2.2 Defining infidelity as sexual ‘activities’

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This is an image of a man and a woman sat together at their kitchen table. They bot hold phones in their hands. The woman looks over her partner’s shoulder to see what he is looking at on his phone. The man sits with his hand held up to his mouth.

A second way to define infidelity is in terms of a much broader category of sexual activities outside the committed relationship. Defining infidelity in this way results in higher estimates of prevalence. In eight nationally-representative American samples when infidelity was defined in terms of ‘sexual intercourse’ with someone other than the primary partner, the rate was found to be 1–4%; with ‘milder’ forms of sexual contact including kissing, and a mixed undergraduate and community sample, self-reported ‘cheating’ rates were 24–39% for men and 30–51% for women (Brand et al., 2007).

Research exploring what types of sexual behaviour is perceived as infidelity has found a variety of sexual behaviours may be so considered:

• masturbation in the presence of another
• oral sex
• sexual play
• ‘petting’
• kissing
• flirting
• visiting strip clubs
• pornography use.

(Randall and Byers, 2003; Whitty, 2003; Yarab et al., 1999; Roscoe et al., 1988).

The list of behaviours that may be considered sexual infidelity is growing ever longer. However, while broader definitions may be more inclusive, they may not be less controversial.

Infidelity vs. sex addiction

When considering how to define infidelity one question that can arise is what the distinction is between sexual infidelity and sex addiction. In our own research with Relate couple counsellors we found that some separated sex addiction – defined as ‘somebody who sleeps around because they need sex’ – from infidelity (Moller and Vossler, 2015) on the grounds that the motives were different. Of course, it is interesting to consider whether partners would make the same distinctions.

In any event one thing to note is that the construct of ‘sex addiction’ is controversial. One part of the debate hinges on whether feeling unable to control one’s sexual behaviour or engagement can be understood as having an ‘addiction’ to sex (Kraus et al., 2018). But criticism also comes from the fact that the label has been disproportionally handed to certain sexual minorities, in particular gay men; critics suggest that the label is thus used to stigmatise certain populations and sexual practices (Ley et al., 2014).