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15 Colum. J. Gender & L. 274 (2006)
New Politics of Adultery, The

handle is hein.journals/coljgl15 and id is 276 raw text is: THE NEW POLITICS OF ADULTERY BRENDA COSSMAN* Adultery is nothing new. Nor are social sanctions against it. But there is something new in the contemporary cultural politics of adultery, which begins with an ever-expanding definition of infidelity. Once restricted to natural heterosexual intercourse, infidelity now extends to a variety of sexual practices.' Indeed, these days, infidelity can occur without sexual contact at all. Computer sex, telephone sex, and email flirtations are all included within the ambit of adulterous relationships that violate the marital relationship. As the definition of infidelity expands, so do its practitioners. In several recent exposes of the new infidelity, women have increasingly been shown to be equal opportunity cheaters. This expansion of infidelity and infidels has produced a new crisis of adultery; a virtual adultery epidemic has swept the nation. Crises, in turn, require intervention. The epidemic has produced a new emphasis on both prevention and treatment. The first line of protection against adultery is a prevention strategy, based on identifying and minimizing risks. This approach involves a politics of self-discipline, of individuals recognizing and taking responsibility for managing the risks to their relationships.2 * Professor of Law, University of Toronto. Thanks to BJ Wray for her research assistance. 1 See, e.g., Bonura v. Bonura, 505 So. 2d 143, 145 (La. Ct. App. 1987) (holding that a woman who had not had intercourse had committed adultery); S.B. v. S.J.B., 609 A.2d. 124, 126 (N.J. Super. Ct. Ch. Div. 1992) (holding that lesbian sex constituted adultery). See also Karen Peterson, Infidelity Reaches Beyond Having Sex, USA Today, Aug. 1, 2003, at 8D, available at http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-01-08-workplace-usat x.htm, in which infidelity expert Shirley Glass states that affairs do not have to include sex. 2 Intimacy theorists suggest that, as family life and intimacy come to be associated with more risk and fragility, more care needs to be placed on promoting responsibility within these relationships. See generally ANTHONY GIDDENS, THE TRANSFORMATION OF INTIMACY (1992). This increasing emphasis on responsibility is part of a more general shift in governance towards self-discipline and governance of oneself. See, e.g., MITCHELL M. DEAN, GOVERNMENTALITY: POWER AND RULE IN MODERN SOCIErY (1999); Michel Foucault, Technologies of the Self, in TECHNOLOGIES OF THE SELF: A SEMINAR WITH MICHEL FOUCAULT 16-49 (Luther H. Martin et al. eds., 1988); Michel Foucault, Governmentality, in THE FOUCAULT EFFECT: STUDIES IN GOVERNMENTALITY 87-104 (Graham Burchell et al. eds., 199 1); ALAN HUNT, GOVERNING MORALS: A SOCIAL HISTORY OF MORAL REGULATION (1999); NIKOLAS ROSE, INVENTING OUR SELVES: PSYCHOLOGY, POWER AND PERSONHOOD (1996). As Rose argues,

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