Cybersex as having the pleasure of a stolen cookie

Below I'm going to give a quote from one of the funniest guys writing novels today. It's not his funniest work, but there is a point to it.

In the debate about "Is cybersex cheating?", there seem to be two ends of the debate.

The "Yes, it's cheating," people argue in favor of perfect intimacy. If you reveal all your secrets and fantasies to your partner, you will have a perfect relationship and you will be able to experience all your fantasies within your monogamous relationship.

The "No, it's not cheating, at least not cheating with a capital 'C'," people argue that real relationships don't actually work the way the "yes, it's cheating," crowd pretend they work. Sometimes you want to do something that's nasty with someone other than your partner.

OK. To set up the quote, the book is Practical Demonkeeping by Christopher Moore (official site).


While the book is not set in a specific year, it was published in 1992, so it's set in the late 1980s (approximately).

Two characters Effrom and Amanda met during World War I (1914-18) and have been married roughly 70 years (retired 25 years). Effrom has experienced declining abilities. He no longer drives, but continues to have two vices.

Effrom watches an exercise program, "Since he had discovered his exercise program, the women in his dreams all wore iridescent tights." And he surreptitiously smokes in his workshop.

Later in the story, Amanda is in a hurry to return to see Effrom, who has been taken hostage by Catch, the demon. It makes sense if you read the story.

[Amanda] drove five miles per hour over the speed limit, changing lanes aggressively, and checking her mirrors for highway patrol cars. She was an old woman, but she refused to drive like one.

She made the hundred miles to Pine Cove in just over an hour and a half. Effrom would be in his workshop now, working on his wood carvings and smoking cigarettes. She wasn't supposed to know about the cigarettes any more than she was supposed to know that Effrom spent every morning watching the women's exercise show. Men have to have their secret lives and forbidden pleasures, real or perceived. Cookies snitched from the jar are always sweeter than those served on a plate, and nothing evokes the prurient like puritanism. Amanda played her role for Effrom staying on his tail, keeping him alert to the possibility of discovery, but never quite catching him in the act.

Today she would pull in the driveway and rev the engine, take a long time getting into the house to make sure that Effrom heard her comign so he could take a shot of breath spray to cover the smell of tobacco on his breath. Didn't it occur to the old fart that she was the one who bought the breath spray and brought it home with the groceries each week? Silly old man.

With the caveat it's just fiction, it's something for the "perfect intimacy" crowd to think about.

BTW, Christopher Moore has a graphic novel coming out, The Griff.