Swingers in Sweden part II

A Swedish researcher has studied the Swedish swinging community. He wanted to find out who they are, what they do, how many they are and how they practice safe sex. His study is based on general material on swinging which he has discussed with actual Swedish swingers to get their point of view.

The swingers explain that most people in Sweden in the beginning participates as just voyeurs. They watch the activities of others. Then they might start having sex in front of others before they actually begin having sex with other people. They also explain that voyeurism and exhibitionism in general is something that is a turn on for most swingers.

The Swedish swingers also explains that different people have different rules. Some only want to kiss, do petting or oral sex and some go all the way to penetrative sex. The rules can be different depending on with whom you have sex. In some cases it is agreed to have penetrative sex and in some cases not. The couples are very open about this and discuss it with potential partners.

Types of sex

Swingers perform swapping where they have sex with each other’s partners either in the same room or in different rooms. Many also participates in threesomes with two men and one woman or one woman and two men. Group sex is also common but is often between people who know each other already and who have been in the community for some time. Bi-sexual activities among women is also very common. They also highlights gangbanging as something that in particular some mature women like. A gangbang is an activity were one woman have sex with several men often 5-6 at a time. Some swinger clubs announces that tonight is a gangbang evening in order to attract people who like this.

They stress that everything is agreed upon between the participants. No one is forced to, or exposed to pressure in order to do things they don’t like. You don’t walk in to a swinger club and just have sex with whoever you like. People look at each other; they talk and flirt before they “go in to action”. In some club’s they even develop small signals that you use to tell someone whether you are interested or not. This is a very sophisticated process that involves a lot of communication.

In all swinger club’s they urge people to have safe sex and condoms is often available for free. Most swingers who have many different partners have high attention on safe sex. However, this is consenting adults and obviously, some swingers agrees not to practice safe sex. There are no research in Sweden that can tell us whether swingers have more or less STD’s than the general population.

Profile of Swedish swingers

Swingers in Sweden are what you would call middle class people with a predominance of people with a higher education. The biggest group are people from 35-40 with children, but you find people of all ages in the community. It is difficult to find data on how many swingers there are in Sweden. However, the number is growing and many new clubs have opened in the past 10 years. There a traditional clubs were you meet and have sex, and there are clubs that are more like networks of people without a fixed venue. Of course there are also different websites were people register with a profile and meet liked minded people.

The growth in the number of swingers in Sweden is probably linked to a very (and increasing) liberal view on sex In Sweden. Among high school student’s 24% of girls and 62% of boys say that they are interested in group sex. Most of them are also very open to the concept “friends with benefits”. This means that the more old-fashioned view where sex is closely linked to one partner is degraded and hence the swinging life style moves closer to the main stream.

Source:Jakob Axelsson: Swingers, en riskgrupp for HIV/STI?

Sex, Jealousy, men, and women

Jealousy occurs when you feel a valued relationship is threatened. In an evolutionary perspective, jealousy function as a way to motivate people to fight of threats against their relationships. Men feel a stronger sexual jealousy than women do. The reason in an evolutionary perspective is that female infidelity and hence the risk that other men impregnates their partner reduces the man’s possibility to reproduce himself. For women the strength of the feeling of sexual jealousy is dependent of the risk she feels there is that it will make her lose her partner to another woman. The sex itself don’t have the same importance as for men.

Strong feeling

Sexual jealousy is a very strong feeling. It can lead to loss of self-esteem, feelings of sadness, depression, rage, embarrassment and humiliation. It is also the primary source for domestic violence and the leading course of the murder of mates or ex-mates. As men react most vividly to sexual jealousy, it is not surprising that they have the most violent reactions.

Infidelity

In many studies, it is documented that men react more to sexual infidelity that women do and than women reacts more to emotional infidelity than men do. These studies also finds that men spend much more cognitive time on sexual infidelity and remember sexual infidelity much more that women do and vice versa for emotional infidelity.

The strength of male jealousy is increased if their rival are conceived as more attractive. That is wealthier, have better job prospects or more physical strength. Women reacts more if a rival surpass them on facial or bodily attractiveness.

Swinging

When a man engages in swinging or the like, he is motivated by his desire for sexual variety and at the same time he is more in control of the situation. This is the reasons that many men don’t feel the same sexual jealousy in these situations. Women on the other hand don’t fear that they will lose their partner to another woman in the swinging context and hence they also feel less sexual jealousy.

Swingers often explain that they are nervous about jealousy before they engage in the lifestyle but that they after experiencing their partner with someone else a few times actually feel liberated from their jealousy and that it make them love their partner even more. Several studies find that for most swinging people sexual jealousy diminishes over time and mutual trust between the partners are strengthened. Swingers communicate a lot about sex and their feelings in general, which make them better able to handle jealousy. Sex with others becomes a natural and fun thing and is not seen as a threat to their relationships. The lack of jealousy among swinging couples make their relationships more open and trusting in general. Some swingers even express that they feel compersion. This is the opposite of jealousy where you feel joy when your partner have sexual or emotional experiences with others.

However, jealousy does occur. Some get jealous if their partner share intimate feelings with others, some if their partners have more sexual encounters with others than themselves, some if their partners kisses someone else, some get jealous if their partner receives gifts. It is dealt with by being open and talking directly about it. Most swingers make rules for their activities, which is a tool to avoid jealousy. In this way, most swingers are able to handle the feeling of jealousy when they do occur.

 

Source:David M. Buss: sexual jealousy, Kourtney Ty Vaillancourt: Reconstructing the Meaning of Fidelity: A Qualitative Inquiry into Swinging Relationships

 

Consensual non monogamy – a stigmatized way of life

For many years, romantic love have been associated with monogamy and people living in different kinds of open marriages are met with suspicion. This is still very much true even though a growing number of people now are living in relationships based on Consensual Non Monogamy (CNM) and more people have an open mind in this area. The most famous couple in a CNM relationship is probably actor Will Smith and his wife. They acknowledged from the beginning of their marriage that they are going to be sexually attracted to others. They both accepts this and they have made the agreement that it is ok to have sex with others as long as you are open about it.

“Our perspective is, you don’t avoid what’s natural. You’re going to be attracted to people, Will Smith”

Today it is estimated that the number of people who say that they live in a CNM relationship equals the number of people that live in a homosexual relationship. However, CNM relationships are still claimed to be unnatural in particular by the church and in general for moral reasons. People in CNM relationships are urged to go in to therapy, their marriages are regarded as failed, they are accused of being bad parents and they are accused of spreading sexually transmitted diseases etc. The CNM relationship is strongly stigmatized. The monogamous relationships are regarded more positively on every dimension compared to the CNM relationship.

Most people feel that the monogamous relationship are more natural, have higher quality, is less lonely, and provides better sex. However, these opinions are in contrast to the fact that people in CNM relationships in surveys reports higher degrees of honesty, closeness, happiness, and communication and in addition lower levels of jealousy than people in monogamous relationships reports.

For some reason there are a lot of myths about people who don’t follow the traditional pattern of the monogamous nuclear family. That goes for both homosexuals and CNM relationships. Even though the number of divorces is rising and the number of people who have been unfaithful is rising most people still cling to the traditional monogamous relationship and are unwillingly to look at other models of life.

Source: Terri D. Conley, Amy C. Moors, Jes L. Matsick, and Ali Ziegler: The Fewer the Merrier?: Assessing Stigma Surrounding Consensually Non-monogamous Romantic Relationships

Sexual selection and mating

Human mating strategies are very diverse and often change over time. Some mating relationships last for only a few hours some for a whole lifetime, some people a very monogamous some are very polyamorous, most of us have changing strategies in different periods of our life depending on our moral beliefs, life-situation, cultural background etc. However, there are some general characteristics of men and women’s mating strategies.

Men want youth, women want money

The selection criteria’s are different across cultures. In many Asian countries, both men and women are supposed to be virgins in order to be a potential marriage partner. In the western world, this is not important even though it is a bit more important to Americans than it is to Europeans – in particular for American women.

However, some criteria’s are universal. Across culture’s women find men’s financial prospects very important for long-term relationships, while men don’t place much importance on women’s financial prospects.

In general, men prefer women who are younger than they are (more fertile), and women prefer men who are older than they are (more resources). This is supported by a study of personal ads. Women who emphasizes their youth and physical attractiveness and men who emphasizes excellent financial resources get more responses.

In another study, they found that men on a date would display their financial resources and at the same time denigrate their rivals by accusing them of lack of ambition and goals in their lives. Women on the other hand will put a lot of effort in to their appearance and talk negatively of their rival’s physical flaws. Again, youth/physical attractiveness and financial resources are important universal selection criteria’s and both sexes seem to know what the other want.

Casual sex

Numerous studies support the fact that men want many sex partners and women want fewer. When asked about how many sex partners you want for a life time men answer in average 18 and women answer 4.5.

In a study that have been replicated many times they investigated how long you wait from you meet a sexually desirable partner until you are ready to have sex with him or her. Men are prepared to have sex much sooner than women are. Almost no women are ready to have sex with someone after knowing them less than a week, where some men are ready to have sex after just an hour. Actually, the number of men ready to have sex after an hour equals the number of women who wants to wait at least a month. This difference is the reason you find so many men “hunting” for seemingly “unwillingly” women in nightclubs. We simply don’t have the same willingness to engage in casual sex. Several studies find that women very often are shamed when they do have casual sex and that this is a major reason for their reluctance to it. Therefore, this might tell us more about our cultural expectations of men and women’s sexuality than it tell us about the difference in our sexual desire.

Another difference between the sexes is that men lower their standards and are prepared to exaggerate the depth of their feelings in order to get casual sex. They also lose interest in the woman shortly after sex. Women conversely increases their standards and want better looking more assertive men when they do engage in casual sex. When women cheat on a partner it is often with someone, whom they believe in the situation  is a better partner than the one they aleady have at home. This often leads to regret when these feelings are not returned by the casual sex partner.

Mate poaching and infidelity

Mate poaching is defined as the attempt to lure someone in a long-term relationship either for casual sex or in to a new relationship. Especially men try to lure married women in to casual sex. This mate poaching strategy obviously increases the risk of infidelity among married couples.

For men sexual infidelity is the most upsetting and damaging type. Many researchers find that this is because it subconciously questions whether the man is actually the father of his children a problem women don’t face. When men believe there is a risk of infidelity they will often display their resources to look more attractive and they may be violent towards rivals. Men with young and/or physical attractive wives tend to react more vigorously in case of suspected infidelity.

For women emotional infidelity is the worst kind. They fear losing his time, resources and commitment. Women react more vigorously when they are married to men in good jobs, with high income and high social status. Women who fear infidelity will enhance their physical appearance and start flirting with other men in order to win back the attention of their husband.

The old rich guy and the young beautiful model

It is obvious that men don’t only chose women on the basis of their looks and women don’t only chose men based on income. But it is clear that these criteria’s are important across cultures and that they affect not only our choice of partner in the first place but also our willingness to fight for the relationship e.g. in the case of infidelity afterwards.

It is also clear thet the criteria’s are different when it comes to casual sex. For men the sex in itself is so appealing that they don’t put much emphasis on the women’s look or personality. The will do or say anything just to get laid. Women on the other hand don’t care so much for the man’s financial status in the case of casual sex. Instead, they increase the standard on looks and behavior quit a lot and often chose the dominating or assertive “bad boy” for sex. The consequence is that men wanting casual sex vastly outnumbers the number of men who women want to join for casual sex.

 

 

Source:David M. Buss: Strategies of Human Mating

 

Breaking news on penis size :-)

In a new paper, scientifically correct measurements of penis size have been collected in order to find out what the average penis looks like once and for all. The researchers measured 15,521 men and all measurements were made by a health professional. Flaccid or erect length was measured on the upper side of the penis from the root (pubo-penile junction) to the tip of the glans (meatus), where the pre-pubic fat pad was pushed to the bone.

The conclusions was as follows:

The average length of the flaccid male penis is 9.16 cm +- 1.57 cm. (7.59 – 10.73)

The average length of the erect pens is 13.12 cm +- 1.66 cm. (11.46 – 14.72)

The average girth of the flaccid penis is 9.31 cm +- 0.90 cm (8.41 – 10.21)

The average girth of the erect penis is 11.66 cm +- 1.10 (10.56 – 12.76)

There is some correlation between how high a man is and how long and thick his erect penis is. Therefore, if you are a woman looking for big penises you should focus on tall men. There is no significant correlations between BMI, foot size, age etc. and penis size.

 

 

 

 

Studies based on self-measurement find that the erect penis is both longer and thicker than the above suggest. This is probably because many men tend to exaggerate penis size.

In a study based on 52,031 heterosexual people 85% of the women were satisfied with the size of their partner’s penis but only 55% of the men were satisfied with their size. When women were asked about size most of them were more interested in girth than length.

Source:Veale, D, Miles, S, Bramley, S, Muir, G Hodsoll, J : Am I normal? A systematic review and construction of nomograms for flaccid and erect penis length and circumference in up to 15,521 men

 

What attracts women and why do they want sex?

When you approach a woman, you must have an open body language and not be afraid of touching her. Touches make her feel that you are a dominant strong person also when you touch other men e.g on the shoulder while talking to them. Dominance is sexually attractive to most women. The way you move is also important. You must walk and dance in a coordinated way and men who have larger and more sweeping movements are more erotic. Some women actually have sex with men solely because they are good dancers. When you have moved up to a woman in a coordinated way, you must engage in conversation. Here is a deep and hence masculine voice an advantage. You should also keep a strong eye contact. Gazing in a man’s eyes are very arousing for many women. While talking to the woman you most show a good sense of humor and confidence. These are the most important personality traits by men who women find sexually attractive.

Odour

Now being close to the woman your smell is important. A study finds that in sexual attraction smell is the most important of the five senses for women – even more important than looks. Smell affect a woman’s willingness to have sex, it affects the frequency she have sex with a partner and it can even affect her fertility. As a man, you have to clean up and choose the right after-shave.

Muscles

A part from being a good dancer who smell great it is a big advantage with a symmetrical body with a v-shape. That is a muscular upper body and a lean stomach. Men with a big shoulder to hip ratio have more sex partners and are more often selected by married women for affairs. Men do however often misunderstand this and think they should be very muscular – like body builders. This is not what turns on the typical woman. Muscles – but with moderation.

Women also prefers men who are taller than average but not too tall. Studies find that taller men have more sex partners and more offspring than small or very tall men have.

Bad boy

For casual sex women prefer men with masculine faces (pronounced brow ridges and jaws) this is in particular true when women are ovulating. Men with very masculine faces have a high level of testosterone, which make them dominant, sexual risk takers, often unfaithful, and womanizers – what we refer to as “bad boys”. They cannot be trusted and will say anything to get sex. However, they are charming and attractive for fun. Women prefer men with less masculine faces for long-term relationships. A cheating woman will often be married to a less masculine man and cheat with a bad boy.

Now, if all of the above is impossible for you to achieve then you have one last chance – get famous. Famous or just popular men are more attractive to women. Men who many women wants automatically gets sexier in the eyes of other women. In that way, fame and popularity have a self-reinforcing effect on male attractiveness.

We now know what to look like and how to act in order to be sexually attractive for women. Below you can find the reasons women have for actually engaging in sex

Orgasm. People often say that men have sex for pleasure and women for love. The truth is that women actually very often have sex simply because they need an orgasm.

Love. However, women still have sex for love. The study showed that the pursuit of love and emotional attachment lead many women to have sex with a man.

Conquest. It has always been recognized that men compete for women and brag with their success in this area. However, it is becoming more evident that women also compete for men. They use sexual domination and slut-shaming in competition with other women. Some women even deliberately pursue married men – mate poaching.

Jealousy. Sometimes women have sex with a man simply to make a partner, an ex-partner or maybe a rival jealous. This often happens when the woman is hurt or insecure about a relationship.

Duty. Sometimes women have sex even though they don’t feel like it but because they want to indulge a partner. Alternatively, because they feel they owe it to someone who gave them a good time.

Adventure. Women frequently have sex because they want new experiences. They wonder what sex is like with a man they meet, they want to act out a fantasy, they seek variety, want to improve their skills, try new techniques etc.

Trade. Sometimes women have sex to get a job, a raise, a promotion, in order to be with a powerful or rich man, for money, for drugs. Women are often attracted to rich men and sex becomes their bargain in order to be in a relationship with them.

Ego-boost. Having sex can give women a rush of confidence. In particular, if the woman have sex with someone she find is very attractive, in another league than her self. It gives her a boost and a sense of sexual power. A sexual experience can also make the woman feel more attractive in general.

Deception: In some situations, women are deceived in to having sex. Some men will not be honest about the seriousness of their relationship to another woman. They might exaggerate their feelings for the woman etc. They will make the woman feel she is the one and only in order to get casual sex.

Women have sex for many different reasons depending on the situation and the needs they want fulfill.

Source:Cindy M Meston, David M. Buss: why women have sex.

The Swinging story – US Pilots were the first to swing

In the 1970s, people experimented with open marriages. The idea was that people should allow their partner to do whatever they wanted sexually, and that you did’nt own your partner. Polyamory were you can have several partners at the same time was also widely tested. These relationship types are still chosen by some people but a broader population never accepted them. Swinging on the other hand have been growing steadily during the years. Swinging focuses only on sex there is no emotional bond to the additional sex partners. Swinging couples joins the community together even though one partner might be more active. Swinging is a way to experience sex with other partners under certain agreed upon rules and still be in an emotional monogamous relationship.

US Pilots were the first swingers

There is some evidence that swinging began in the USA during world war 2 among US Air Force Fighter pilots and their families. They had developed a close bond on the air force bases were families took care of each other and were wife swapping was generally accepted. It spread all over the world and gathered momentum during the sexual revolution in the ‘60s and ‘70s. It has gathered further momentum in the recent years as the internet has expanded and made contact among like minded people a lot easier.

In Europe, swinging started in the northern areas and then spread to southern Europe including Italy a little later. In 2007 a studied confirmed earlier studies that about 1,5 mill Italians are swingers. In Italy, the average swinger is 41 years old. Women begin swinging from the age of 25 and men from the age of 30.

Swinger activities and meeting places

Websites for swingers began as amateur sites with personal ads. Today they are professional driven businesses were swingers can hook up with people who have similar interest. They can share photos and videos, they can chat with others in public or privately, they can use web-cams etc. In general, swingers make full use of the market for sexual recreation. They buy sex toys, visit swinger clubs, visit swinger web sites, watch porn, visit erotic fairs, travel to swinger resorts on vacation etc. Its estimated (2007) that Italy have 200 swinger clubs who sells about 700,000 entrance tickets a year, which amounts to 46,600,000 euros in entrance fees.

For vacations, swingers travel to summer residences or small out-of-the-way hotels to meet with other swingers. Alternatively, they travel to bigger resorts were swinging is accepted and were people come to from all over. The most outstanding place in Europe is the naked city of Cap D’agde. Here swingers blend with nudists and can enjoy themselves in a nightlife with several swinger clubs. Another well-known place is Ile di Levant in France, but you can also find swinger resorts in Spain or Greece.

The processes of swinging

Swingers often begin with soft swinging. That is having sex with one’s own partner in swinger clubs and only having limited physical contacts with others. When they have had some experiences they move on to more hard swinging were they might have oral sex and eventually full intercourse with other partners. As long as this is a positive experience, swingers move on to still more advanced sexual experiments. This might include threesomes, group sex, gang banging, sex vacations etc. These experiments makes it possible to find a swinging level that suits the particular couple. After some years, habituation often kicks in and some leave the swinging community completely or only visit it more seldom. They have had the experiences they wanted.

The biggest limitation for swinging couples activities is the fear of social stigma. They are afraid that friends and families will regard them as crazy or morally corrupted. However, western society is getting still more open towards sex and different sexually experiments. This has no doubt been one of the drivers behind the steadily growth of the swinging community.

Source:Fabio D’Orlando: Swinger Economics.

Sexual fantasies of men and women

Everybody have sexual fantasies. No reason to be ashamed of that. In this blog, I will give you the main results from a study published in 2014 about the subject. One of the overall findings is that both men and women have many sexual fantasies but men have significantly more than women do. Many of the fantasies are the same but they have different popularity among men and women.

Unusual fantasies

Two sexual fantasies are very unusual for both men and women. That is sex with a child under the age of 12 and having sex with an animal. Besides these very rare fantasies, the study found nine fantasies to be unusual. Only very few men and women have fantasies about being urinated on or urinating on others.

Not many women have fantasies about wearing clothe of the opposite gender, forcing someone to sex, abusing a drunk or sleeping person, having sex with a prostitute or having sex with a woman with very small breasts. For men fantasies about having sex with two or three other men is unusual.

Typical fantasies

Some fantasies are common for both men and women. Both men and women have sexual fantasies involving romantic emotions and settings but they are much more common for women. On the other hand, both fantasizes about oral sex but it is much more common for men. Both men and women have fantasies, which involves sexual intercourse with two women – but again, this is in particular a typical fantasy for men.

A significant proportion of women have sexual fantasies about domination. This include being spanked/whipped or forced to have sex. This is also common for men but not to the same extend. Domination fantasies represent a quite large proportion of total sexual fantasies for both men and women. People who have domination fantasies are in general more open to sex and seem to have a freer and more satisfying sex life.

Differences between men and women

Men have fantasies about receiving oral sex, having sex with someone else than their partner and having anal sex much more frequently than women. Men also mentioned during interviews that they have fantasies about having sex with a she-male, receiving anal sex (non-homosexuals) and watching their spouse having sex with other men.

Women fantasizes about having sex with two men and a quite large proportion also fantasizes about having sex with more than three men or having sex with more than three people both men and women. Women are more in to group sex and gangbanging than men are. Women also have more homosexual fantasies than men have. About one third of women fantasies about giving oral sex to a woman, having sex with another woman or watching two other women have sex.

So many fantasies, so little time….. 😉

Source:Christian C. Joyal, PhD,*† Amélie Cossette, BSc,* and Vanessa Lapierre, BSc*: What Exactly Is an Unusual Sexual Fantasy?

This is what is sexually arousing for women

Women get sexually aroused when they are exposed to different cues. In general women don’t (as opposed to men) experience spontaneous feelings of sexual desire very frequently. There has to be some kind of triggers present before women get sexually aroused These triggers can both be internal and external. The different cues are divided in to four main categories:

Emotional bonding cues: women respond to situations where they feel close to, and loved by a (potential) partner.

Explicit erotic cues: being in a sexual situation, feeling a partner’s sexual excitement or watching/reading pornography is arousing for women.

Visual cues: flirting with someone, being close to an attractive person can trig sexual arousal.

Romantic cues: doing romantic activities with a partner like dancing, being in a hot tub or giving/receiving a massage is sexually arousing.

The effect of the different cues are different from woman to woman. The situation in which the cues are experienced also affect whether and how much affect they have on sexual arousal.

Married women had lower scores on sexual arousal for the cues in general, particularly the emotional bonding cues. This is probably because the length of a relationship makes habituation a factor and hence women don’t respond as much to the cues – not when they are with their partner anyway. Women who respond to more cues reports to be more sexually active.

Below you can see the 10 cues that on average have most affect on the sexual arousal of women – click to enlarge.

 

Source:Katie McCall, MA, and Cindy Meston, PhD: Cues Resulting in Desire for Sexual Activity in Women

Can online actions be called cheating behavior?

In the modern world the potential temptations when it comes to other partners than the one at home is increasing. The internet has for years offered chat rooms and dating sites of all kinds and now we are also increasingly tempted by app’s on the smart phones which makes potential new partners accessible 24/7.

I have written a blog before about what people regard as infidelity. This focused on the difference between emotional and physical infidelity. In a recent study, online actions are included and the difference between genders are analyzed.

Definition of infidelity

In The Cambridge Dictionaries of American English infidelity is defined like this: “the act of having sex with someone who is not your husband or wife”. This corresponds very well with my own perception of the word. I might not like it if my wife kissed someone else (without my permission) but I wouldn’t call it sex and hence infidelity.

However, as I have described before many people have a much wider definition of infidelity with now also include online actions were the two parties maybe never even have met each other IRL (In Real Life). The consequence is that when you ask people in a very broad sense about infidelity you will get a very high percentage of cheaters in the population because people define infidelity very differently. If you ask more directly to e.g. sexual intercourse, the percentage will be much lower. This also means that if you discuss infidelity with your partner you have to be very specific. Otherwise, you might be talking about very different things.

Emotional, Physical and online infidelity

The researchers defined seven actions within the three categories of infidelity. As you can see in the figure below both men and women categorized almost all seven of the physical actions as infidelity. For the emotional and online actions, fewer actions were regarded as cheating behavior however significantly more women than men found emotional/online actions to be cheating behavior. (click to enlarge).

For each action, a higher percentage of women found it to be cheating behavior compared to men. Hence, men seem to be more tolerant in this area than women are. You can see all the actions below and which percentage of men and women who found each one to be cheating behavior.

If you compare the result of this study with the study I was writing about in the previous blog then online cheating behavior as described here is ranging as infidelity at the same level as holding hands, sitting in the lap or kissing on the cheek. It is about half the respondents who regards these for some people seemingly innocent actions as infidelity.

Therefore, can online actions be called cheating behavior? Yes, for many people they can.

Source:Elizabeth A. Knight: GENDER DIFFERENCES IN DEFINING INFIDELITY