Good Adultery, Bad Adultery: Difference between revisions

 

Adultery, good or bad, is [[Not to Be Confused With]] [[Polyamory|open relationships]] where the partners [[Ethical Slut|are honest with each other and not in an abusive way]].

 

'''Some sure-fire signs that someone is a 'good' adulterer:'''

* A couple still love each other but they are going through a rough spot, or they are 'on a break'. However the original relationship is not ''over'' over, so it's still portrayed as a kind of infidelity. Obviously this has a tendency to make the situation worse. Loneliness is often a huge factor in the cheater's motivations.

* The cheating is [[Coming Out Story|with a member of the same sex]].

 

'''Signs that a person is a 'bad' adulterer:'''

* When the cheated-upon character is dealing with heavy stress brought about because of the marriage, and the affair further aggravates it.

* The cheating in general is meant to provoke discomfort in the form of sexual jealousy in the audience—see [[Netorare Genre]].

 

See also [[The Unfair Sex]], where the distinction seems to fall across the [[Double Standard|Gender line]] (but may also use the above to justify it).

 

A lot of this probably stems from the fact that adultery in [[Real Life]] is complex and difficult; while people cheat for many reasons (some understandable and sympathetic, others less so), it's still considered a betrayal of the other partner in the relationship. In fiction, however, the adulterer is often treated as either Good or Bad—there's rarely much grey in-between.

 

{{examples}}

* In ''[[Chobits]]'', Hideki's cram school teacher is discovered having an affair with Hideki's best friend Shimbo. When Hideki realises the implications that she's cheating on her husband, he immediately starts calling Shimbo a wife-stealing pig...until it's revealed that her marriage is completely devoid of any emotion, as, shortly after they married, Ms Shimizu's husband bought a persocom and fell in love with it, completely forgetting about her. It got to the point that she couldn't get into her house anymore because he'd put the chain on the door, showing that he'd ''forgotten she was even coming home.'' Under these circumstances, it's understandable as to why she'd have an affair, and since Japan does not have a good attitude toward divorce she might not have thought she could just divorce the guy, especially if the marriage was not arranged and they married ostensibly for love. And [[Contractual Purity|as a teacher she has to appear morally beyond reproach]].

* Lampshaded in ''[[Planetes]]''. Goro Hoshino is [[Married to the Job|all but married to ''space'']], and spends ''years'' away from Earth. His wife very pointedly mentions how he's extremely lucky to have her, because she ''should'' have gotten into an affair by now, and anyone else ''would'' have. Goro himself agrees.

 

 

** Mamoru cheating on Usagi is also almost universally used as a way to show what a horrible person he is, making it a case of bad adultery. If he's not sleeping with Rei, it's Setsuna, An, or whomever else the author can twist to Make Usagi fall totally for Seiya, Haruka, or Demand, making it good adultery.

 

 

** The pilot episode contains both kinds. The victim's affair is considered unsympathetic when it's with an oversexed French model. However it's later portrayed very sympathetically when it's revealed he was never having an affair with the model at all, but with his unglamorous housekeeper with a crazily jealous husband.

* ''[[Blackpool]]'' features both. Ripley's affairs are casual sex, while Natalie's is about love. {{spoiler|Ripley eventually tells her to go be with the man she loves. But who can compete with [[Doctor Who|The Doctor]]?}}

** That was the later seasons. In earlier seasons Trapper John, Henry, and Frank all have continuous, ongoing affairs and feel no remorse.

* ''Goodnight Sweetheart''. Gary Sparrow, the [[Time Travel|time traveling]] hero was in a relationship (and later marriage) with two different women in two different time periods (the 1940's and the 1990's). While the series treated the affair itself as wrong, Gary personally was always portrayed very sympathetically as a man impossibly caught between two women he loved and as feeling very guilty for doing so.

* Used on ''[[Friends]]'', where Ross sleeps with another woman not only because Rachel says that they should <s>put their relationship on hold</s> take a break, but because he believes that she is sleeping with Mark. The episode after they split for real shows that while they don't necessarily agree with Ross, the other characters understand where he is coming from. Also used with Rachel herself. While she at first seemed to have the same mindset as the others, she ended up going the rest of the series run without admitting fault. Considering how "We were on a break" was one of the show's [[Running Gag]]s, it wasn't as though she didn't have the opportunity to rethink her position.

* ''[[Jericho]]'' has Eric Green, the protagonist's brother and aide to his Mayor-father, and all round swell guy. He's quickly shown to be cheating on his wife with the local Bar owner. Yet he is not portrayed as a soulless monster and when confronted points out how his marriage is basically winding down, and how he has genuine feelings for his new lady. {{spoiler|Even when his wife becomes pregnant, and then later suffers from an acute case of [[Death by Childbirth]], he is still shown as a good man who just made a bit of a cockup of the whole situation.}}