The rules of infidelity from Tokyo to Tennessee by Pamela Druckerman - Essay Example

?Lust in Translation: The rules of infidelity from Tokyo to Tennessee. By Pamela Druckerman. A Critical Review: INTRODUCTION: The day one of adulteryand resultant cheating was when man began hiding his/her genitals. Since secrecy is closely associated with sex for eons, even the present day developments still find it difficult to formulate any rule on sex. Digging out the strictures behind adultery is still more complex with poorly available survey statistics in places like America, Europe, Russia or anywhere else. Pamela Druckerman’s attempt to find out the Rules of adultery all over the globe is the result of a streak she got in her course of journalism, where some foreigners approached her with the motive of a tryst. Although she gave some lengthy lectures to them over their responsibility to their wives, she was puzzled much how her puritanical gestures too were igniting men to date. PURPOSE: Pamela Druckerman who was brought up in American culture where adultery is viewed as a dreadful sin, found that Americans too indulge in extra marital affairs knowing well that a Damocles’ sword is hanging over his head by way of collapsing the marriage. As a result, cheating the affair partner becomes the immediate tool for them to wend with. Druckerman knew that adultery was universal; finding the statistics of 3.6% Americans indulging in adultery, she thought of collecting more information on adultery around the world. In her puritanical backdrop, she assumed it is a global virus. To dig out the hidden rules, she went around the world and interviewed several people both men and women about what they thought of adultery. Throughout her work Druckerman has just collected scores of info on adultery, especially how many times people had affair in a particular year of interview. She had no idea of doing any scientific research and hence she had not formulated any research question and her enthralling journey on the purpose was just to dig out what is the cultural and psychological association adultery had in all the countries. However, there was an inner urge within her that drove her to see if there was any country free from adultery, which she found nil. METHODOLOGY: Mostly middle class urbanites were interviewed by Druckerman. She met them at their exit of hotel rooms after their tryst hours of 5.00 to 7.00. She also interviewed some old women aged above 60 in their homes and collected information on their experience of adultery and their experience of facing adultery. She employed a chat like discourse with the people and elicited info. Probably she had selected this class of urbanites hoping to acquire a free flow of their thoughts. She had conducted an extensive tour to many countries like China, Dutch, Indonesia, Nigeria, Finland, Australia, Switzerland, Italy, Togo, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Mozambique and Tanzania. France and Russia are the most talked of countries. FINDINGS: Pamela Druckerman in her book on ‘Lust in Translation: The rules of infidelity from Tokyo to Tennessee has attempted to find out the pattern of adultery all over the world. She had in fact found a common thread all over the world that adultery every where goes along with cheating. It was this cheating that was viewed seriously in almost all the countries she felt. The fact of adultery was found to be borne with in countries like France and Japan. She found an undertone in men of all countries that every man wished to present his good self and divulged the circumstantial contexts as tools of excuses. Cheating was also one among the tool to confide their act against their own consciousness. CONCLUSION: Pamela Druckerman’s quest to understand the ‘cultural scripts’ behind physical and emotional intimacy usually experienced in sex is understandable. Selection of adultery as the vehicle for her voyage to understand the cultural script is a bit strange. Although war is globally accepted can we find a country that gives legal permission for murder? Druckermans thirst to find a nation without adultery is akin to the above said example. As long as sex is the secret part of human life, adultery would co-exist. However, her attempt to fix the impact of cheating – the byproduct of adultery – is laudable. Her finding of infidelity on Sub-Saharan Africa, she writes: in south Africa even the AIDS educator at a Cape Town metal company told me that of course he had a girlfriend as well as a wife. And so the dubious title of infidelity goes to a region: sub- Saharan Africa. And with ordinary citizens cheating at astonishing levels, one can only imagine what African politicians are up to. Surely they put even French presidents to the shame. Infidelity, a subject revolving around cheating has nothing to do with AIDS education. I am not able to get what Pamela tries to put up on this depiction. Adultery is a psychological urge or imbalance in every man and woman influenced by socio-economic and cultural settings. Since sex is the major component of adultery, biological and hormonal facets are prominently surfacing in its manifestation. AIDS education deals only with the impact of multi-partner relationship, that too the physiological implications. Her way of comparing an ordinary citizen with the State Heads is also not understandable. Her findings that wealthy countries are found to have lesser number of adultery percentage is contradicted with this comparison. Her expectation that no man in any country was found to be frank in admitting his indulgence of adultery seems to be quite over expectation. To substantiate her expectation, she ropes in Chinese attitude towards adultery, where Chinese adulterers admire of their spouses to their affaire partners. Here, it seems Druckerman talks of cheating the affaire partner alone. But in effect every adulterer cheats his spouse which is equal to cheating his own consciousness. This too is depicted only with male adulterers. Thus she is unable to find a general course of attitude towards adultery related cheating. Druckerman’s ascription of free divorce in America to the surge of adultery may be purely America-specific. There are countries in the world where adultery is viewed as serious as in America. In countries like India, where even bigamy is illegal, adultery is denounced culturally. Although there is no stringent law against adultery in those countries, adulterers acquire ignominious look irrespective of their wealth and status. The way Druckerman had conducted personal interviews have given her with enormous statistics of number of adultery attempts in various countries. Although her approach was chiefly focused towards the emotional aspect of adultery and cheating, the results of interview responses were insufficient to arrive at a clear cut conclusion on the cultural state of adultery. Had she obtained responses through questionnaires, attempting to elicit facts like number of quarrels with spouses and its frequency, number of affaire partners in a short spell of one month, amount spent on tryst occasions, occasions of embarrassment with kids during quarrel with spouse will throw more light on the plight of adultery on individual cases and reflect the cultural recognition or admonition of adultery. Pamela Druckerman’s endeavor on a subject which even a staunch feminist would hesitate to work on is generally commendable barring a few differences. =end= Read More