Philandros was a Greek compound word derived from "phileo" (a warm affection) and "andros" (man) and was applied to both women and men. In particular, it was used to describe a wife who was especially devoted to her husband.

This has nothing, however, to do with the modern term "philanderer".

That came about because of a genre of love ballads featuring the characters Philander and Phillis. One of these, from around 1682, was entitled "The Faithful Lovers Downfall" (or, The Death of Fair Phillis Who Killed Herself for Loss of Her Philander).

It wasn't necessarily very good, but it had a certain naive charm :-)

Philander, ah Philander! still the bleeding Phillis cries,
She wept awhile, And she forc’t a Smile,
then clos’d her eyes and dyes.

A philanderer is:
¤ a womaniser - a man who likes many women and has short sexual relationships with them;
¤ a man who casual or illicit sexual relations (usually an extramarital affair), with a woman he does not intend to marry.
¤ a man sexually unfaithful to his wife

Other words for one are adulterer, louse and cheat.

Statistically, in the States, 50% - 75% of married/committed men cheat on their wives. That's a whole lot of extra-marital humping going on.

A bigger percentage of men are looking at porn on the net, having cyber sex in chatrooms and via email and many with a webcam are excitedly stropping their bits while women (and other men) all around the globe watch.

The mental image of some sleazy bloke flopping it out and wanking over his keyboard isn't very attractive really, is it? Not to mention the filthy SPAM it breeds in the inbox of every mail account at your domain name, and a million non-existant ones as well.

Someone knows all about porn SPAM. He should do. That's exactly how he got it.

Infidelity begins in the mind, and from a woman's perspective there isn't a lot of difference between her husband undressing a woman with his eyes and visually raping her, having sexy conversations online, jerking off in front of a monitor showing random people while he does it or even just thinking about it, and him slipping it into places it really shouldn't go.

Although these men think otherwise... "I did not have sexual relations with that woman".

There's another Tui billboard.

The minute a bloke unzips his pants, or even wishes he could, he has been unfaithful. And because so many men of these are ruled by their cock, lots of them continue to take off the pants and get into trouble.

Especially once their wife finds out.

And the trouble usually lasts a whole lot longer than the root or the blow job did. It can be a lot more expensive than if he'd just bought a prozzie for an hour instead.

Some Infidelity statistics from the USA:

¤ 22 percent of married men have strayed at least once during their married lives.
¤ 22 percent of men admitted to having sexual relations outside their marriage sometime in their past.
¤ 70 percent of married women did not know of their spouses' extramarital activity.
¤ 5 percent of married men reported having sex with someone other than their spouse in the 1997.
¤ 50 percent of Americans say President Clinton's adultery makes his moral standard "about the same as the average married man,'' according to a Time-CNN poll.
¤ 90 percent of Americans believe adultery is morally wrong.
¤ Only 46% of men believe that online affairs are adultery.
¤ 61 percent of Americans thought adultery should not be a crime in the United States.
¤ 75% of adulterous men admit to having sex with people they work with.
¤ 17 percent of divorces in the United States are caused by infidelity.

Perhaps the New Zealand divorce rates might rise a little now that someone's wife knows he was being a naughty boy and was screwing the crew for months, not so very long before he abolished aforementioned crew's job.

It couldn't happen to a more worthy bloke.

Really.

And he wasn't even any good in bed **sigh**