Proving again that youth really is wasted on the young...from the ASU "Web Devil" website. ASU is, of course, known as a major party school. Laura here must not have gotten the memo. Oh, and it's in part about a movie called "The Last Kiss" which I have no intention of seeing - ever - so I don't care if there are spoilers or not. :)

Opinions: Cheaters' actions leave no room for interpretation, excuses
by Laura Thorson published on Tuesday, September 26, 2006

I went to the movies last weekend and saw "The Last Kiss." I'll try not to give away anything that wasn't implied in the trailer, but consider yourself forewarned of spoilers.

Overall, I liked the movie, and thought the actors did a good job of being believable characters. But I have never left a movie so utterly hateful of a certain group of people - cheaters. (Ohmygosh, I'm so, like, busted! Laura the poli sci major hates me!)

The movie is about a man named Michael (Zach Braff) on the verge of committing to a set path in life. Right at the moment when he thinks he has everything in his life exactly how he always planned it with his girlfriend Jenna, (Jacinda Barrett), (which includes the unplanned pregnancy, by the way - some planning) he meets Rachel Bilson's character, Kim. She is a young, flirty coed who makes him second-guess everything he has ever desired. (Meeting the person who may be just right for you at that point in your life can do that.)

I cannot understand guys who cheat on their girlfriends. (That's because you're immature and naive and don't know anything about human nature. Wait a few years, you'll get it.) And I cannot fathom why women seduce men they know are in a relationship. (Because they can!)
The same goes for girls who cheat on boyfriends and the boys who knowingly seduce those girls.

There is a multitude of excuses cheaters use, I'm sure. (There are more than you've listed here, that's for certain.) They wanted more sexual variety or excitement. Or like Ross' infamous infidelity on "Friends", some cheaters might say they were "on a break."Cheating men might fault their supposed biological drive to sleep with as many women as possible. Women might cite unmet emotional needs. Or college students in general might make the excuse that they were drunk and it was an accident. (Of course there's the classic, "I forgot that I was married.")

Excuse me while I get up on my high moral horse for a moment, (the moment we've been waiting for) but these justifications won't fly with me. They pale in comparison to the emotional and mental anguish that a cheater puts their significant other through (assuming that person gets caught. There's a reason that "The successful affair is the undiscovered affair.") According to a study in 2000 by Marty E. Zusman, a sociology professor at Indiana University Northwest, and his associates, 38 percent of the 620 undergraduates surveyed admitted to having been unfaithful in their current relationship.What a disgrace. (Yawn.)

If you feel sexually or emotionally unfulfilled, you should talk to your partner first so you can either work things out or end things before they get messy. If you are on a break, you better make sure you qualify the terms of what being on a break means and whether or not it allows philandering. If you feel the need to spread your seed, you better wake up and smell the monogamy. (Wow, that's clever...not.) It's the 21st century, gents, and while our divorce and infidelity rates hover at about 50 percent or more, the official word is that polygamy is out and two-person relationships are in. (Actually, polygamy may be very much in, if the gay rights lobby succeeds in redefining marriage.)

And last but not least, if you are getting so drunk that you cannot control who you are kissing, much less sleeping with, then it is time for you to get some substance abuse help. Seriously. (Finally, a valid point.) And while the cheaters probably shoulder the most blame because they are intentionally doing something that will devastate someone they supposedly love, the "cheatees" who knowingly help them do it are just as much at fault. (There's no time like college to see what's out there - and you'll never be in a better position to meet people and test the waters. That's why having girlfriend/boyfriend relationships in college is just plain dumb. There's no point in tying yourself to one person when a dozen others may be hovering on the horizon. There's plenty of time after school to get that starter marriage going!)

Ladies and gentlemen, if you know someone is in a relationship, keep your hands off. You have no right to make a move or even to reciprocate if you're approached. (Sure you do. Until you sign on the dotted line, you're a free agent, and so is the person you're approaching.) Be the bigger person, think how you would feel if you were the cheated significant other, and use a little self-restraint. Some of you might think you can't help yourself, that he or she is just too hot to resist, but trust me, I speak from experience, you can say no if you know they're in a relationship, and you should. (Obviously Laura got dumped by someone trading up. Given her pompous holier-than-thou attitude, that's hardly a surprise. What guy would want to put up with this?)

Besides, why would you want to be with a cheater anyway? You know sooner or later you'll be left in the same way.The bottom line is that being unfaithful is mentally and emotionally destructive for your loved one - not to mention the STDs you could be exposing them to.

I think I've scolded enough for now, so I'll leave you with some parting wisdom from Stephen, the character who plays Jenna's father in the film. Stephen addresses Michael after discovering that Michael cheated on his daughter by saying, "What you feel only matters to you. It's what you do to the people you say you love - that's what matters. That's the only thing that counts." (Thanks for the Zach Braff wisdom. I know I feel better now. I bet his character in the movie does too, having banged Rachel Bilson. :)

From a blog called "7 days" from the UAE, of all places...
http://www.7days.ae/2006/09/21/adultery-can-it-survive-technology.html

Can Adultery Survive Technology?

For UAE-based security expert Said Kiwan, one of the first things a cheating wife or husband should do is check their car. “You should look under the hood or inside the trunk,” he says. “Generally people put a GPS recorder in the same place.” It’s advice British DJ Chris Tarrant could have used. After seeing another woman for ten years, he was finally caught out when his wife put a tracking device on a car and discovered his secret “love nest”.

And his divorce is part of a wave of similar breakups. Adultery may have been around as long as there have been adults - but in the cyber-age it is getting a lot more technical and a good deal harder to pull off. “Technology has made it harder to cheat,” says Simon Smith, a mobility specialist with a background in surveillance. (Actually it CAN make it more difficult. There are plenty of people out there with no technological savvy at all. But you do need to be careful.)
“In the UK, it is even quite easy to trace someone’s movements from their mobile phone.” In the UAE, unfaithful wives and husbands are safer. Here, paying an expert to investigate your partner is totally illegal (although some companies have applied for the necessary permission).

But even here, adultery, which is illegal, is getting riskier. With modern gadgetry it requires only a touch of dedication to check out your partner yourself. “The technology has evolved to the point where you can walk into a spy shop in the UK and buy a state of the art surveillance system,” says Kiwan, director of operations of Dubai-based high-tech company MVP Tech.

Among the many traps for unfaithful spouses are cameras disguised as part of a smoke detector or an AC unit. For an outlay of around dhs100, software will make a PC reveal each keystroke. There are also plenty of ingenious ways to make a phone spill all its secrets. “With a mobile you have to be a bit more knowledgeable,” says Kiwan. “But there are chips and voice recorders you can fit inside.” (Yikes! NEVER throw out an old cell phone. Crush it, run over it with a truck, hit it with a sledgehammer. But don't just ditch it. There's too much information in there to be accessed.)

Still, the technological race between suspicious and guilty parties is hotting up. One encryption expert says his customers are already taking high-tech steps to protect their privacy. “People in this part of the world are extremely serious about members of their family not having access to their phones,” he says. “Not having their wives check their phones is one reason customers are keen.” Ayman Majzoub of Pointsec, an encryption company specialised in phones, also has customers eager to protect their personal life as well as their business dealings.

“More and more people are using phones to store a lot of information - not just SMS messages but their entire lives,” he says. Perhaps the need for vigilance makes it harder to commit adultery. On the other hand, the technology that catches cheats also seems to inspire them. “I think that could be the part of the problem,” says one security expert. “Messaging and e-mails seem to make it easier to have an affair. That’s true. But people forget that these are also the easiest way to get caught.” (Let's be careful out there!)

More from the progressive front...


Islamists claim victory on rape laws
September 15, 2006

ISLAMABAD: Human rights groups have accused the Pakistani Government of caving in to pressure from hardline Islamists after it agreed to water down planned amendments to controversial rape and adultery laws.
The President, Pervez Musharraf, has sought to use the measure, the Women's Protection Bill, to burnish his credentials as a modern and moderate Islamic leader before his visit to the US this month. (good luck with that.)

Under the Hudood Ordinance, enacted in 1979 by the military ruler, General Zia ul-Haq, thousands of women, in particular the poor and illiterate, have been jailed for adultery on the flimsiest evidence, often when a former husband refuses to recognise a divorce, or even when a woman has reported being raped. The original proposal was to remove rape from the jurisdiction of Islamic law, and make it a crime punishable under the penal code. ("Islamic law" = justified barbarism.)

Accusers in adultery cases would have to appear before a court, rather than just lodge the case with the local police. The draft also raised the age of consent to 16 and stated that four adult witnesses were required to prove adultery, rather than the traditional four male witnesses.
But under a compromise struck this week between clerics from the government side and the religious alliance, women who have been raped will remain subject to the same punishments as those accused of adultery. (Because, of course, rape is the same thing as adultery in the primitive mind.)
The Law Minister, Wasi Zafar, defended the concession by saying: "If a woman has four witnesses she can file a case under the Hudood law, or if she does not have witnesses she can file a case under the penal code."
Islamist parties claimed a victory. Hafiz Hussain, an MP, said: "They have acknowledged that the amendment was in conflict with the Koran."
Rights advocates said the changes in the bill would only cause further injustice and exploitation of women. (Amen.)

Are we holding our breath until women's groups in THIS country stand up for exploited Islamic women? Ahh, no. NOW and its ilk are too busy excoriating George W. Bush and lionizing former first rapist Bill Clinton. But don't worry, they'll get around to it sometime, I'm sure.

We remember, and will ALWAYS remember, you bastards.

Another reality TV relationship bites the dust.

LOS ANGELES, CA, United States (UPI) -- Former Miss USA Shanna Moakler has denied every being unfaithful to her husband, rocker Travis Barker, and claims to be a good mother to her children. (did she actually take a LOOK at the guy before she married him?)
People magazine said that during a recent interview, the former Playboy Playmate said her husband`s allegation last month that he was filing for divorce due to her infidelity and child neglect was untrue.
The 30-year-old model said she is very active in the lives of her three children -- including one from a prior relationship with boxer Oscar De La Hoya -- and has no problem sharing the children with her husband despite his comments. (another idiot woman having a child with a man to whom she is not married...of course, De La Hoya probably has some serious cash, so the reason why Moakler opted to have a kid with him is probably self-evident. Why support yourself when you can get some chump to do it for you?)
Moakler said that after having their 2004 marriage covered on the MTV reality series 'Meet the Barkers' last year, she and Barker began to have problems six months ago.
'I think what happened was that he was surrounded by a lot of really bad people,' she told People. 'When you have a lot of people kissing your butt all day, and then you come home to the big negative all the time, after a while it takes its toll.' (I'd love to know the definition of 'the big negative' - it probably involves whining, nagging and otherwise tyrannizing her husband, which definitely is not conducive to marital bliss...)

NEWSFLASH! MSM discovers that cheating is easier during the computer age. Stop the presses!

INTERNET, CELL PHONES MAKE IT EASIER TO FIND AND MAINTAIN ILLICIT AFFAIRS
By Mark de la Vina, Mercury News

Call it crazy, paranoid or cynical, but the next time you peruse the personals on Craigslist or scan profiles on MySpace, consider this: There's a good chance you just ran into a cheater.
Just as purchasing concert tickets or checking baseball scores has become as simple as logging onto a computer, infidelity is a simple keystroke away.

Cheating is on the rise because technology eases the search to find a willing partner, according to therapists, researchers and relationship experts. The unfaithful no longer have to scour bars or cultivate workplace relationships. Cheating has increased along with the growing use of text messaging and cell phones, chat rooms and online dating sites, some exclusively targeting the polygamous.

``The Internet has greatly removed the barriers,'' says Ruth Houston, founder of Infidelityadvice.com and author of ``Is He Cheating on You? 829 Telltale Signs'' (Lifestyle Publications, 192 pp., $29.95). ``If you are a married person who wants to cheat, you can now go online and maintain an affair even while your spouse is in the room. Everything has changed.'' (It changed the minute the internet became ubiquitous - that's easily ten years ago.)

Jill, 45, an elementary school teacher from Mountain View who asked that her last name not be used, learned of her partner's infidelity when she came across his open e-mail account, which he had failed to log off on their home computer. (Stupid stupid stupid. This is the primary way that people get caught - this and not deleting their online history. Make sure you're surfing anonymously and shut everything down when you're done.)

She was shocked to read that he had done ``everything from soliciting hookers to making dates with others'' via the Internet, she says.
``I saw that he does this all day at work. I even posed as someone he had been conversing with, and he e-mailed me 30 times in one day!'' When Jill revealed her identity, he downplayed his online trawling, which ``ruined our romance,'' she says. (If he was e-mailing hookers and looking for other women with that sort of diligence, there was no romance. Wake up.)

No reliable figures exist on the increase in cheaters who use technology, but computer forensics expert John Lucich says the rise is undeniable. The president of Network Security Group, a firm in Union, N.J., hired for computer-related legal issues, says that 95 percent of the cases his company handles involve men and women who set up secret e-mail accounts for the purpose of cheating. (Never assume that your on-line or e-mail activities are secret - they aren't.)

Online dating sites play a key role in connecting people searching for extracurricular activities. While mainstream services such as Match.com and Yahoo Personals ban married people from posting profiles, the dating sites can't stop users from lying. (D'oh!) Other companies are happy to pick up the slack. Private Affairs (www. philanderers.com), an online dating site based in Toronto, targets users looking for what it calls EMRs, or extramarital relationships. Another service, Ashley Madison Agency (www.ashleymadison.com), boasts 1.03 million members in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. With its tag line ``when monogamy becomes monotony,'' the company, also founded in Toronto, has seen its membership double annually, says operations director and founder Darren Morgenstern.

``We're finding that it's just not going away,'' he says. ``People are looking at the plausibility of using the Internet to have an affair, and it just works for them.''

Once the connection is made, technology also helps the affair to thrive. Cell phones and PDAs give cheaters the chance to communicate privately and coordinate with their side dish.
Caryn, 37, a West Valley College student from Morgan Hill, knows this all too well. Like many wired people in Silicon Valley, she used to contact a former boyfriend almost exclusively on his cell phone. (A 37-year old JC student? Too dumb to play in this league, most likely.)

``After several months, I found out he was married,'' says Caryn, who also asked that her last name not be used. ``Much later, he even informed me that on several occasions I had even paged him during his marriage counseling sessions.''

Statistics on cheating vary widely because of the way pollsters word questions, says Infidelityadvice.com's Houston. The data also is muddied by dishonest responses. And as people debate the definition of sex, they similarly debate the definition of cheating.

Sexologist Shere Hite in 1988 shocked Americans when she reported that up to 70 percent of women married five or more years have sex outside of marriage. Other surveys have concluded that anywhere from 38 million to 53 million men in the United States have cheated on their wives at least once, Houston says. (There's no way to know the truth, because people will lie either to inflate their egos as in, "I cheat all the time because plenty of men/women are interested in me," or they'll downplay their actions for fear of being revealed.)

But such ``studies,'' as well as research reported in popular magazines and advice columns, often inflate figures, according to Tom W. Smith of the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. His 2004 study, ``American Sexual Behavior,'' which polled more than 10,000 people over 22 years, found that 22 percent of married men and 15 percent of married women have cheated at least once.

Technology has helped the cause, prompting the curious to make the jump from fantasy to philandering, says Brian Person, a marriage and family therapist in Los Altos.
``Some people, given the proper social boundaries, would be less likely to cheat than they are now,'' he says.
Network Security Group's Lucich is convinced that the rise in advertising and e-mail spam that hype cheating sites entice people to cross those boundaries, he says.

``I truly believe that there are people out there who have not thought about infidelity and then get spam messages or hear about online cheating and dating sites on the radio,'' says Lucich, whose book ``Cyber Lies'' (StarPath, 212 pp., $35) details how to easily check a partner's cell phone or computer to discover if he or she is cheating. ``In a weak moment, they say, `Let's just take a peek.' Then they start going further and further, and the next thing you know, they're cheating.''

There is some small consolation in the rise of high-tech infidelity, Houston says, because cheaters are often unaware that they have left evidence of their affairs on their PCs or cell phones. E-mails are reportedly how Christie Brinkley found out her spouse was cheating on her with a local teenager.
``There are programs you can put onto a computer so you can see everything your mate is doing online,'' Houston says. ``You can even put a GPS device in your mate's car to find out where they are going. It might be easier to cheat, but it's also a lot easier to get caught.'' (Which is something to keep in mind. Technology makes certain aspects easier, but it's best to avoid it when carrying on an affair. Sometimes the old ways are best.)

Words to the wise from the occasionally accurate AP --

Selling your cell phone? Don't be betrayed by it!
WASHINGTON (AP) - Don't tell your cell phone any secrets. It might not keep them. It turns out that when you upgrade to a new cell phone and get rid of your old one, those old text messages may go with it. Resetting the phone to clear the slate can be a lot more difficult than owners think, meaning the new owner can get a look at a lot of sensitive information. A Virginia company bought 10 different phones on eBay this summer to test phone-security tools it sells for businesses. The phones surrendered credit-card numbers, banking passwords, business secrets and even evidence of adultery. Most manufacturers offer instructions on how to completely erase cell-phone data, but in one case it involves pushing so many buttons simultaneously, that it's a two-person job. One security expert says the best thing to do may be to heave the old phone under a truck.
**
Cell phones are a boon in a lot of ways, but your best adultery phone bet remains a phone card and -- yes -- a regular land-line phone booth, if you can find one. Too much incriminating information is stored on your cel- not to mention that it's virtually a GPS when it comes to pinpointing your location. Cheat safe people!