I'd be interested to see a photo of Philip Weiss as an accompaniment to his 'roving eye' piece. If, in fact, he is a well kept and attractive 52 year old man, than I am sincerely shocked that he hasn't been approached by good looking women offering up their 'strange'. What I find devastatingly funny in pieces such as this is the fact that men seem to believe that if they lose hair, gain paunch, and forget the witty, social graces necessary to build sexual tension that young, nubile things will still find them attractive. Bottom line: people can and do cheat for reasons not likely to be chipped beyond the tip of the iceberg here on Slate. But for god's sake, both sexes need to keep themselves attractive in marriage or long term relationships! If you are an attractive man or woman, you will be approached by people ready to enact your fantasies. The unreality is when people so often let themselves go in marriage, they forget that while their husband/wife at least by connubial law has to pretty much deal with it, the rest of society focuses it's energy on people who do take care of themselves. People need to make sure that they continue to be coveted by the opposite sex. Boil it down to Darwinism, if you will.

"But for god's sake, both sexes need to keep themselves attractive in marriage or long term relationships!"

Says you, this is your opinion. For me, being in a long-term relationship means a relief from putting on make-up every time I see my SO, he knows what I look like without it anyway. In return, I don't mind if he puts on a few pounds. He's attractive to me for far more reasons that just the physical.

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Far left.

He's the best-looking one in this photo, but maybe he just hangs out with the right kind of friends.

"For me, being in a long-term relationship means a relief from putting on make-up every time I see my SO, he knows what I look like without it anyway. In return, I don't mind if he puts on a few pounds."

Hard for me to respond to this without sounding cruel but you shure do seem to be taking your husband for granted. If you can't be bothered to put in some effort then I wouldn't be surprised if his eye began to wander....

Not putting on makeup = taking your husband for granted?

Maybe this just confuses me since I don't wear makeup anyways and my boyfriend likes it that way, so it's not like I'd be switching it up on him. Whatevs.

What she said was "relief" of not having to put on makeup and not worrying about adding a few pounds. In other words, she used to put more effort into looking good and now she doens't bother. I'm not saying you should or shouldn't wear makeup, I'm saying that your boyfriend would probably notice is you stopped making an effort to look good and lowered your standard. He should be held to the same standard.