably heard of it. But you probably don\u2019t know anyone on it\u2014or at least anyone who admits to being on it.\n\nBecause if you go on the site, you\u2019ll find a lot of avatars adorned with a simple drawing of a woman\u2019s face and a confidential finger over pursed pink lips, with the promise of additional &amp;quot;Private Showcase&amp;quot; photos, viewable only if the member sends you a &amp;quot;key.&amp;quot; Many profiles are eloquent and demure, asking men to compose thoughtful missives and to refrain from sending erection photos. But a number are either fake, or appear to be from sex workers, or are written like the following: &amp;quot;to have a well built guy with a huge spear shove it in my tight MILF [orifice not anatomically designed for sexual intercourse] in front of my husband all night long!!!!!!!! TO BE TREATED LIKE I WAS THE LAST WOMAN ON EARTH BY A HUNGRY GROUP OF MEN, PREFERABLY ALL [ethnic group whose male members are often hypersexualized in American culture, due in part to a complex legacy of discrimination]!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BIG THICK [rhyming masculine body part] NEED APPLY!!!&amp;quot;\n\nClearly I need to embellish my r\u00E9sum\u00E9. My first e-mail blitz, which doesn\u2019t specify that I\u2019m a journalist hoping to interview subjects, nets me a grand total of zero replies. Still got it! I change tack and name-drop GQ and assure recipients that their anonymity will be preserved. Most women continue to ignore me, some flatly respond no, and several are dubious about my identity.\n\nYet a few replies roll in. One is from Megan. (Identifying details have been obscured or altered slightly to ensure anonymity, and all names are fictitious.) She lists her weight at well over 200 pounds, her limits are &amp;quot;Anything Goes,&amp;quot; and her tagline is &amp;quot;I\u2019m too much for you.&amp;quot; And what is she looking for? &amp;quot;Sex.... I\u2019m not here at AM to meet someone for the opera, I assure you.&amp;quot;\n\n&amp;quot;Just to be clear, is this a sexy date or a formal interview?&amp;quot; she writes. &amp;quot;Ideally we could combine the two.&amp;quot;\n\nWhat the hell is going on here? What, exactly, is compelling these married women to set up &amp;quot;sexy dates&amp;quot; in droves, aside from easy Internet access? For years, our collective narrative of the errant housewife has run thusly: Neglected by her aloof or abusive husband and dying a slow death from her suburban prison, she falls into the arms of a dashing, romantic gentleman. In myths, novels, and films, from Helen of Troy to Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter to Diane Lane in 2002\u2019s Unfaithful, the affair of the rare philandering female is the centerpiece of the story, and its punishments are draconian (the Trojan War, ostracism and branding with an A, being cast in Must Love Dogs). On the other hand, just try to name every single guy who has cheated on Mad Men\u2014and gotten away with it. Then again, Mad Men takes place fifty years ago.\n\nIn the real world, with greater professional equality between the genders and third-wave-feminist sexual liberation, are women cheating for the same reason that men have throughout history, as Megan\u2019s profile suggests\u2014that is, to sate their sex drives and gratify their egos?\n\nIn the spirit of this gender reversal, I invite you to picture me as Carrie Bradshaw, sprawled out on her bed with her PowerBook G3, as she voice-overs, &amp;quot;I couldn\u2019t help but wonder: Are unfaithful women the new adulterous men? Has Casanova turned into...Cassandra?&amp;quot;\n\n\n\nMegan\n\nMegan has picked Coppelia, a Latin American diner at the border of Chelsea and the West Village in Manhattan, and she\u2019s waiting in a booth when I arrive. She recognizes me from my profile photo, and I slide in across from her. She\u2019s around 40, wearing casual, loose-fitting clothes and a pleasant smile. In short, she doesn\u2019t fit the portrait of the promiscuous, inconstant woman cast as the adulteress in Hollywood dramas.\n\nI thank her for meeting me. She says it\u2019s no big deal. It is, though\u2014if her identity were somehow unmasked, it could torpedo her high-powered career: She\u2019s worked for one of the most prominent political figures in the country and nearly ended up in Obama\u2019s administration.\n\nOver cold Cusque&amp;amp;#xF1;a beers on a hot July afternoon, Megan drops the professional mien. &amp;quot;I\u2019m a dirty old man trapped in a woman\u2019s body,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I lust after younger men the way dirty old men lust after younger girls. I get dirty old men. I\u2019m looking for eye candy. I\u2019m very shallow.&amp;quot;\n\nShe tells me that she\u2019s been corporeally disloyal in relationships since she started having sex at 16 and has don\u2019t-ask, don\u2019t-tell permission to frolic with other lovers from her &amp;quot;nerd&amp;quot; husband of nearly two decades, with whom she has several children.\n\n&amp;quot;He can barely handle me, and he\u2019s super-vanilla,&amp;quot; Megan says. &amp;quot;But he\u2019s also a fantastic guy and father. We have a really happy and functional house.&amp;quot;\n\nShe hoped marriage would change her cheating ways, but two years later found herself straying\u2014as much out of a lust for life as for flesh. &amp;quot;I find myself living my life in the third person and deciding whether it\u2019d be a good story.&amp;quot; She takes a sip of beer. &amp;quot;I want it to be dramatic.&amp;quot;\n\nSince then, she\u2019s averaged one or two new men per year, with a few women sprinkled in, and in the digital age has supplemented her search with Ashley Madison, Craigslist, and CougarLife. As is customary for women on Ashley Madison, she gets bombarded by suitors, then rejects about 90 percent of those she meets. To her, the main contrast in the libidos of the genders is not their size but their pickiness.\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\n&amp;quot;Women want their affairs to have sexual attraction,&amp;quot; she opines. &amp;quot;Men just want their affairs to have a vagina.&amp;quot;\n\nFor some reason, a professional photographer sets up a tripod and camera at the entrance and walks past us several times. Megan seems discomfited. I assure her the photographer is not with me.\n\nHer friends (granted, a self-selecting cohort) are just as randy as she is, though not all seek out external solutions\u2014to their detriment, she believes. &amp;quot;They\u2019re all unhappy with the amount of sex they\u2019re getting\u2014the ones who are still married,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I feel like I\u2019m the healthiest one out there. The ones who\u2019ve started playing around are much happier.&amp;quot;\n\nBut what about the guilt? &amp;quot;I really consider it a favor to my husband. My marriage would be in shambles if I wasn\u2019t playing outside the marriage.&amp;quot; Such playing is not without its risks; she\u2019s fallen for men before, she admits, and says heartbreak is part of the game.\n\nMegan prefers younger men whom she can think of as her &amp;quot;boy toys\u2014my playthings.&amp;quot; She asks how old I am. I tell her 33, and she points at me and says, &amp;quot;That\u2019s my perfect age.&amp;quot; Later she clasps her hand over mine for a few seconds when I make a joke. Soon after, she removes my glasses without asking permission. &amp;quot;Your glasses are so clouded, I need to clean them,&amp;quot; she explains, wiping them on her shirt.\n\nMegan also has some olfactory qualifications. &amp;quot;I need to smell men,&amp;quot; she tells me. &amp;quot;They need to smell good to me: healthy, alive, confident. I can smell fear; I want them to smell like they deserve me. I\u2019ve met guys who are theoretically attractive, but they don\u2019t smell right.&amp;quot;\n\nThere\u2019s a pregnant pause; we both know what\u2019s coming next. &amp;quot;Do you want to smell me?&amp;quot; I ask.\n\n&amp;quot;I haven\u2019t really put my nose into your neck, which is where the smell holds,&amp;quot; she says, and stands to the side of the table. I join her, expecting her to crane just her nostrils into me, but she embraces me in a hug, pulls me tightly into her expansive bosom, and burrows her face into the crook of my neck for a deep whiff.\n\n&amp;quot;You smell good,&amp;quot; she says with the cool detachment of a pheromone connoisseur, eyeing me in what seems to be a new light.\n\nAs our interview winds down, she asks what my romantic situation is. I tell her I have a girlfriend. &amp;quot;Are you in an open relationship?&amp;quot; she asks. No, I answer. &amp;quot;Too bad,&amp;quot; she says softly.\n\n\n\nAshley\n\n&amp;quot;The women\u2019s movement into the workplace was the first massive jump into unfaithfulness,&amp;quot; says Noel Biderman, CEO of Ashley Madison. &amp;quot;The more financial independence women have, the more it correlates to how unfaithful they\u2019ll be.&amp;quot; When Biderman launched the site in 2001, he predicted &amp;quot;that the Internet would be the second massive jump and usher in an era where women would behave like men. Ten years later, having built a female brand, I think I was right.&amp;quot;\n\nAshley Madison now says it has approximately 6 million active members in thirty countries (about 4 million in the United States). Revenues in 2012 were $100 million\u2014more than decent, but still far behind the titans of online dating like Match.com and eHarmony. While the overall membership skews 70 percent male, Biderman claims gender parity among people in their thirties (which translates to lots of lecherous 65-year-old men hitting on 30-year-old women).\n\nBiderman says he is happily married and regards his venture as a release valve for those in sexually unfulfilling, but otherwise effective, unions. In a joint interview with his wife on Australian TV\u2019s A Current Affair (ha!), he defended his company by saying, &amp;quot;I would rather see people pursue [an affair] and stay true to their families.&amp;quot; His wife was more ambivalent. &amp;quot;I don\u2019t think it\u2019s the best thing, no\u2014but...I can\u2019t take on the burden of everybody else\u2019s lives,&amp;quot; she offered. Both conceded they would be &amp;quot;devastated&amp;quot; if the other used its services.\n\nBut whatever is driving women to these infidelity sites, the one notion nearly everyone agrees with is that our understanding of female sexuality is outdated. As Dan Slater wrote in a New York Times op-ed this year, some studies have shown that women report more sexual partners than men, are less selective in certain contexts, and are nearly as likely to accept casual sex from a celebrity or from a close friend they\u2019ve been told is good in the sack.\n\nThere\u2019s also a keeping-up-with-the-Mrs.-Robinsons pressure, especially among wives who have at least as much power as their spouses, says Kate Bolick, author of The Atlantic\u2019s much discussed &amp;quot;All the Single Ladies&amp;quot; cover article. &amp;quot;When I\u2019ve watched women cheat in their thirties, they\u2019re not necessarily unhappy with their husbands, but they\u2019re all alpha women, and they feel entitled to what they want,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;If you\u2019re a 34-year-old woman successful in your career and you\u2019ve got a great husband but you\u2019re bored sexually, and you watch all your single friends run around town having sex, you think you should be able to have that, too.&amp;quot;\n\nI ask Bolick to scroll through her phone and count the number of women she knows of who have had affairs. &amp;quot;Fifteen!&amp;quot; she announces.\n\n\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\nGloria\n\nGloria is a slender, pretty woman in her late forties whom I meet on a Friday night at The Bar Downstairs at the Andaz hotel in midtown. She\u2019s had two enjoyable long-term affairs with male colleagues. Recently, however, without any opportunities presenting themselves, she joined Ashley Madison. She wants to fall in love again but doesn\u2019t feel the need to leave her husband\u2014at least not yet.\n\n&amp;quot;There are more reasons to stay than to leave. There\u2019s still love that holds us together,&amp;quot; she tells me over cocktails and tapas. &amp;quot;But I don\u2019t believe any one person ever fulfills a person\u2019s needs. And lifelong passion is extremely rare. If I left him and married someone else, it\u2019d probably just be a matter of time until I had the same situation. It\u2019s unusual for a strong sexual component to remain after a few years, and I\u2019m not willing to give up that part of my life.&amp;quot;\n\nShe says she\u2019s been with &amp;quot;publishers of magazines, CEOs, politicians, managing partners at law or investment firms&amp;quot;\u2014all via Ashley Madison.\n\n&amp;quot;Politicians?&amp;quot; I exclaim, astonished anyone in elected office would be so brazen in the aftermath of Anthony Weiner. &amp;quot;Can I ask what level of government?&amp;quot;\n\n&amp;quot;I won\u2019t say any more,&amp;quot; she laughs. &amp;quot;I like him and don\u2019t want to get him in trouble.&amp;quot;\n\nWhereas some might get off on devising a secret rendezvous, Gloria seems to be troubled by it. &amp;quot;I don\u2019t feel guilt about the effect of the affair,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I feel guilt about the circumstances\u2014to see someone, I need to come up with an outright lie.&amp;quot;\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\nI\u2019ve gotten a taste of how physically and mentally fatiguing it can be to set up these arrangements, and I\u2019m not even leading a double life. Gloria is the third woman I\u2019ve met up with in about ten days, and I\u2019ve had long phone calls with three others, not to mention a seventy-text spree with a woman in Albany (which included plenty of boastful sexts on her end, like: &amp;quot;This little fat girl knows how to play. You\u2019ll see when we walk into [REDACTED SPORTS BAR]. I give it 5 min before someone hits on me. Not even. Lmfao.&amp;quot;) We tend to imagine infidelity as a state of heightened eroticism, three-hour binges of lingerie and champagne in a hotel suite. We don\u2019t think of the far greater chunk of time the cheater spends lying to his or her spouse, questioning the marriage\u2019s foundation, and seeking an exit strategy. There\u2019s nothing dramatic (in an exciting way) or sexy about that.\n\n\n\nSarah and Laura\n\nOne early-thirties woman, Sarah, has just met a date\u2014she\u2019s ambivalent about him\u2014before she joins me for lunch at the French bistro L\u2019Express near Gramercy Park. She goes for eight-to-ten-mile runs several times a week and posts a semi-blurry photo of her cute, corn-fed face on her profile, one of the few women to do so.\n\nSarah tells me she\u2019s had &amp;quot;ten years of boredom. I want to have fun.&amp;quot; She married young to appease her religious parents and finds her bourgeois life and sexually unadventurous husband &amp;quot;suffocating.&amp;quot; As with most of the women I\u2019ve interviewed, she labels herself &amp;quot;more of the controller&amp;quot; in the relationship: &amp;quot;I earn more. I repair everything. I fix up the house.&amp;quot;\n\nShe joined Ashley Madison two months ago to &amp;quot;sort of test the waters,&amp;quot; she says. The first man she met on the site came over to her house for their first meeting while her husband was on a trip. She met him on the steps to her home, and with minimum conversation they progressed to the shower and the bedroom. &amp;quot;It was the hottest sex of my life,&amp;quot; she says, beaming. &amp;quot;Porn-star sex.&amp;quot; Why haven\u2019t they met again since then? &amp;quot;He\u2019s Muslim, and it\u2019s Ramadan, so I haven\u2019t talked to him for a few weeks.&amp;quot; She laughs. &amp;quot;It\u2019s so hypocritical\u2014all this holier-than-thou stuff.&amp;quot;\n\nSarah also has a forensic-science degree, and when she mentions a hotel she visited during her affair, I ask if it was the meatpacking district\u2019s notorious Liberty Inn, with its reasonably priced two-hour rooms. She says no, but reveals a fun fact: Hotels aren\u2019t required to wash comforters. &amp;quot;So when you go to a hotel, always pull the comforter off, because there are semen stains all over,&amp;quot; she advises.\n\nI don\u2019t mention these lax hygienic standards when Laura, around the same age, tells me about the time a professional athlete she was sleeping with got busted after his wife discovered the receipt for their $600 night in Union Square\u2019s W hotel. Laura has called me from her corporate office on a Monday night shortly after we exchange an Ashley Madison e-mail. A few minutes in, she orders a secretary who has entered her office not to interrupt her conference call.\n\nLike Sarah, she\u2019s been with her unambitious husband for around a decade and is not only sexually uninspired and no longer in love but also chafing under the shackles of her conservative upbringing and professional demeanor. Her rebellion includes sexting her boyfriends under the table at dinner with her husband.\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\nHer views on gender relations are of a modified-traditionalist strain. &amp;quot;In the workplace, it should be equal,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;But in the house, the only way it works is if there\u2019s a strong masculine and feminine component. You need to give your husband a blow job every day. He should feel like a king. Seeking it out in my sexual life is to make up for it in my real life. I want my husband to be dominant and more successful. I don\u2019t want to be the man in the relationship.&amp;quot;\n\nLaura also expresses a level of self-esteem that many might envy. &amp;quot;I lost a lot of weight, and then I realized that I\u2019m hot. All of a sudden, people were asking if I\u2019m a movie star\u2014I get that every day,&amp;quot; she tells me, along with, &amp;quot;Everyone tells me that I\u2019m amazingly good at sex, that it\u2019s beyond anything they\u2019ve ever experienced.&amp;quot;\n\nNinety minutes in, she\u2019s still hesitant to reveal too much, though, so I try to persuade her to meet me that night. It\u2019s already 9 P.M. She asks if we can do so two nights later when she\u2019s less tired. I don\u2019t trust that she\u2019ll follow through. Throughout our call, she\u2019s told me several times that her hands are sweaty from confessing her secret to me. So like any respectable journalist hoping to secure a meeting with a reluctant source, I play to her proclivities.\n\n&amp;quot;I think you like talking about this in your office,&amp;quot; I suggest.\n\n&amp;quot;I do like it,&amp;quot; she admits. &amp;quot;I feel kind of naughty telling you. Like I\u2019m doing something really bad. Sometimes I wish I could tell people. But I feel like such a deviant. Because it turns me on. Being bad.&amp;quot;\n\n&amp;quot;And I think you like the idea of reading about yourself in an article.&amp;quot;\n\n&amp;quot;You\u2019re right, I do,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I want to take it to lunch with my girlfriends&amp;quot;\u2014suburbanites she\u2019s dismissed as Keeping Up with the Kardashians-watching Stepford wives\u2014&amp;quot;and discuss how shocking it is that people like this are out there and they\u2019re such whores, and make a big deal out of it and see what everyone says. I like the idea of feeling like a whore.&amp;quot;\n\n&amp;quot;Of feeling naughty,&amp;quot; I say.\n\nShe pauses, then says, &amp;quot;It\u2019d be really naughty if I were to fuck a GQ journalist.&amp;quot; A few seconds pass. My heartbeat quickens. Various boundaries\u2014professional and personal\u2014are shifting under my feet. It feels dramatic.\n\nLaura breaks the silence. &amp;quot;Not that I\u2019m offering,&amp;quot; she says with a small, ambiguous laugh. &amp;quot;I\u2019m not.&amp;quot;\n\nShe tells me I have an attractive voice. I deepen it, make it more gravelly, promise to reimburse her for a cab down to a meeting spot.\n\n&amp;quot;Stop talking in your sexy voice,&amp;quot; she giggles. &amp;quot;You\u2019re using your sexual powers against me to get me to meet with you.&amp;quot;\n\nAnd there goes my Pulitzer eligibility. After a few quick calls\u2014and a request I immediately reject to send a photo of my genitalia for insurance against the possible exposure of her identity\u2014she says she\u2019s told her husband she\u2019s going running and agrees to meet me. I sprint to an ATM and withdraw money for her cab, then jump in a taxi myself to the twenty-four-hour L\u2019Express and sit at the bar. She calls me as I\u2019m on my second vodka tonic. I\u2019m afraid it\u2019s to cancel or to mock me for showing up, but she says she\u2019s en route. Ten minutes later she walks in. I can\u2019t describe her appearance, except to say that she has listed her weight in the mid-one-hundreds, calls herself &amp;quot;fit,&amp;quot; and wears corporate attire. I can see how she would be some men\u2019s type; she\u2019s not exactly mine, but I could also envision a scenario in which, if I were single and feeling lascivious, something might happen.\n\nAfter a few mojitos, the details pour out about her liaisons, generally with men who are &amp;quot;very rich and older and dominant&amp;quot;\u2014with whom, she says, &amp;quot;I feel like an expensive toy.&amp;quot; There\u2019s the gentleman who, during a two-hour lunch date at Babbo, Mario Batali\u2019s West Village restaurant, fingered her under the table. And the spiritual leader who hit on her in his house of worship. And the husband\u2019s friend she flirts with to get back at his obnoxious wife. And her on-again, off-again relationship with the W-frequenting athlete. And the supposed Harvard professor whose classroom she visited one day: &amp;quot;The sex sucked. He folded my clothes neatly over the podium, and he just bent me over a chair and fucked me kind of roughly.&amp;quot; When she tells me he\u2019s still working on his dissertation, I feel obligated to inform her that she had podium-sex with a lowly graduate student.\n\nShe presses her leg against mine and periodically leans in close to whisper, but generally comports herself more properly than she did on the phone. She texts her husband after midnight that she wants some more alone time. At 1 A.M. she shows me her phone. &amp;quot;Look, he hasn\u2019t even responded,&amp;quot; she says.\n\nLaura and I stumble out of the bistro at two in the morning. We walk into a bank so I can withdraw $60 more to pay for her long cab ride home, back to the suburbs. &amp;quot;I want to see your apartment,&amp;quot; she says when we come back out on the street. &amp;quot;You\u2019re living my dream, living in Manhattan.&amp;quot;\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\nI could do this if I wanted. I could take this woman I just met home to my apartment and have sex with her and not tell my girlfriend, and Laura would concoct a wild story for her husband, as she did to cover up her W hotel romp. Whatever feels romantically or sexually lacking in or injurious to your life\u2014your current relationship, the girls in high school who didn\u2019t give you the time of day, stultifying routine\u2014can be compensated for, at least for a few hours, in the fashion of so many unsatisfied people: through clandestine congress.\n\nBut I don\u2019t want to do it. Other than Megan, the only one who is open with her husband, the women I have met are all, by their own admission, either deeply unhappy or deeply dishonest with their spouses. Monogamy may defy certain biological imperatives and may not make as much sense for modern eighty-year life spans, but that\u2019s the contract you sign up for; if it isn\u2019t for you, then opt out or marry someone new.\n\n&amp;quot;I really can\u2019t show you my apartment,&amp;quot; I tell Laura as I hail her a taxi. Tomorrow she\u2019ll e-mail me that she wrote an essay about our encounter on the ride home; a week later, that she\u2019s left her husband and that &amp;quot;I bet the next time that I do have mind-blowing sex it will not be with someone who is married.&amp;quot; Then, a few weeks after, that she\u2019s quit her job. She wants to be a writer, and asks me for advice.\n\nFor most, is cheating just about sex or sexual ego? I would still submit that the latter is the case more for men than for women. But with Laura, it\u2019s about desire for another life altogether. There\u2019s still no Ashley Madison for that.\n\nTeddy Wayne (@TeddyWayne1999) lives in Manhattan and __is the author of, most recently, the novel The Love Song of Jonny Valentine. This __is his first article for GQ."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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