Straight Arrows

My friend Frank was living with a woman who had the whole checklist--looks, brains, goodness, sass, a tolerance for sports, even family dough. Clearly, marriage should have been next. But our boy couldn’t pull the nuptial trigger.

“Why no wedding?” I asked him over a beer one night.

“48th and Madison,” he said, as though an intersection explained it all. “Every day . . . all those women . . . shining in the morning.”

I said nothing.

“I’ve been monogamous for three years,” he said, staring at me with haunted eyes. “But I don’t think I can do it forever.”

He was a lost boy, skewered on the horns of the basic male dilemma: choosing between commitment to one woman and . . . all those shining women at 48th and Madison.

Monogamy. Say it three times fast. Sounds an awful lot like monotony, doesn’t it?

Still, a hunch lingers that true happiness--the deep, sustaining contentment we seek--lies somewhere down Monogamy Road. If only we could find our way past all the soft, warm, scented bodies of this tempting world.

Here’s a little help from a friend. If you have no interest in forgoing the carnal cornucopia of this blessed land, skip this article. But if you’d like to be captain of your ship, master of your longing, faithful to a person with whom you just might build an enriching life, read on. Here are six things you ought to know if you’ve got wild oats you’d rather not sow.

(Note: No medical mantras here. You already know 10 out of 10 docs recommend it. Besides, we’re after bigger game, a monogamy that’s bolder than the fear of microbes.)

* Throw down the gauntlet. First, it’s important to understand that you’re not in this alone. All men wrestle with the call of the wild. Some will argue that this proves all men are pigs. Wrong. It proves that all men are brothers. Those thoughts about Myrna at the FedEx place don’t make you a bad guy. They just make you a guy. Lust is not a vice. It’s just a fact.

Why is monogamy so tough for men? Some women favor polemical explanations featuring reptile analogies and the phrase “incapable of commitment.” But the truth bears no grudge. Fact: Men get hammered by two powerful forces--our Darwinian hardware and our cultural software.

Blame it on biology. According to Darwin, life is just DNA working like mad to reproduce itself. Our sex drive is the vehicle for spreading our genes. We’re in thrall to a biological imperative hard-wired to want anybody who might carry our double helix down the line.

Aha! cry women. We have DNA too. How come we don’t mount anything with a blood pressure?

Darwin has an answer women hate: Women are more finicky because they’ve only got a few hundred eggs in a lifetime. Can’t afford to waste one on a loser. Since we have a billion sperm in a nanosecond and remain fertile till we die, there’s no need to hold our fire. Again: Not a virtue. Not a vice. Just a fact.

However strong the male drive to dance with many partners, it’s nothing compared to the cultural messages that hurl us into the arms of other women. Our nature is polygamous; our nurture doubly so.

Oh, sure, for the record, our official position is that we respect the steadfast guy. But be serious. We’re cowboys. Nobody wants to be Ward Cleaver.

With our bodies crying out for communion and our culture athrob with conquistador signals, it’s no surprise that for many men, monogamy’s a long shot.

But, hey that’s the good news. That’s what makes monogamy worth chasing. Monogamy’s hard? Bring it on, baby. You know what else is hard? Winning a Medal of Honor, amassing wealth, having washboard abs at 45. We hate easy.

* Don’t fight the feeling. Cherish your lust. When the guys who wrote the Bible made lust one of the seven deadly sins, they were talking about bad lust. You know, the kind that hoots at and objectifies women, that stupid, grunting, hubba-hubba kind of lust.

I’m talking about good lust, the kind that might even be described as zest or vitality, maybe reverence, perhaps an appreciation of all God’s children.

Remember: The feelings are not a problem; acting on them is. It’s perfectly OK to covet thy neighbor’s wife. What’s not OK is sneaking into thy neighbor’s shed for a quickie with her.

The point is: You can’t stifle the 48th-and-Madison feelings. Grass grows through concrete, and male vim will find a way.

True monogamy--full-blooded, masculine monogamy--requires lusty thoughts. You don’t pretend your rival doesn’t exist. You tip your hat to him, then kick his butt.

* Stoke up the home fires. Lots of guys who step out plead sexual deprivation or boredom at home. And, often enough, a good case can be made. But if your sex life isn’t everything you dreamed, make sure you’ve given it everything you’ve got. Ask yourself how much ingenuity, improv, energy, joy and lust you bring to the sheets.

You must remember this: A kiss is not just a kiss. A woman’s interest in sex can have quite a lot to do with the practitioner.

Technique matters. And you should work on yours. Try the Peruvian wiggle, the Sicilian spider. Read all the books, especially the centuries-old Asian classics. Experiment. Stay out of rutting ruts. Remember: Sex is like golf insofar as little things can mean a lot. Just a little bit slower may be a lot warmer. A slight sideways shift can turn ho-hum into hallelujah. But. . . .

Technique is just part of the game. Even more important is to be in the moment while in the act. Feel her skin. Inhale her scent. Inhabit the moment with all of your attention. Be intimate. Murmur. Remember, she’s going for monogamy too. You’re her only access to Eros.

Stay lusty out of bed too. Talk to her, for God’s sake. Express yourself. Confide in her. Listen to her. Don’t let this venture founder because you didn’t give it enough gas. Trust is a turn-on.

* Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. You tell yourself that nobody will know. But it’s not true. Trust me. Your partner will find out.

You may be so guilty that you actually drop the dime on yourself. Or your partner-in-crime may be a wild card. Even if she doesn’t boil the family bunny like Glenn Close in “Fatal Attraction,” she could get careless with her smile when she runs into your wife at Price Club.

Then there’s always the Simka factor. Remember Simka, Latka’s wife on the old sitcom “Taxi”?

One day, only to keep from freezing to death in a blizzard, Latka has sex with another woman. Five minutes later, Simka’s about to race into her rescued husband’s arms when she stops suddenly--still 20 feet from him--and screams, “You did it with another woman!”

The point is: If you’re a decent guy, like Latka, your mate will somehow pick up the wobble in your soul. I don’t know how. But it’s one of the great glories of human beings that we know things we can’t possibly know. You’ll change; she’ll know.

Is it worth it?

The benefit most often cited is sexual--the chance that Judy from accounting will be a human dynamo, a dominating dervish of delights.

Well, maybe.

Now, I’m no pessimist. People can do invigorating things to each other. But the plain fact is that most sex does not include fireworks and parades. Most men who fall off the monogamy wagon find themselves thinking of singer Peggy Lee’s classic “Is That All There Is?”

While the benefits of cheating are uncertain, its costs are crystal clear. Some couples survive it. But, boy, it’s a grenade in the garden. Do it and an efficiency apartment is in your future. Do it and tucking in the kids will mean taking a 10-mile drive on the freeway instead of a 10-step walk to their room. But more important, somebody’s feelings will be hurt--big time.

Repeat after me: “I’d rather forgo erotic pleasure than cause [name of loved one] pain.” Plenty of pain out there already, pal. The hump ain’t worth the heartache.

* Invest in accident insurance. How many bad television movies have you seen where some feckless cheating husband claims that “it just happened”?

It is, of course, salt in a wound to hear sexual betrayal described as if it were no more serious than a fender bender.

But you know what?

It’s true. Lots of guys veer off Monogamy Road accidentally--or rather, unintentionally. Make no mistake, it’s not an excuse. At some point, there was a deliberate act. But it is an explanation. Non-monogamy happens when people are careless.

For example, consider that most virulent of monogamy manglers, the business trip.

Let’s say you and Martha have one of those flirty office friendships. You’re both happily married and monogamous, but you’ve also both thought about what it would be like.

Cut to the regional sales conference: The presentation you give together is a smash and you stop by her room to celebrate. Or your presentation implodes and she stops by your room to work on resumes. Either way, euphoric or depressed, next thing you know, you and your good bud, Martha, are doing the horizontal hora.

Safety rule No. 1: Don’t ever be alone in a hotel room with a woman who is not your mom, your sister or your wife. No exceptions. Don’t stop by just to pick up the new sales data or drop off the old sales data. Forget the data, all right? Just don’t go there. Period. Hotel rooms cry out for sex.

In fact, don’t limit this rule to hotel rooms. Never be alone with a woman anywhere. This is the single best monogamy tip there is. If your son goes to Camp Iroquois with Joey from next door, for God’s sake, don’t drive up to get the boys with Joey’s mom. You know you’ve watched her bend over her tomatoes. Why tempt fate?

The point is, defense wins championships--see the ’69 Knicks, the ’85 Bears, the Devils of ’95. He who would be king of constancy has to protect his goal. Make sure that sexual duplicity requires at least several purposeful, underhanded steps. A lot of us are weak, but far fewer of us are capable of cold-blooded mendacity. Avoiding what the Sisters of Mercy used to call the “occasions of sin” will minimize inadvertent adultery.

Safety rule No. 2: If, by some remote chance, you’ve broken rule No. 1 and find yourself still faithful, do not--under any circumstances--have a drink. I know six guys who’ve cheated on their mates. Four of them said the last thing they remember was twisting open one of those tiny vodka bottles from a hotel minibar. The other two were bourbon guys. Alcohol hates monogamy.

* Remember: Home is where the sex is. It’s really none of their business, but statisticians have determined that monogamous married men actually get laid more often than any other group of men. Of course, in any particular week, month, year or even decade, single guys and tomcats can get more nooky than stalwarts. But over the course of a lifetime, Ozzie Nelson does OK, thank you very much.

The key is to make your mind monogamous. See it clearly. Monogamy is not a lack of other women; it’s expertise in one. It’s an opportunity to specialize--like the neurosurgeon who studies the cerebral cortex or the fiddler who masters Haydn. The monogamous man hones his craft, refines technique, learns subtleties of terrain, comes to understand both his partner’s pelvis and her point of view.

Surely, when a woman knows that she is it for you--that she is the alpha and omega of your erotic world--she’ll be emboldened by that responsibility.

When two people are entwined, for better or for worse, lips get liquid with loyalty, hips bring wholesome heat, skin comes alive in partnership. Lust is intensified by trust, made fierce by faith and impassioned by a promise kept.

Six hours after Frank and I started talking about the “M-word,” we walked up Broadway through a bright Manhattan dawn. He stopped at a pay phone, woke up his sweetheart and proposed.

Six weeks later, I was his best man. He was buoyant at the reception. Happiness seemed within his grasp. He did, however, ask me if I’d gotten an eyeful of the girl singer in the band.