, I3 D* A0 G% v, K2 U虽然不善言辞的研究人员容易成为取笑对象，但实际上，我们不但能了解有多少人在欺骗配偶，还能发现欺骗的方式。尽管不忠就像一个无法无天的秘密王国，人们在那里私下决定如何行动，但偷情确实也有规则。在不同国家，甚至不同街坊，这些规则都有所不同，它们决定了欺骗的正当借口和婚外情的情感走向。8 C$ d. P& X6 F: `0 F/ Y; B* i
: s) _5 P2 `% t. l8 l- \1 h
艺术可为我们展示这些微妙区别：在美国电影里，发生风流韵事通常意味着你是个坏人，而在法国电影中，这样的人更多的是故事的主人公。在环游世界，为一本该话题的书作调研时，我发现，简单的对话也能揭示情感规则。在日本，我问一位已婚妇女是否对外遇感到愧疚，她迷惑不解；她从没想过这一点，因为除了有外遇之外，她是为家庭尽心尽力的。8 x l+ V6 V4 {) l# n
# H) a+ b/ ?9 x& o5 d0 F
在莫斯科，我对一位家庭心理效家提到了通奸话题，她显得很有兴致。“这必不可少，”她说。我一定是听错了吧？“没有，”她坚持道。“我觉得那是明智之举。”接着她解释说，在15年的婚姻生活中，她一直享受着为数众多的婚外恋——虽然最近工作繁忙，有所收敛。然后，她在我的笔记本上写下了自己的名字，以确保拼写正确。! L4 m4 q4 _. z( i! n" S8 S* K& v
) H l% x* X& Z- f' i! H/ y+ u% v/ [20世纪70年代以来，在与性有关的社会问题上，美国人的态度变得更宽容了。对于同性恋、非婚人士同居、离婚、婚外情及私生子女现象，他们的接受程度在上升。但谈及婚外性行为这一话题，他们却变得更为严苛了。1973年，70%的美国人认为婚外恋“总是不对”。到2004年，这一数字已接近82%。2006年盖洛普民意调查显示，在美国人看来，通奸在道德上比一夫多妻制或人类克隆更加恶劣。比较24个国家人们的不同态度可以发现，美国人同爱尔兰人和菲律宾人一样，在不忠问题上最保守。' r" U" _1 N( f: J# c% [3 K; Y
7 W* V, W: Y4 e7 Q- G& a 1 u. N, F1 Q" g7 b8 M8 S" y; `5 k+ e% X
1 H: e( W0 w6 d: t1 @% b* `
The morning after Francois Mitterrand's funeral, Le Monde reported that the late president's mistress and illegitimate daughter stood by the grave alongside his wife and sons. That tableau has become famous internationally as proof that the French are not like you and me - at least when it comes to affairs of the heart. 6 r3 Y# _9 g2 c, K. y * n% ~$ ?8 H: [" d! JIn fact, although French presidents seem to have an infidelity record approaching 100 per cent, they don't deserve to be pilloried alone. Even supposedly more prudish countries have had legendary philanderers, from England's Henry VIII to the US's John F. Kennedy. 8 k% L! `8 ^" W( e, R! O8 U0 a/ x) H J+ b! K: o; i
But ordinary middle-class adulterers are harder to pin down. Despite the French public's apparently unconcerned response to Mitterrand's infidelity, most French citizens are quite faithful spouses and partners. According to a 2004 national survey, just 3.8 per cent of married men and 2 per cent of women said they had had more than one partner in the past year (the best approximation of infidelity) - fewer than in similar surveys in the US and UK. Alain Giami, director of research at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, says the French are also more faithful than Americans during courtship, and that both marriages and affairs last longer in France than they do in the US. ”In France, a relationship that has a sexual component appears to involve a higher degree of commitment than in the US,” says Giami in a paper he co-authored.. F8 D: T9 o& R- v& V# u4 @2 H, M
. o4 u$ Y' e2 v7 D! r, F* ? / Y5 M3 n; t6 s1 v6 m! fIf France isn't the world capital of adultery, which country takes the prize? Global sex research is patchy and incomplete. In Russia, for instance, there's never been a national sex survey. Soviet governments barely permitted public discussions of sex, let alone the sort of poll that might prove comrades were engaging in banned activities such as extramarital affairs. And now religious groups there have taken up where their atheist communist forebears left off, putting pressure on Moscow not to fund any research related to sex.7 H9 o q% A( v0 T: q
! M9 B2 Q! z% @" S# O: k, u {Official sanction and funding are only the first hurdles. Contemporary researchers can't even agree on what to call infidelity. In Nigeria, they prefer the term ”sexual networking”, while Finnish scientists call affairs ”parallel relationships”. One French team was so eager to appear morally neutral it opted for what sounded like a term you might learn in an accounting course: ”simultaneous multi-partnerships”.( ~ M- k1 u/ y7 q) p" ]7 F# R4 @8 |' h
! y0 G ]/ A; X+ zThat's just linguistics; what exactly constitutes cheating is also up for debate. A poll in one South African magazine created separate categories for men who cheat and men who cheat while drunk. And where some surveys ask Americans about ”either vaginal or anal intercourse”, others include a much wider range of activities. A 1992 survey defined sex as a ”mutually voluntary activity with another person that involves genital contact and sexual excitement or arousal, that is, feeling really turned on, even if intercourse or orgasm did not occur”. 1 Y: s) {; c; O0 _ & C$ y2 x8 q4 V# ~1 n- {& RAlthough it is easy to laugh at tongue-tied researchers, it is actually possible to get a handle on not just how many people cheat, but how they do it. Infidelity may seem like a secret, lawless realm in which people make private decisions about how to behave, but affairs do have rules. These differ by country, even by neighbourhood, and they dictate the valid excuses for cheating and the emotional narrative of affairs.& u4 R6 U7 O+ v' f+ Q
) I i& \+ V1 n6 n
Art can show us these subtle distinctions: in American movies, having an affair usually means you're the villain, while in French films, it more often means you're the protagonist. I found, while travelling the world to research a book on the subject, that simple conversation can also whittle out the emotional rules. In Japan, a married woman was confused when I asked if she felt guilty about having a lover; the thought hadn't occurred to her, as she was otherwise meeting her obligations to her family. / Q- F; c4 ?$ o% u% K: M$ T E1 Q: r- a, W
In Moscow, a family psychologist perked up when I brought up the subject of adultery. ”It's obligatory,” she said. Surely I had misunderstood her? ”No,” she insisted, ”I think it's wise,” and went on to explain that she had enjoyed a number of extramarital affairs during her own 15-year marriage - although lately she had cut back because she was so busy at work. Then she wrote her name in my notebook to make sure I got the spelling right. c% O( q d- {) N
$ i' s, O3 M, J6 b% YSince the 1970s, Americans have grown more tolerant about most social issues related to sex. They are more accepting of homosexuality, of unmarried people living together, of divorce and of having sex and babies out of wedlock. But on the topic of extramarital sex they have become stricter. In 1973, 70 per cent of Americans said affairs are ”always wrong”. By 2004, the figure had risen to nearly 82 per cent. And in a Gallup poll in 2006, Americans said adultery was morally worse than either polygamy or human cloning. A comparison of attitudes in 24 countries found that Americans were tied with the Irish and Filipinos as the world's most prudish when it comes to infidelity.
