How to commit adultery (do it like animals)

In an MSN.com article today, Jardine Libaire explains that Americans need to essentially get over their problems with marital infidelity, and rather learn to embrace the experience, as other cultures do. She asks,

Why is the fallout here so brutal? In most other countries, an occasional affair is tolerated and even sanctioned (at least for men). Why do we Americans want to get caught, confess, cry?

She then compares us to animals, and looks at their rate of marital fidelity, explaining that they don't let their lives fall apart because of "infidelity". Then she goes on to tell the story of a man named Tiraq, who is from a different culture. Of Tiraq, she says,

he has maintained a relationship for eight years with a strong, professional woman he loves and respects—and he cheats on her all the time. "It bears no reflection on her," he assures me, and when I search his face, he looks guileless, earnest.

Furthermore, she glamourizes the unfaithful extramarital actions by telling a story of how it can be essentially consequence-free and exciting:

They flirted unapologetically throughout the evening. When she invited people to her place for late-night drinks, Henri stayed. Before they even kissed, he held up his finger. "You see I'm wearing this ring," he said. Anna said she did. "You know nothing will change," he continued. She answered that she did know that. "It was adult," Anna says. "It was respectful to me, in a way, and to his wife, to ask that, and to make that statement. The next morning, he was sweet and open. We hung out for hours. He didn't run in shame." Henri is the fairy-tale adulterer: European, sensual, guiltless.

My Response:
We will live in a state of delusion if we think that marital affairs carry no consequences. Getting married is to enter into a covenant with another person that expresses that this person will be the one and only person you are devoted to until death. Sex is a physical act of bonding with another person and is meant to reflect a much deeper connection than simply being physical. To diminish sex to simply a physical act of enjoying someone else's body, with full intentions of staying married to and loving someone else, is to reduce that person's body to nothing more than an object.

Regarding her view on animals as examples, how can someone who believes God created man in His image look to animals for moral codes, and how can someone who believes in evolution look to animals to learn how humans should structure their moral codes? There is no good reason why we should turn to animals to learn our ethics. Furthermore, how can animals have a "marital fidelity rate" at all, when they don't "get married"? Animals do not make commitments, nor do they have a concept of commitment. Their communication is primarily for survival and mating, not "relationship building." They don't share their deepest dreams and desires with each other.

In the end, people are always looking for ways to justify what they've done when they know they've done wrong. There is danger in telling people to go on and have affairs, and just enjoy it, and to have "open relationships" in their marriage. It's a selfish, hedonistic way of living, and in the end, people will get hurt.

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