Kissing ... and Telling

Hello. This will be an unusual Gene Pool. It will be devoted almost completely to the sticky issues of sexual betrayal, the right to connubial privacy, allegations of buttinsky stickybeak busybodyism, responsibilities of friendship, and matters of fidelity in marriage and of romantic discretion.

We are going to begin with a deceptively simple poll. Here comes today’s Gene Pool Gene Poll.

(Because of a peculiarity in Substack’s polling system, you are only able to see the results of the poll you are voting in. This is unfair to you, and may cause you to consider breaking our rules, which would invalidate the results. So I promise that from time to time during this newsletter and chat, I will let readers know how each gender is voting.)

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We encourage you to send in real-time questions and observations about this poll, which I will try to respond to in real time, as a wise old Auntie with just a bit of an attitude. Send your Q’s and O’s here, to this orange button I am calling, just for today, Aunt Mildred.

Please take the poll now before you move on. Unusual stuff is going to happen by and by, and you will want to have voted first.

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This week of Gene Pools actually began Saturday, when we asked an impertinent question, and got an unanticipated array of answers. The question was:

There is a married couple who are your friends. You accidentally see persuasive evidence that one of them is cheating on the other. Both are friends, but you are closer to the cheated-on. Do you inform him / her?

Based on previous reader tiptoeing forays into this subject, we expected a bulge toward “Yes,” but we got this Bell Curve, leaning in an unexpected direction:

Yes, certainly: 10%.
I think so: 35%
I think not: 39%
No: 16%

I urged readers to send in their thoughts about this, and they have, and you will be reading them. Then I asked Tom the Butcher — who suggested today’s poll — how he would have voted in the cheating poll, and he said he was leaning toward “I think not,” but he was conflicted about it. I asked why. And he said he could imagine scenarios where he felt he would feel morally obliged to tell the cheated-on friend. And I challenged him to propose one, and it took him a while. He finally solemnly coughed up this doozy:

“Ok here it is: Your best friend has been with a woman for five years, and now they are thinking of buying a house together. You KNOW he believes strongly in monogamous relationships. You KNOW he wants a life partner. You also KNOW that his SO is cheating flagrantly and almost everyone knows but him.”

I nodded sagely. Yes, I said, that MIGHT qualify, but I would require all three elements: house, fervent belief in monogamy, partner’s flagrancy. I might even require a fourth, such as that one of those flagrant dalliances was with Donald Trump.

This is where things are going to get a little unusual. I am going to state my thoughts right here, up front, before responding to your thoughts. I’m doing that because I want you to take the best shots at me that you can. Dismantle my thinking.

The fact is, I would not butt in to another relationship under most any circumstance, particularly this one. I’d elaborate fully here, but fortunately a reader has already done so as well as I could, and earlier. I do not know who he or she is, but the response came in over the weekend. I agree with every every syllable, every jot and tittle and schwa:

Q: If you see evidence someone is cheating, do not tell their significant other and never admit that you saw anything. I have seen this situation too many times, and it has ended friendships and estranged family members. Many times upon receiving this news, someone's reaction is to shoot the messenger because it's easier than accepting that the person you love has publicly betrayed you. In some situations, the person is already aware the other party is most likely cheating, but they have been choosing to ignore this fact to maintain the status quo. In this situation, they will not appreciate you making the situation *real* by putting forth your allegations. Some people have open marriages or other arrangements that they don't necessarily want everyone else to know about, so they will not be happy to hear that you do, in fact, know about it. Mind your own business! You don't need to make yourself the morality police for cheaters.  And for heaven's sake, if the other person finds out on their own that their SO is a cheater, never, ever, ever admit you knew anything because they are now filled to the brim with rage that is longing to be redirected at anyone dumb enough to put themselves in the crosshairs! 

A: Indeed. I would add, in a calm and reasoned manner, what the effing business is it of yours, anyway?

Yes, yes, I know. There are other considerations. The floor is yours, people.

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This was a terrible week for people who love our country, because of harrowing news news about how Donald Trump is winning important court rulings and appears to be winning the race for president against Joe Biden, at least according to a terrifying new poll conducted by the no less than New York Times. Much liberal hand-wringing and pearl-clutching and panic-mode electoral strategy advocacy has ensued.

There is a big but, though, and it is not Donald’s.

A growing wave of prominent data analysts — not prominent soothing deniers of painful truths — believe that the Times poll was patently full of crap, and some are presenting convincing rebuttals, the best of which is this one, by Substack author Jay Kuo. Kuo is a fabulous polymath: a two-time tony winning producer, composer, writer and lyricist of the hit musical Hadestown, which retells the story of Eurydice and Orpheus — and an appellate lawyer who is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, and who argued the successful appeal of the retrograde, insidious “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Kuo raises some very interesting points. You should read it.

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Okay, this has been a bit harrowing. Want something cool and cuddly?

I lifted this marvelous thing from Catherine Rampell’s Twitter feed. Take a moment. Consider the amazing package of intelligence and talent and grace and grandeur that was Sugar Ray Robinson. And this wasn’t even his day job.

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Back to pure horror. Check out this story of a medical mishap. It is almost inconceivable.

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Here comes the famed real-time portion of the Gene Pool, in which I take your questions and observations, and answer them in real time. Today, the Q’s and O’s are either about the cheating friend, today’s poll on sharing your sex stories, or the second question I asked on the Weekend Pool: What is something odd or desperate you tried as a dieting tool, and how did that work out for you? I am still Auntie Mildred. You can reach me here:

Q: About your question concerning "cheating": A Google search for "caught my husband cheating" yielded 415,000 results. A search for "caught my wife cheating" got 1,810,000 results.

What does this mean?  Do more women cheat? Or men are better at both hiding their affairs and detecting their wives' infidelity?

A: My Google search mostly duplicated your numbers.  This is puzzling to me, and poses an interesting challenge in logics and heuristics.  

I do not believe women cheat more, and research backs this up. Men cheat more than women. The General Social Survey, one of the most influential studies in social sciences, found that, in 2018 and 2019, twenty percent of men admitted to having sex with someone other than their spouse while they were married, compared to thirteen percent of women. I also doubt women are more easily caught. I would imagine they are less easily caught. I believe they are smarter and wilier than men.

So, WTF?  The discrepancy must be some glitch in the reporting.   Anyone have any ideas?  Take a flyer at this.

Yes, I used the term “heuristics,” just like a stuffy academic. I have always wanted to. I hope I used it correctly.

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Alert: Conversions to “paid” are increasing for The Gene Pool. We don’t know why, other than that some disturbance in the zeitgeist is persuading people that full immersion is indispensable. Are you ready to drown, too?

TIMELY TIP: If you’re reading this on an email: Go back to the top of this post and click on "View in browser" to see the full column live and online, and to read and make comments.  If you are doing it in real time, refresh from time to time to see the new questions and answers that appear as Gene regularly updates the post.

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Q: In your poll, why don’t you always give full sentences a period at the end?

A: Because the Substack chatware only allows a certain number of characters in the answers, and if I run out of space for one period, I need to eliminate the period for all of them.  Consistency and all that.

Didn’t expect there’d be an answer, did you?

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Q: I think whether you out the cheater depends on the couple. But I would have to think very hard about it—messing with anyone’s relationship is fraught. The cheat-ee may know already or at least have an inkling and be trying to figure out what, if anything, to do about it. Knowing that others know might be humiliating and unhelpful. Forcing the cheater to confess might solve that, but might force the issue before the cheat-ee has had a chance to ensure financial security and plot an escape. 

A: Ah, yes.  Forcing the cheater to confess under threat – if cheater doesn’t within a certain period of time, informer will notify the spouse – many people suggested some variation of that.   I would call that pure and simple extortion, and a sleazy, hostile, meddlesome, shitbaggy thing to do.

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Q: Regarding your poll today- I don’t discuss such details about my partner and our intimacies because we are and old married couple and most people don’t want to hear about it. I’m sure there a website(s) dedicated to old couple porn but I don’t want to see that either!

A: Noted. And thank you.

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Q: Re: 'Cheater' Gene Poll- I went with "I think so," which best covers what I think I'd do. I might approach [cheated-on] with something like, "What's up with [cheater]?" I see them with [homewrecker] a lot, lately." So, not exactly telling on [cheater] but offering up a sounding board. In many cases like this, the cheated-on party may not be as completely in the dark as all that, maybe just picking up bad vibes or plain unwillingness to believe. Or so I've heard,  or something....

A: Sigh. To me, this is a step worse than a direct conversation with cheated-on.  It’s slimier.  Not as slimy as an anonymous letter, which I am glad no one has yet suggested, but slimy. 

Q: I’ve struggled with my weight most of my life probably starting as early as age 5. In 10th grade, I went for a desperation effort and got on the Scarsdale Diet which was popular at the time. I lost 85 pounds and got to my lowest weight as an adult before the end of high school at age 18. 

Years later, I found a copy of The Scarsdale Diet by the late Dr. Herman Tarnower who was murdered by Jean Harris. In reading it again, I was stunned that I had survived the extreme nature of the program. Concisely, it is high-protein, low-fat and low-carb. Unlike Atkins, that low-fat part means you can only tolerate the diet for about two weeks and then you must ease off for two weeks on a weight-loss maintenance diet to recover. 

The theory was that the human body has difficulty storing protein, so high-protein sources fill you up, but let you slim down. 

High-protein diets were notorious for causing stone formation too. 

What part of this is funny?  The diet contained some things later diets rejected. 

One could have unlimited celery and carrots for snacks. Carrots are high glycemic index item. Diet soft drinks were emphasized whereas now artificially sweetened beverages as cited as not satisfying cravings and leading to overeating as compensation. The very little bread one gets must be high-protein bread which gets its protein boost from extra gluten which is  considered dietary plutonium now. 

A: I’ve never put much stock in what recommendations result when science and nutrition intersect.  It tends to be trendy and momentary – advice that proves to be wrong, then is revised into something that’s wrong again, and re-revised….    Turns out dietary cholesterol has no relationship to blood cholesterol.  Juicing used to be good, now it’s bad.   Red wine is more health-beneficial than beer; consider how heart-healthy the French are!  Oh, wait.  Maybe it’s not.  The Japanese are even heart healthier, and they’re beer habitues.  Never mind.  Cut out spicy foods and cut down stress to cure stomach ulcers!  Oh, wait, hahaha, turns out it’s a microbe that you can exterminate and you’re fine.   

My favorite science-advice cycle of lies and corrections isn’t about food.  It’s about in what position to put your infant to sleep.   On her back! On her belly!  On her side.  Yes, definitely on her side.  Wait…

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Q:  There is no “View in Browser” at the top of the emailed Gene Pool.   

A: Has anyone else had this issue?  Look way up top, to the right.  First thing on the page. 

Q: It happened. I was much better friends with the victim. I did tell her I saw her husband eating out with a woman. There were no other details to tell. She must have had some suspicion as that is all I had to say. They divorced. He married the other woman; and later another woman. She has thanked me over the years for my revelation. Jacksie  

A: This was pulled from the weekend “Comments.” 

I’m glad it worked out, Jacksie.  Surely, it sometimes does, and clearly, you did good here.  But I do have to say, your decision to butt in, albeit gently, was teetering on rickety pedestal.  You saw only a couple having a meal?  On that ‘evidence” you ratted him out, even obliquely, as a potential infidel?  You must have seemed a bit catty, dropping that reference.

I have lunch with Pat every few weeks, you know.   Nothing untoward occurs! Would you have ratted me out?

I will say I am glad you included the word “with” after the word “out” in your post.  

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Q: I (male) have been involved in consensual polyamorous relationships for many years, with a variety of partners and transparency among all concerned. I am acquainted with other men in similar situations, and even share partners with some of them. *Even in that case*, we do not discuss specific details of encounters. Your polls may indicate that this is a guy thing, but it really is not my place to discuss details of a situation that involves someone else without that partner’s explicit consent – and that ethic seems to prevail among the men in the group. The women? We don’t know, but that’s probably why you have a poll…

A: Okay, first report back from the polls.

12 percent of women have said they do discuss their sex lives

23 percent said only with close friends

65 said no, that it’s a betrayal.

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Men: 3 percent, ten percent, 87 percent.

A SIGNIFICANT STATISTICAL DIFFERENCE, I think. About 160 people have voted so far.

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Q: On cheating spouses: I've had this issue in the past and when I told the cheatee that the cheater was cheating, we stopped being friends. Cheatee didn't believe it was happening and thought I was a terrible friend. She eventually found out the truth but the friendship was over - we ran into each other a few years later, after her divorce, and we caught up, but didn't contact each other after that.

I have also not told the cheatee about the cheater, but made it possible for the cheatee to catch the cheater in the act. "We should try the restaurant at that hotel - I hear the steak is really good." Led to "Hey, isn't that your husband checking into the hotel? Who is that with him?" Cruel way to find out your husband is taking his secretary to a hotel in the middle of the day, but we were still friends after.

A: Wow. You are a very very ardent recidivist informant.

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Q: This is not part of today's topic.  Recently, when I was in the gym, I happened to glance at a television showing an interview of RFK, Jr. on CNN.  Almost immediately I noticed something very strange:  the frequency with which RFK, JR. was blinking.  The contrast in the blink rate between the interviewer and RFK, Jr. is remarkable.  I've read some articles that say that a high eye blink rate can in some circumstances indicate that the speaker is being deceptive.  Here’s A link to the video is below.  I'm interested in your reaction.

A: He’s definitely on the blink. But he’s doing it throughout, not just as he is starting to answer.   Hey, remember that half-eye rapid blink some people used to do when talking to you? 

Leal and Vrij (2008) examined blink rates in liars and truth tellers during and after verbal recall of events and found that liars showed a decrease in blink rate during deception as compared with a baseline period and an increase in blink rate in the period following the telling of the lie.    Lying takes concentration, so with their   That’s right. Telling a lie takes a lot of concentration, which means your brain pays less attention to closing your eyelids and refreshing your eyeballs to focus on spinning the fib.

Liars then usually blink a lot after they’ve completed their yarn, to refresh their eyes after that intense period – and studies have backed this up.

Hey whatever happened to that thing where people used to half close-flutter their eyes when talking to you?  Haven’t seen it lately.

Q: Per the first answer to which you ascribe fealty, I could have written that about not very close friends. MYOB. But as Mr. Butcher notes, when you have certain knowledge of the inside feelings, religious or spiritual needs, attitudes of the couple, and you truly love them as friends, I feel a stronger call to ASK QUESTIONS of victim. Feeling out if the answer is important to the cheated upon person. And be sure of your info. Thus see if the input would be welcome. — Lynne Larkin

A: This is a middle ground I can embrace, Lynne.

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Q: I was on my college crew (rowing team).  I was a coxswain (the little guy who steers and calls out commands).  The point is to be as light as possible, so as not to be a drag on the boat.  Our arch-rival was Harvard, and so in addition to starving myself in general (about 500 calories a day in season), every Thursday (the only day of the week with an H in its name) I ate nothing at all.  Nothing with any nutritive value.  I turned into a bag of bones that was lightheaded a fair amount of the time, much to the consternation of classmates and dorm-mates (who could see my emaciated frame as I walked down the hall to the shower, wearing a towel).  But that year was an annus mirabilis for us, so . . . worth it!   

A: It was probably an anus mirabilis for you, too.  Employed very lightly – like it was on vacation.

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This is Gene. I need to point out that I have just received a correspondence from Tom The Butcher, who is a golfer, saying that I should point out that even though Trump is a Flabbo Fatbottom, that is a textbook picture-perfect end to his golf swing.

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Q: Since nostalgia these days apparently includes what happened last week, looking back over the first year of TGP, what has been most satisfying (apart from forcibly removing 50 bucks from the normally iron grip of subscribers) and least for you and Pat ? What improvements can we expect to make The Gene Pool Experience even more unimaginably exciting in the future (and for how much ?)A: Calling it in, making mistakes, accidentally repeating lines …. You know ,the basics. 

A: Actually, the most gratifying thing is that we are still here and making a little money.  I emphasize a little, but we aren’t doing this for free: It pays some bills.  I hate to keep begging for paid subscriptions – I would be a lousy street mendicant or sales person – but how long we can continue to do this is dependent on financial growth, which has been steady but slow.  

 But beyond that, the big deal for us is that we were able to save the Invitational after the Post idiotically killed it.  (They did a lot of idiotic things in a panic a year ago, but that was the least comprehensible.)

What’s in store for the Gene Pool?    Gonna be doing a little more column-type writing, I think – funny interviews on oddball topics, but stay contemporary and political.  And I’m working on a new feature that I can’t talk about yet, because I’m not sure it’s going to happen yet.

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Q: I would not approach the apparently cheated-on friend, I would approach the apparently cheating friend. Your poll seems to assume I know my friends' relationship agreements, which night be true... But please be wary of assuming people are monogamous if they haven't told you so!

A: And if the cheating friend tells you it is open, but not talked about… then what?  Do you believe him/her?  Do you then contrive to mention this to the cheated-on friend, and REALLY possibly insert yourself into a mess?  What, exactly has your intervention accomplished?  Why is this any of your business?

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Q: Let me ask this followup question. For someone to have been cheated on in a relationship and reconciled, is it cheating to maintain friends, or even keep nonsexual connections with interests that may serve as a hedge if the same thing happens again?

A:  That is a complicated question.   I think a relationship requires trust, even after a betrayal. But this is happening inside the brain, and in there, anything goes.   I do want to restate something: long term relationships require commitment, honesty, and consideration.  They do not imply ownership.  

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Okay, we’re done. The final percentages for the polls remains the same, after 230 votes are in. Ladies are significantly more likely to talk about their sex lives, though both genders feel, by large percentage, that it is a betrayal of their partner.

PLEASE keep sending in questions / observations. The Thursday Gene Pool will be fully of them, voluminously responded to.

Before I go, I am gonna give you a gift. One of the coolest commercials I have seen in a long time. It’s a hoot.

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And lastly. If you are in a position to help us out, please do. We can use the encouragement.