Cyber Infidelity. Dr Eve

were unsure. In the USA, an average of 65,54% said no to divorce or separation, and 20% were unsure. Australians were pretty clear on divorce, too: 59,6%, on average, said no to divorce, while 21,54% were unsure. In Canada, similar results emerged: 63,3% said no to divorce, and 22,88% were unsure. In the UK, 60,22% said no to divorce, and 21,4% were unsure.

      The South African women I surveyed were even bolder: 82,7% of them said that they were not considering divorce.

      To summarise so that you can get your head around these facts and consider your own fragile vulnerability to CI: due to the ease and frequency of your access to the Internet, you are immediately at risk of committing CI. The seduction of fantasising, imagining and interacting with a stranger or known person is tempting and tantalising. If you ticked off the relationship factors above, you are at high risk of committing CI, a correlation that the respondents I surveyed on AM contradicted. These respondents said that they don’t have relationship issues that are big enough to warrant divorce or separation, that they enjoy spending time with their significant partners and feel emotionally connected to them. This is part of the paradox that the Internet brings: I’m sufficiently satisfied in my relationship but I want to play online. No, I don’t think I’m committing ‘real’ infidelity as I’m not having ‘real’ sex, but I know my partner will think that what I’m engaging in is cheating behaviour. I risk it anyway.

      Stay with this concept of risk. Consider your thoughts about your partner viewing pornography. Neither female nor male respondents on AM rated viewing porn as a very threatening act of infidelity. Many of you do – especially women. Porn blurs the lines between reality and fantasy, leaving a man panting for the kind of sex he watches, then looking over his shoulder at his real-life partner in her or his regular-sized body … and her or his fatigue and resultant lack of interest in hanging from chandeliers. Disappointment may set in, giving him permission to stay for another hour, wanking to his favourite amateur porn scene.

      This blurring happens with online interactive behaviour. It carries risks for you. You get carried away through imagination overload as you are lured into the web of millions. Suddenly, not only are your emotional and sexual needs being met but new needs are created that you never imagined you had:71 the need to feel desirable, the need to feel loved and special, the need to feel like a successful sexual person hits you in the face as, easily and anonymously, you click on another profile, unaware in that moment that every click carries potential pleasure and enormous risk. Once the first steps are taken, it is amazing how quickly you slip down that rabbit hole. Involuntarily or voluntarily is a question to which I seek answers. Are you able to draw the line between your offline world and your online world? Or do you confuse the cyberworld with your real life?

      If your distinction between reality and the cyberworld is blurred, if you’re unable to count the pleasures and the risks, stay with me.