INFIDELITY has been in the news a lot lately. In Western Australia, spin staff continue mopping up after the unauthorised and X-rated bipartisanship between ex-treasurer Troy Sniffwell and Green MP Adele Carles.
In Hollywood, Sandra Bullock is selling the family home and adopting a baby after her husband got jiggy with tattoo model and alleged former Nazi Amish cheerleader Michelle "Bombshell" McGee.
As for the wilds of Tiger Woodsland, the tabloid that broke the story of the swingmeister's serial infidelity has just put the pro-golfer's mistress count during his five-year marriage at a backbreaking 121.
Ah yes, infidelity has been in the news a lot lately, but then again infidelity is always in the news. This is because - despite consistently telling phone surveyors we think cheating is A Very Bad Thing To Do - most of us can't get enough of it, either as practitioners or media voyeurs.
As a result, capitalism is working its magic and transforming this contentious trend into a bunch of brand spanking new businesses.
The most blatant pin-ups for Infidelity Inc are the new breed of online dating services for people in relationships who want to cheat on their partners: ashleymadison.com and gleeden.com are two such portals that have been launched in Australia in the past month.
The former uses a (presumably ironic) wedding ring as the "o" in its title and boasts the catchy slogan: "Life is Short. Have an Affair." Its commonsense advice to members includes not coming out with "hey, do you like giving oral sex?" as an opening line, thinking twice before disseminating nude photos and getting real if you are a fat 57-year-old hoping to get down and adulterous with a spunk rat 30 years your junior.
The website was started in Canada in 2001 by Noel Biderman, a 38-year-old former sports lawyer who - despite his Kingpin of Infidelity nickname - is apparently a happily married father of two. Biderman routinely defends his multimillion dollar business from a range of accusations, including that it uses scam-bot software to prey on lonely male subscribers and that it increases rather than simply provides a safe outlet for marital indiscretions.
"[M]onogamy is surely not in our DNA," he told the Australian media during a visit here last month. "I wouldn't have 5.5 million members if I wasn't doing something right." In fact, based on preliminary subscription numbers, Biderman reckons this nation is shaping up to be one of the most unfaithful in the world.
The site's Down Under department contains about two chaps for every woman, which means Australian ladies prepared to pay between $49 and $249 for membership can enjoy excellent odds with eligible non-bachelors such as Manowarfan, a self-confessed Viking God whose photo shows him wearing shiny black pants and wielding a very large sword, The 33-year-old Sydney-based Gemini says he likes nature, long drives and spanking, and is disease free.
If none of Ashley Madison's hanky-pankerers pop your cork, you could try the other newcomer to the Australian clandestine net sex scene: the slick, European-based Gleeden. This site frames infidelity as a girl-power issue and claims sleeping round is the key to women's matrimonial bliss, particularly during next month's FIFA World Cup.
"[One] in three men cheat, leaving their spouses to feel unattractive, lonely, depressed and trapped," a press release reads. "We believe that the key to happiness for these victims of adultery is adultery!"
Given that 72 per cent of its members are executives, Gleeden's PR team also suggests that extracurricular coitus could psychologically rehabilitate finance sector types left unnerved by the global financial crisis. By "taking the risks out of the boardroom and into the bedroom", apparently everyone's bottom line will come out a winner.
If this still doesn't sound like your cup of philandery, other cyber options for Australia's unhappily hitched include affairsclub.com ("the Largest Collection of Unfaithful and Desperate Wives Online"), marriedcafe.com (home of "horny housewives" such as CutyCurves004 and WorkthisBody) and meet2cheat.com which offers men an unlimited subscription for a low, low $1399.
Lifetime membership to a cheaters club, now there's an attractive attribute in a partner.
Once you've progressed from online interactivity to the real-life variety, you may then wish to secure the services of companies such as the Alibi Network (www.alibinetwork.com) which offers customised "alibis and excuses for attached adults involved in discreet relationships". These include fake 24-hour hotel receptionists who'll answer in the accent of your choice, as well as actors who'll help convince your better half you're in Pittsburgh when you're actually in Paris (a common extramarital dilemma).
Two-timers should also invest in a phone able to run applications such as Tiger Text, which deletes risque text messages 60 seconds after consumption. It's terrifically James Bond, not just in the technology but in the implication that users are likely to proposition anything with a pulse.
At this point, it's tempting to conclude that capitalism is conspiring to drain what little sanctity remains in marriage and long-term defacto-ism. Monogamy, however, is also using free enterprise to strike back.
Like the symbiotic relationship between the junk food and dieting empires, equal but opposite industries designed to finger illicit fornicators are also flourishing. Cheater-busting goods and services include computer keystroke recorders, GPS vehicle trackers, DNA paternity labs and private detective agencies such as Sydney's Lipstick Investigations, which charges $95 an hour to spy on and "fidelity test" targets with flirtatious human decoys.
Other market sectors benefiting from infidelity include marriage counsellors, self-help book publishers, divorce lawyers and TV shows such as Cheaters and The Jerry Springer Show.
And let's not forget those of us in the mainstream print media who publish - blow by salacious blow - the sordid SMS exposures, the scandalous kiss-and-tells and the tearful confessions of sex-a-holism while self-righteously decrying all the salacious media interest.
It's this sort of hypocrisy that makes Infidelity Inc so fascinating. Like unfaithfulness itself, it thrives on our embrace - and simultaneous disavowal of our embrace - of sexual transgression. Obviously its emergence as a money spinner does not automatically make it ethically OK. But (once again, like unfaithfulness itself) the commercialisation of infidelity is worthy of deeper consideration rather than kneejerk condemnation.
