Whose fault is an affair?

Disgraced New York governor Eliot Spitzer is in the news yet again. In case you missed it, he gave me plenty of fodder for this column a while back when it was discovered and reported by The New York Times that, behind his wife's back, he was bonking thousand-dollar call girls who were part of a prostitution service called the Emperors Club VIP.

The game was up (along with Spitzer's career) when police uncovered the illegal goings-on of the prostitution ring, not to mention Spitzer's multiple meetings with his favourite conquest, known as "Kristen".

"Kristen" was later discovered to be 22-year-old Ashley Dupre who has since gone on to release a music single, posed for Playboy and is now the writer of her very own sex column with the New York Post titled "Ask Ashley". (Geez, is this what it takes to become a "dating expert" these days?)

Now, thanks to author Peter Elkind, comes the book exposing everything that went on behind the sordid scenes. In Rough Justice: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, Elkind claims that Spitzer's wife recently came out and said that the affairs might have been her fault after all. "The wife is supposed to take care of the sex. This is my failing; I wasn't adequate," he quotes her as saying.

Wasn't adequate? So it's her fault her husband had an affair with a hooker? For real?

While her behaviour is reminiscent of the character played by Julianna Margulies in the television show The Good Wife, (and apparently the series is loosely based on her story), I can't help but wonder if she's wrongfully taking the blame on this one. Are the wives really to blame for this sort of behaviour? Did she really fall short by not giving him enough horizontal hanky panky in the bedroom so that he felt the need to entertain prostitutes and call girls on a regular basis? I think not.

I remember a number of radio interviews during the time it emerged that Sandra Bullock's heavily tattooed husband Jesse James had been doing the dirty behind her back.

While they seemed to have a picture-perfect marriage, it suddenly emerged (only a few days after her Oscar win, mind you), that he'd been having numerous affairs with women you wouldn't like your worst enemy to be associated with. While I never claimed it was anything to do with Bullock's lack of prowess in the bedroom (rather a confused, sex addicted husband who didn't realise a good thing when he had it), I recall a number of radio interviewers instantly taking the stance that it should never be blamed on the wife but solely on the philandering man. And I wholeheartedly concur.

No one asks to be cheated on, or to go through the embarrassing and gut-wrenching rigmarole of having your husband's infidelities splashed across the world's media. But then to be blamed for it? A rather preposterous notion, if you ask me.

Elkind seems to agree too, citing the reason for Spitzer's transgressions as his simple (albeit rather twisted) "need" for women for hire. He writes: "There at his call, dismissed when he was done, making no demands other than payment - provided an elegant solution."

Elegant? I think not.

There's nothing elegant about paying for sex behind your partner's back. Sure, if you have an agreement that such goings on can indeed take place, then good luck to you. But if you don't - and you get caught, I think there's any other word for it but elegant ...