Mrs Infidelity

Pamela Druckerman got married a little over two years ago. She had a big fairy-tale white wedding just outside Paris and now she and her husband are the proud parents of a beautiful baby girl. So why, then, does she suddenly find herself as a world authority on philandering husbands and adulterous wives the world over?

The answer lies in her new book entitled Lust in Translation - a global survey of the rules of infidelity. Druckerman visited two- dozen cities in 10 different countries, grilling people about the way they conduct their affairs. The book was published in America last month and hit such a nerve that she now seems to have become the nation's unofficial poster girl for infidelity. From her flat in Paris, where she now lives, she is averaging three radio interviews a day for drive-time shows across the States.

"It's been completely overwhelming," she says, "but I think infidelity is something people think about all the time. It's basically what virtually every movie is about and what half our pop songs are about. It's something that absolutely everyone has an opinion on."

In Russia, Druckerman discovered, they call it "sneaking to the left". In Japan it's "going off the path" and in Israel, one particularly crude term for it is, "eating to the side". Here, we'd probably call it playing away. Even these simple terms, she says, speak volumes about national stereotypes.

Druckerman, a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal, got the idea for the book after she was posted to Latin America where she was shocked to find how accurate the old cliche of the Latin lover was. "For the first time in my life," she says, "married men routinely tried to sleep with me. It wasn't that I had suddenly become irresistible. Many of my friends reported similar advances."

As well as confirming various stereotypes - the discretion of the French philanderer and the Japanese love of the intricate rules of the hostess bar, for example - Druckerman's book succeeds in debunking various myths. Surprisingly, it's the Finns who are most comfortable with adulterous behaviour and were the nation most happy to discuss their extra-curricular activities at length.

Druckerman also discovered that the French aren't as famously adulterous as everyone thinks they are. "The statistics are very different from their national stereotype," she says. "The French cheat slightly less than the Americans do. It's the Brits who cheat more than both of them." Although, of course, this could just mean that the French are just better liars than everyone else.

But if we're bad, there are plenty of other places which are worse. Although a national survey has never been carried out in Russia, a 1996 poll in St Petersburg found that almost half the men there admitted to having had an affair. Druckerman came away feeling that adultery in Russia was rampant. "It got to the point where I thought people were lying, saying that they had cheated, as it would look bad if they hadn't," she says. "One psychologist, after filling me in on all her flings, even told me she thought affairs should be obligatory as they make for stronger marriages." An issue of Russian Cosmopolitan which Druckerman found even provided tips for women on how to hide their affairs from their husbands: "Try not to look too happy," it advised. "If you never sang in the shower, don't start now."

But even if you are a highly promiscuous Russian there are still places where you can go and seem positively saintly. Try Togo, Cameroon or the Ivory Coast for starters. These three top the infidelity chart by a big margin. "Men in Sub-Saharan Africa," says Druckerman, "clock rates of extramarital sex that make even Russians look like prudes."

In her quest, Druckerman discovered the phraseology of the philanderer was delightfully colourful. "A philanderer in South Africa is a 'running man' and a Chinese man attempting to keep both his wife and his lover happy is trying to 'stand in two boats at the same time'." But the best expressions she says, are always reserved for the hapless spouse. Poles "make a balloon" out of theirs; in China a husband "wears a green hat".

Druckerman's book has come just at the right time, as recently infidelity is something we seem to be less tolerant of. "Since the 1970s, we've become more accepting of homosexuality, divorce and of having babies out of wedlock," she says, "but on issues of fidelity we are much stricter." In 2006 a Gallup poll discovered that Americans found adultery much harder to to stomach than either polygamy or human cloning.

If the UK is to follow the American lead, then we've an expansive and lucrative anti-infidelity industry to look forward to. "There's an army of therapists and self-help gurus waiting for you when things fall apart," says Druckerman. "Currently one of the most popular treatments for cheating is the tell-all cure where the victim of the affair is entitled to sit down and ask as many questions as they like - right down to who gave who a blow job and in what hotel. No doubt the rest of the world thinks that's crazy."