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Affair



 
 
For other uses, see Love Affair
Love Affair

Love Affair is a romantic film starring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer and featuring Maria Ouspenskaya. It was directed by Leo McCarey and written by Delmer Daves and Donald Ogden Stewart, based on a story by McCarey and Mildred Cram....
 or Scandal
Scandal

A scandal is a widely publicized incident that involves allegations of Malfeasance in office, disgrace, or Morality outrage. A scandal may be based on reality, the product of false allegations, or a mixture of both....
An affair may refer to a form of nonmonogamy
Forms of nonmonogamy

Nonmonogamy is a blanket term covering several different types of interpersonal relationships in which some or all participants have multiple marriage, Human sexuality, and/or Romantic love partners....
, to infidelity
Infidelity

Infidelity can be defined as any violation of the mutually agreed-upon rules or boundaries of a relationship, and is a breach of faith in an interpersonal relationship....
 or to adultery
Adultery

Adultery is the voluntary sexual intercourse between a marriage and another person who is not his or her spouse, though in many places it is only considered adultery when a married woman has sexual relations with someone who is not her husband and in others it is only considered adultery when a married woman has sexual relations with someon...
. Where an affair lacks both overt and covert sexual behaviour and yet exhibits intense or enduring emotional intimacy it is called an emotional affair
Emotional affair

An "emotional affair" is an affair, which excludes physical intimacy but includes emotional intimacy. It may also be called an affair of the heart....
.

Affair may generally refer to professional, personal, or public business matters or to a particular business or private activity, as in family affair or private affair.

A political affair refers to the illicit activities of of public officials, such as the Watergate affair
Watergate scandal

The Watergate scandals were a series of United States political scandals during the President of the United States of Richard Nixon that resulted in the indictment of several of Nixon's closest advisors, and ultimately his resignation on August 9, 1974....
.

Sex and romance
It has been argued that the widespread occurrence of extramarital affairs is polygamy
Polygamy

The term polygamy is used in related ways in social anthropology, sociobiology, and sociology. Polygamy can be defined as any "Types of marriages in which a person [has] more than one spouse."...
 by stealth.






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For other uses, see Love Affair
Love Affair

Love Affair is a romantic film starring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer and featuring Maria Ouspenskaya. It was directed by Leo McCarey and written by Delmer Daves and Donald Ogden Stewart, based on a story by McCarey and Mildred Cram....
 or Scandal
Scandal

A scandal is a widely publicized incident that involves allegations of Malfeasance in office, disgrace, or Morality outrage. A scandal may be based on reality, the product of false allegations, or a mixture of both....
An affair may refer to a form of nonmonogamy
Forms of nonmonogamy

Nonmonogamy is a blanket term covering several different types of interpersonal relationships in which some or all participants have multiple marriage, Human sexuality, and/or Romantic love partners....
, to infidelity
Infidelity

Infidelity can be defined as any violation of the mutually agreed-upon rules or boundaries of a relationship, and is a breach of faith in an interpersonal relationship....
 or to adultery
Adultery

Adultery is the voluntary sexual intercourse between a marriage and another person who is not his or her spouse, though in many places it is only considered adultery when a married woman has sexual relations with someone who is not her husband and in others it is only considered adultery when a married woman has sexual relations with someon...
. Where an affair lacks both overt and covert sexual behaviour and yet exhibits intense or enduring emotional intimacy it is called an emotional affair
Emotional affair

An "emotional affair" is an affair, which excludes physical intimacy but includes emotional intimacy. It may also be called an affair of the heart....
.

Affair may generally refer to professional, personal, or public business matters or to a particular business or private activity, as in family affair or private affair.

A political affair refers to the illicit activities of of public officials, such as the Watergate affair
Watergate scandal

The Watergate scandals were a series of United States political scandals during the President of the United States of Richard Nixon that resulted in the indictment of several of Nixon's closest advisors, and ultimately his resignation on August 9, 1974....
.

Sex and romance


It has been argued that the widespread occurrence of extramarital affairs is polygamy
Polygamy

The term polygamy is used in related ways in social anthropology, sociobiology, and sociology. Polygamy can be defined as any "Types of marriages in which a person [has] more than one spouse."...
 by stealth. These are relationships where an illicit sexual
Human sexuality

Human sexuality is how people experience and express themselves as sexual beings. Human sexuality has many aspects. Biology, sexuality refers to the reproductive mechanism as well as the basic biological drive that exists in all species and can encompass sexual intercourse and sexual contact in all its forms....
, romantic
Romantic love

Romance is a general term that refers to a celebration of life often through art, music and the attempt to express love with words or deeds. It also refers to a feeling of excitement associated with love....
 relationship or a romantic friendship
Romantic friendship

The term romantic friendship refers to a very close but non-sexual interpersonal relationship between friendships, often involving a degree of physical closeness beyond that which is common in modern Western world societies, for example holding hands, cuddling, and sharing a bed....
, passion
Passion (emotion)

Passion is an emotion applied to a very strong feeling about a person or thing. Passion is an intense emotion compelling feeling, enthusiasm, or desire for something....
ate attachment occurs alongside a monogamous relationship.

Extramarital affairs that continue in one form or another for decades, even as one of the partners to that affair passes through a marriage, divorce and remarriage could be considered a primary relationship and the marriages secondary to it. That may be a case of serial polygamy or other forms of nonmonogamy
Forms of nonmonogamy

Nonmonogamy is a blanket term covering several different types of interpersonal relationships in which some or all participants have multiple marriage, Human sexuality, and/or Romantic love partners....
.

The ability to pursue serial affairs or marriages in this way whilst safeguarding the conflict of interest
Conflict of interest

A conflict of interest occurs when an individual or organization has an interest that might compromise their reliability. A conflict of interest exists even if no improper act results from it, and can create an appearance of impropriety that can undermine confidence in the conflicted individual or organization....
 inherent in the practice, requires considerable skill in deception
Deception

Deception is the act of convincing another to believe information that is not true, or not the whole truth as in certain types of half-truths....
 and negotiation.

Deception is the "covert manipulation of perception to alter thoughts, feeling, or beliefs". It points to the degree to which the deceiver may breach fundamental conditions of fidelity
Fidelity

Fidelity is a notion that at its most abstract level implies a truthful connection to a source or sources. Its original meaning dealt with loyalty and attentiveness to one's duty to a lord or a monarch, in a broader sense than the related concept of fealty....
, reciprocal vulnerability
Vulnerability

Vulnerability is the susceptibility to physical or emotional injury or attack. It also means to have one's guard down, open to censure or criticism; assailable....
 and transparency
Transparency (humanities)

Transparency, as used in the humanities, when used in a Social actions context, implies openness, communication, and accountability. It is a metaphorical extension of the meaning a "transparency " object is one that can be seen through....
. These are assumed as pre-conditions of committed intimate
Intimacy

Intimate refers generally to the innermost nature or fundamental character of something. Intimacy refers to a familiar and very close connection with another as a result of entering deeply or closely into relationship through knowledge and experience of the other....
 relationships.

Affair is not only used to describe cheating
Cheating

'Cheating' is an act of lying, deception, fraud, trickery, imposture, or imposition. Cheating characteristically is employed to create an unfair advantage, usually in one's own interest, and often at the expense of others....
 but may also describe part of an agreement referred to as open marriage
Open marriage

Open marriage typically refers to a marriage in which the partners agree that each may engage in adultery, without this being regarded as infidelity....
, which sanctions some extramarital affairs
Extramarital sex

Extramarital sex occurs when a Marriage engages in sexual activity with someone other than their marriage partner.Where extramarital sexual relations breach a Sexual_norm it may also be referred to as adultery, fornication, philandary, or infidelity....
 and not others. When one of the non-sanctioned affairs occurs it is described as infidelity and often experienced as a betrayal
Betrayal

Betrayal, a form of deception or dismissal of prior presumptions, is the breaking or violation of a presumptive social contract that produces morality and psychological conflict within a relationship amongst individuals, between organizations or between individuals and organizations....
 both of trust
Trust (sociology)

Trust is a relationship of reliance. A trusted party is presumed to seek to fulfill policy, ethics codes, law and their previous promises.Trust does not need to involve belief in the good character, vices, or morals of the other party....
 and integrity
Integrity

Integrity comprises perceived consistency of actions, values, methods, measures and principles. As a holism concept, it judges the quality of a system in terms of its ability to achieve its own goals....
.

Affairs are sometimes accompanied by scandal
Scandal

A scandal is a widely publicized incident that involves allegations of Malfeasance in office, disgrace, or Morality outrage. A scandal may be based on reality, the product of false allegations, or a mixture of both....
. When used in this context, "affair" usually implies sexual impropriety, but that is not necessarily the case.

An emotional affair
Emotional affair

An "emotional affair" is an affair, which excludes physical intimacy but includes emotional intimacy. It may also be called an affair of the heart....
 can be as devastating for the one who is excluded or betrayed by it as if a full sexual liaison
Liaison

Liaison may refer to:* Liaison , the pronunciation of a word-final consonant due to a following vowel sound in French* Liaison officer, a military officer who coordinates different forces or national units usually at Staff level...
 had occurred.

Famous affairs

See also Sex scandal
Sex scandal

A sex scandal is a scandal involving allegations or information about sexual activities being made public. Sex scandals are often associated with movie stars, politicians, or others in the public eye, and become scandals largely because of the prominence of the person involved and/or non-sexual norm nature of the sexuality....
  • Affair of the diamond necklace
    Affair of the diamond necklace

    The Affair of the Diamond Necklace was a mysterious incident in the 1780s at the court of Louis XVI of France of France involving his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette....
  • Cunningham-Agee Affair
  • Dreyfus Affair
    Dreyfus Affair

    The Dreyfus Affair was a political scandal which divided France in the 1890s and the early 1900s. It involved the conviction for treason in November 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian History of the Jews in France descent....
  • Harden-Eulenburg Affair
    Harden-Eulenburg Affair

    The Harden-Eulenburg affair, often simply Eulenburg affair, was the controversy surrounding a series of courts-martial and five regular trials regarding accusations of homosexual conduct, and accompanying libel trials, among prominent members of Wilhelm II of Germany's cabinet and entourage during 1907-1909....
  • Hemings-Jefferson Affair
    Sally Hemings

    Sally Hemings was an African-American slavery owned by Thomas Jefferson. She is said to have been the half-sister of Jefferson's wife Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson....
  • Lavon Affair
    Lavon Affair

    The Lavon Affair refers to the scandal over a failed Israeli covert operation in Egypt known as Operation Susannah, in which Israeli military intelligence planted bombs in Egyptian, United States and United Kingdom-owned targets in Egypt in the summer of 1954 in the hopes that "the Muslim Brotherhood, the Communists, 'unspecified malcon...
  • The Lewinsky Scandal
    Lewinsky scandal

    The Lewinsky scandal was a political scandal sex scandal emerging from a sexual relationship between President of the United States of America Bill Clinton and a 22-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky....
     (Bill Clinton
    Bill Clinton

    William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton served as the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He was the fifteenth Democrat elected to that office....
    's affair with Monica Lewinsky
    Monica Lewinsky

    Monica Samille Lewinsky is an United States woman with whom then-United States President Bill Clinton admitted to having had an "inappropriate relationship" while Lewinsky worked at the White House in 1995 and 1996....
    )
  • Lillehammer affair
    Lillehammer affair

    The Lillehammer affair refers to the murder by Mossad agents of a Morocco waiter, Ahmed Bouchiki, in Lillehammer, Norway on July 21, 1973. The agents had been sent by Israel as part of Operation Wrath of God to assassinate Ali Hassan Salameh, the leader of the Black September , a Palestinian group that carried out the 1972 Munich Massacre....
  • Stevenson-Lloyd George Affair
    Frances Stevenson

    Frances Stevenson, Countess Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, Order of the British Empire was the mistress, personal secretary, confidante and second wife of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Lloyd George....
  • The Makropulos Affair
    The Makropulos Affair

    The Makropulos Affair is a three-act opera by the Czech Republic composer Leo? Jan?cek. The libretto, based on a Play The Makropulos Affair by Karel Capek, was written by the composer between 1923 and 1925....
     (play and opera)
  • Profumo Affair
    Profumo Affair

    The Profumo Affair was a British political scandals from 1963 in the United Kingdom that is named after the then Secretary of State for War, John Profumo....
  • Sokal Affair
    Sokal Affair

    The Sokal affair was a hoax by physics Alan Sokal perpetrated on the editorial staff and readership of the postmodern cultural studies journal Social Text ....
  • Spiegel Affair
    Spiegel scandal

    The Spiegel Affair of 1962 was one of the major political scandals in Germany in the era following World War II.Essentially, the scandal boiled down to a conflict between Franz Josef Strau?, then Federal Minister of Defense, and Rudolf Augstein, owner and editor-in-chief of Der Spiegel magazine, Germany's leading weekly political...
  • Spitzer Scandal
    Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal

    The began on March 10, 2008, when The New York Times reported that Democratic Party New York Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer had patronized a prostitution service called Emperors Club VIP....
  • John F. Kennedy
    John F. Kennedy

    John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States, serving from 1961 until John F....
    's affair with Marilyn Monroe
    Marilyn Monroe

    Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model, and a sex symbol.After spending much of her childhood in foster homes, Monroe began a career as a model, which led to a film contract in 1946....
  • Robert F. Kennedy
    Robert F. Kennedy

    Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also called RFK, was an United States politician. He was United States Attorney General from 1961 to 1964 and a United States Senator from New York from 1965 until his Robert F....
    's affair with Marilyn Monroe
    Marilyn Monroe

    Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model, and a sex symbol.After spending much of her childhood in foster homes, Monroe began a career as a model, which led to a film contract in 1946....
  • John Edwards affair
    John Edwards extramarital affair

    John Edwards, a former United States Senator from North Carolina and Democratic Party presidential candidate, admitted in August 2008 to an extramarital affair, which was initially reported by The National Enquirer, an United States supermarket tabloid newspaper....
Further reading

  • Schmitt, D. P.
    David P. Schmitt

    David P. Schmitt is a personality psychologist who founded the International Sexuality Description Project . The ISDP is the largest-ever cross-cultural research study on Human sexuality and Personality psychology....
    , et al. (2004). Patterns and universals of mate poaching across 53 nations: The effects of sex, culture, and personality on romantically attracting another person's partner. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86, 560-584.
http://www.amazon.com/Dating-Married-Man-Memoirs-Other/dp/1440450048/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1

See also

  • Infidelity
    Infidelity

    Infidelity can be defined as any violation of the mutually agreed-upon rules or boundaries of a relationship, and is a breach of faith in an interpersonal relationship....
  • Adultery
    Adultery

    Adultery is the voluntary sexual intercourse between a marriage and another person who is not his or her spouse, though in many places it is only considered adultery when a married woman has sexual relations with someone who is not her husband and in others it is only considered adultery when a married woman has sexual relations with someon...
  • Courtly love
    Courtly love

    Courtly love was a medieval European conception of nobly and chivalry expressing love and admiration. Generally, courtly love was secret and between members of the nobility....
  • Crime of passion
    Crime of passion

    A crime of passion, in popular usage, refers to a crime in which the perpetrator commits a crime, especially assault or murder, against a spouse or other loved one because of sudden strong impulse such as a jealous Rage or heartbreak rather than as a premeditated crime....
  • Extramarital sex
    Extramarital sex

    Extramarital sex occurs when a Marriage engages in sexual activity with someone other than their marriage partner.Where extramarital sexual relations breach a Sexual_norm it may also be referred to as adultery, fornication, philandary, or infidelity....
  • Emotional affair
    Emotional affair

    An "emotional affair" is an affair, which excludes physical intimacy but includes emotional intimacy. It may also be called an affair of the heart....
  • Political scandal
    Political scandal

    A political scandal is a scandal in which politicians or government officials are accused of engaging in various illegal, political corruption, or unethical practices....
  • Sex scandal
    Sex scandal

    A sex scandal is a scandal involving allegations or information about sexual activities being made public. Sex scandals are often associated with movie stars, politicians, or others in the public eye, and become scandals largely because of the prominence of the person involved and/or non-sexual norm nature of the sexuality....
  • Scandals
  • Family therapy
    Family therapy

    Family therapy, also referred to as couple and family therapy and family systems therapy, is a branch of psychotherapy that works with family and couples in intimate relationships to nurture change and development....


External links