Can Consensual Adultery Lengthen Your Life?

Dr. Lenore R. Zohman, a cardiologist of New York's Montefiore Hospital, reported that a majority of men who die during intercourse do so while engaging in extramarital sex. Sounds a lot like downright bad luck. Imagine your spouse finding you dead and naked while on top of someone else. At least fate got to you before your wife did. Or perhaps the victims didn't know that adultery can be fatal if it is combined with fear, anxiety or guilt. Or with heavy drinking. As a physician, I many coronary patients who enjoy adultery and whose condition has actually improved because they engage in consensual adultery.

Consensual adultery, which you can read more about here, is intimacy and intercourse outside of the relationship that is permitted and acknowledged by both sides of a relationship. The types of couples who participate in consensual adultery vary and it is not always a remedy or solution to any wandering eyes.

The typical heart patient works hard, worries a lot, doesn't exercise much and tends to overindulge in food, alcohol and tobacco. Also, he is usually sexually frustrated. He's told to "take it easy", which means not straining his weak heart by having sex. He knows sex makes his heart pound, his breath quicken, his pulse race. And so, he lays off, and all his thinking and worrying about sex, with very little action, builds up emotional and physical tension. The more tense he gets, the greater the risk to his heart. Sounds like this guy needs to put his feet up, throw on some porn and get the job done quick.

Sex Saves!

Why do so few middle-aged women die of heart disease? According to heart specialist Dr. Paul Dudley White, only three out of 100 middle-aged patients with coronary heart disease were women. It could be estrogen, but there is also the fact that middle-aged women are not afraid of sexual impotence. The burden of proving oneself by sexual performance is not a woman's, thus reducing their stress immensely.

Eskimo males are also remarkably free from heart disease, though their diets are rich in fat, especially seal blubber. But they have long considered sex to be as basic a need of life as food, offering their wives as freely as their homes to the tired traveller.

Why are European Jews prone to heart disease, but not Jews from the Yemen? It's true that Yemeni Jews do not eat foods high in animal fat and carbohydrates, but the most interesting difference is in their sex lives. The Europeans are monogamous but the Yemenites are extremely active sexually. Until it was made a criminal offense, Yemeni Jews were polygamous, taking new wives every eight to ten years. An active sex life seems to be related to good health and longevity.

There has been little reliable research into the sex lives of men who die young from heart attacks, but the evidence suggests that those with sexual hang-ups are more prone to heart disease and more likely to be fatal victims than those with free and easy sex lives. That’s an excuse to have sex as often as possible if I ever heard one!

Doctor’s Disease

Coronary heart disease was once known as "the doctors' disease." Doctors know more about diet, exercise and health than laymen, yet the incredible fact is they died younger. As an American Medical Association spokesman has said, "I can't think of any group of candidates more prone to coronary heart disease than the graduating class of any medical school in the U.S.—except the same individuals after completing their residency".”

Why were doctors so liable to heart attacks? According to some observers, when doctors reach middle age, they were also practicing total abstinence sexually. Who has time for sex when there’s so many lives to save?! Many thousands of physicians had little or no sexual relationship with their partners. They were afraid to have extramarital relations, especially afraid of having sex with their condoning patients. Luckily, they just started having sex with each other and the nurses. (Has anyone seen Grey’s Anatomy?!).

In the 1970s, Dr. Charles McArthur, a Harvard research psychologist, followed the careers of 268 college students, 47 of whom went into medicine. By middle age, the physicians had an average income of $150,000; not a bad gig huh? But about half the doctors reported "bad marriages" compared to only 32 percent of the other collegians. Guess money can't buy happiness. One third of the doctors had other neurotic symptoms such as drug dependency or need for psychiatric treatment. We all need a little help sometimes.

Doctor’s Orders

For doctors, I recommend my "one night of love" treatment. I once advised a doctor friend, who had heart trouble, to take his wife to a motel once a week and dedicate that one night to her. "Forget your career, forget your heart attack, forget everything but love," I told him. "She'll think I'm crazy,” he commented. But when I saw him a few months later, he was no longer depressed and despondent. "Don't worry about my heart," he said, "but best of all is the feeling that I've rediscovered sex, that I really can satisfy my wife."

Ideal for the couple who want to gain the maximum benefits from sex—the healthy release of emotional and physical tension, with the minimum stress, anxiety and guilt—the "one night of love" can also be utilized outside of the marriage. What husbands and wives fail to realize is that a little adultery, a bit of "love on the side," can actually help to preserve an unhappy union–and keep them healthier into the bargain.

Religion Recommends Consented Adultery

Even ministers of religion now counsel their flocks to disregard the Seventh Commandment. As Unitarian minister the Rev. Hunter Leggitt, a father of two, has put it: "Extramarital sex can be positive. It can be related to maturity, personal growth, better marriage and joy." Dr. J. C. Wynn, Dean of Studies at Colgate Rochester Divinity School, has admitted that "the adulterous party to a marriage may damage the union less than a sexually chaste but vindictive spouse." And the British Council of Churches, in its report on sex and morality, refused to condemn adultery as necessarily immoral or as automatic grounds for divorce. It commented that casual sex can be "trivially pleasurable or mildly therapeutic."

This view is also held by lay specialists. Anthropologist Margaret Mead has suggested that the demands of sexual fidelity are so high that a more honest and realistic relationship between the sexes is called for. The president of the Sex Education Information Council of the United States, Dr. Mary Calderone, accepts that extramarital sex can help, as well as hurt, a marriage. Virginia Satir, a therapist at California's Esalem Institute, regards affairs as "inevitable and necessary for many contemporary marriages if they are to avoid becoming stale and destructive."

Consensual Adulterers Guide to Success

From my lectures to Adulterers Anonymous and my work with a research team, I have evolved an approach to help individuals to engage happily in extramarital sex. To begin with, if you're going to embark on an affair, you have to decide whether your adultery is going to be secret, consented or co-operative. A forbidden affair has always been the most exhilarating and rewarding experience for men and women. It's beneficial as long as it remains secret, above all if the lovers regard their affair as an independent part of their marriage—a luxury that will not last forever, Once one of them begins to want marriage their affair is threatened, and a beautiful love story could come to a sad or tragic end.

I'd usually advise a young man to go ahead with an affair with an older woman, similar to the classical Greek story of Daphnis and Chloe. In Greek mythology the two were madly in love, but could not gratify their passion. In desperation, Daphnis asked an older woman, Lycaemium, the wife of a neighbor, to teach him how to make love. She did, and Daphnis and Chloe lived happily ever after.

Know the Risks

The number one risk in secret adultery is an STI, especially for a wife, who may contract asymptomatic gonorrhea and infect her husband. Nothing more telling of a secret affair than a suspiciously shared STI! In secret adultery, the use of protection is essential.

Consented adultery may be merely condoned or more often, it takes the form of acknowledged adultery. It's popular among sexually emancipated young Americans. They believe in a covenant of fidelity. They promise to love, honor, and cherish each other but refuse to promise sexual fidelity. These couples are broadminded and mature enough to realize that it's almost impossible for all of one's sexual and emotional needs to be filled by and with one's spouse. Adultery with consent is an ideal partnership—a monogamy with sexual freedom. If both marriage partners agree that they may commit adultery if the need and occasion arise, there is no breach of trust, no dishonesty, no infidelity, and no guilt. Consented adultery is the best antidote to divorce. It changes the old concept of marriage, which is too limiting and restrictive. If the husband and wife marry in their early twenties, they may have had no opportunity to relate to the opposite sex, until adultery gives them the scope. Consented adultery gives them the freedom and independence to fulfill their physical, emotional, and intellectual needs. It allows them to live as personalities rather than just wife and mother or husband and father.

I believe it's possible to love more than one person at the same time: your lover or mistress, as well as your wife or husband. The only difference is that extra-marital love rarely lasts, but marital love can last forever. Unfortunately, only a few people can enjoy consensual adultery. The jealous type never seem to do well with this type of arrangement.

A male's ego may be shattered if his wife finds the other swapper more considerate, more human and a better lover. The masculinity crisis and other emotional and psychological factors could cause a mental block and precipitate impotence. Usually, these blocks are temporary, but they can be of long duration or even become permanent.

A simple example of how a mental block can develop is the man who leaves a hotel after having had two cocktails. A friend sees him on the street and tells him he's drunk. This makes him think: "I've never got high on two drinks before. Maybe after so many years of drinking there are some changes haven't become aware of.” But he shrugs it off—after all, one swallow doesn't make a spring and one friend's opinion isn't necessarily a valid diagnosis. But, a block further on another friend also tells him that he's drunk. So he thinks he'd better go home and lie down.

It's the same with sexual performance. Usually, adulterers get together because they are attracted to each other, whereas at a sex party people form pairs even though one party may not be attracted to the other. Perhaps, the man does a poor job or fails completely in the bedroom, perhaps the woman is hard to please, but either way, the woman may then tell everyone that he is a failure in the bedroom. If this happens too often, the man's performance may be so affected that he becomes temporarily impotent.

Male Menopause

Another cause of impotence can be the expectation and criticism of a sexually sophisticated female swinger. What man wants to be judged or criticized in bed? He wants encouragement or praise and that's all. This masculinity crisis is paralleled in middle-age in two equally important male menopause syndromes: the castrated male syndrome, caused by the modern liberated wife, and iatrogenic menopause, often caused by the unliberated physician. Emancipated wives, who are sexually sophisticated and demand orgasmic sex, may shatter the male egos of the middle-aged men, who become emasculated. Their biological or innate dominance has been undermined and their libido fractured. In the bedroom they have lost control; the power that men have enjoyed exclusively since the beginning of time has been threatened.

Iatrogenic menopause in males means that the illness is imaginary, induced in the patient by a doctor's words or actions. In middle age, it often affects those who are married to sexually emancipated and aggressive wives So far, they have found their women a rewarding challenge and delighted in satisfying them, but now, sometimes, their attitude changes. Under pressure in his work or at home, even the most liberated of middle-aged men may experience new symptoms. Suddenly, he may begin to feel tired and rundown. He may notice that his interest in sex is beginning to ebb, especially if he has been gaining weight or increasing his drinking and smoking. For the first time, he starts to feel old. Perhaps he develops some chest pain or other psychosomatic symptoms, so he runs to his doctor. And what does his physician tell him? Usually, that the condition is purely emotional. The doctor prescribes some tranquilizers and then delivers his bromide: he tells his patient that he is not getting any younger and advises him to take it easy and slow down.

The middle-aged man who finds his sexual powers declining may also fall victim to the sacred-amulet syndrome. He blames his wife for his loss of potency and searches for a young sexpot, the sacred amulet or Aladdin's lamp that will magically restore his sexual prowess. If he finds one, he may divorce his wife, often with disastrous consequences.

Often, this blame-the-wife attitude can be prevented. The wives themselves may be prepared to be more tolerant, patient and understanding, and to give their husbands more freedom so they won't feel trapped like tigers in a cage. Or perhaps she will tell him to beat it. There is not right or wrong. But it is said that the quickest way to lose a husband is to want to be with him 24 hours in the day. Perhaps it’s for the better if he goes though. If the husband is discreetly allowed the occasional affair and at the same time made to feel wanted in his own home, he won't stray far, and sooner or later he'll come back home.

For the sake of marital health, many couples need to reconstruct their marriage contract not in accordance with the accepted standards of society of the church, but according to their own individual needs. Many a marriage in danger can be saved if the couple enter into a new agreement, an "open marriage" which gives them sufficient freedom and independence to find fulfillment of their physical emotional and intellectual needs, providing that they don't hurt each other

To my sexually free and experimental patients, I recommend a new covenant of fidelity such as: "I remain faithful to you as long as you satisfy my sexual needs. If you don't, I have the right to seek it outside our marriage, but I shall remain your loving mate as long as you are a good husband and good father or a good wife and good mother. Or we could consent the adultery and return to our home and family in a loving and happy manner." It's time the American family recognized that the majority of husbands and wives are not and never will be monogamous.

Sex and Age

Many European and Oriental physicians have long stressed that in males, age alone doesn't diminish the ability or desire for sex. I know many men and women who have had more varied and exciting sex after their middle years than before. Some time ago, the New York Times interviewed a number of elderly European celebrities. Almost everyone reported leading an active sex life in their seventies and eighties.

Another fallacy of our culture is that an old man or woman is a poor lover. This is a distorted image of elderly bon vivants. The French have the right attitude, though. They say: "The best stew is made in the oldest pot.” Many Americans don't seem to understand that the most important sexual organ is the brain and, like wine, it improves with age.

Because sexual apathy or abstinence is one of the major causes of impotence, I always encourage my patients to continue their sex activities, especially when they reach middle age. They can give up rich and spicy food, but at least once a week they ought to have sex.

Scientists have proved that aging is more psychological than physiological and I always tell my patients not to worry about their calendar ages. If they think young and act young, they'll stay young. I agree with sexologists, Masters and Johnson that, if a man has a partner in whom he is interested and who is interested in him, he should be able to enjoy an active sex life even in his eighties. I'd like to illustrate the validity of this statement by a true story written by Isaac Bashevis Singer in his book, A Friend of Kafka.

Story Time

An unemployed ex-actor in his eighties, so poor that he cannot even buy coal for his stove, is disturbed one cold night by a pounding at his attic door and the sound of a woman's voice. She pleads: "Someone just tried to kill me I beg you, please let me in only want to stay in your room until daylight."

He opens the door and there stands a beautiful young woman in her bare feet, wearing a fur coat over her nightgown. She is half-frozen, so he gives her a drink from a bottle of cognac he received as a gift.

The actor discovers she is a widowed countess and that her lover lives in the building. That night, in a jealous fit, her lover beat and threatened to kill her, but she managed to grab her coat and run out of the apartment. She knocked on his neighbors' doors, but none of them would let her in, so she made her way to the attic. The ex-actor offers her his bed, and says he will rest in a chair. She refuses, saying: "You are not young and do not look very well. Please go back to bed and I will sit here." Finally, after some haggling, both decide to lie on the bed.

Her lover has been brutal, vicious, inconsiderate and drunk. Now she finds herself in bed with an old man who, despite prostate trouble, possesses the most valuable virtues of masculinity—kindness, compassion, and courage. She expresses her gratitude and admiration by kissing him and by passionate overtures. As she touches his hard, erect penis, he feels he is a man again. They make love. In the morning she says that she wants to see him again. He answers: "A miracle doesn't happen twice".

Indeed, it was a miracle. A sick and broken man with prostate trouble was able to make over because he found an interesting partner who was stimulated and inspired by him. If only he had taken care of his health and had had his prostate removed, he could have had a revitalizing and enchanting love affair.

The Moral

If a man is unwanted, his virility is in danger. At some sex parties, the girls are spoiled and become over-choosy. Consequently, a newcomer who is not too good-looking may be rejected by a few girls in a row. Too many experiences like this could dampen one's ardour for life.

How many so-called impotent men would quickly be revitalized if they could only bring themselves to take part in group sex or orgies! Their health would improve, their hearts would beat more regularly, they would look fresher and fitter. Since the beginning of time, ritual orgies have been an effective cure for anxiety, alienation or loneliness.

In a well-conducted group-sex encounter, there is no hostility, no boredom, no jealousy. Every sexually sophisticated swinger is prepared to please everyone else. Regardless of age, looks or sexual capacity, no one is a favorite, no one is left out. It's like a carnival and everyone has a good time.

A Lesson in Orgies

Orgies are a great place for you and your partner to participate in consensual adultery and then return home together. There are two basic types of orgy: 1. Bacchanalia: spontaneous and totally uninhibited group sex where everything goes and there are no limits and 2. Saturnalia: consciously planned and organized orgies. These may be limited to a small group of friends or members of a sex club. Participants must be prepared for every eventuality and be willing to do any sexual act required of them. For a novice, I generally recommend Saturnalia.

There are a number of variations, which help to increase the fun. At a "Passion in the Dark" club, members are instructed that no kind of sexuality, not even ordinary kissing, is to be indulged in so long as the lights remain on. Until then, drinking and conversation, with a strict taboo on touching, inflame desire. At a prearranged time, the Night of Passion and Mystery begins in complete darkness. No talking is permitted. A member grabs anybody he is able to touch and then performs whatever sexual act he wishes.

At a "Silver and Glass Bowl" club, a silver bowl contains the names of every person present and a companion glass bowl holds pieces of paper, each of which specifies a particular sexual act.

Each member draws the name of his partner from the silver bowl and a slip of paper listing the sexual act they must perform from the glass bowl. If he doesn't like the partner or the activity he has drawn, he may try again—at a price of two dollars a time. However, he does not reveal the name of the person or the activity which he rejects.

Many people find the "Polaroid Party" exciting. No photographs are taken until everyone has undressed and the lights have been turned off. A photographer then begins work, encouraging the guests to engage in unusual acts and to get into the most grotesque positions possible. After about an hour, the pictures are passed round. Truly exhilarating!

Finally, there are genuine Saturnalia clubs which adhere to the ancient tradition of the mask. We know that during medieval carnivals in Europe, peasant and nobleman alike used masks so they could mix with equal freedom and unrestrainedly enjoy their pleasures during the few days of celebration. In modern days, these masked parties provide an opportunity for older, unattractive persons who might otherwise have difficulty in finding casual mates to mingle freely with younger, more popular swingers. The orgiastic atmosphere is uninhibited and without reserve because identities are concealed. This, in theory, is the best way for the elderly to maintain a healthy sex life.

But there are restrictions in practice. Members of one Saturnalia club told me theirs is limited to 40 people, with rigid rules and schedule. Members are enjoined to call the host and tell him the exact time of their arrival. When they arrive, they are given a mask and the robe they must wear for the evening. First, there is a short business meeting. Usually the minutes of the previous ritual are much too spicy to be taken as read. Then the future program is revealed, so that members can prepare themselves beforehand for the next orgy or, if it's not their kind of sex, stay home.

Ultimately, whether your excuse to look for a lay outside of your relationship is backed up by fear of "doctors' disease," boredom, or the fact that you're just a sex obsessed individual, honesty is always the best policy! Talking with your partner about your expectations and desired (or even committing to adultery in your marriage vows) can help you to have a healthy and lasting relationship.