My eyes are blurry from too many post-midnight hours in front of my laptop, trolling through scores of Internet-dating profiles of women. I’m carpet bombing them with the same boilerplate message, suggesting, with unsurpassed creativity and seductiveness, that we get together for a drink.

Just one catch: Most of them are married.

Actually, a second catch: I have a girlfriend.

I’m on AshleyMadison.com, the behemoth of extramarital-dating sites, whose controversial slogan is "Life is short. Have an affair.®" You’ve probably heard of it. But you probably don’t know anyone on it—or at least anyone who admits to being on it.

Because if you go on the site, you’ll find a lot of avatars adorned with a simple drawing of a woman’s face and a confidential finger over pursed pink lips, with the promise of additional "Private Showcase" photos, viewable only if the member sends you a "key." Many profiles are eloquent and demure, asking men to compose thoughtful missives and to refrain from sending erection photos. But a number are either fake, or appear to be from sex workers, or are written like the following: "to have a well built guy with a huge spear shove it in my tight MILF [orifice not anatomically designed for sexual intercourse] in front of my husband all night long!!!!!!!! TO BE TREATED LIKE I WAS THE LAST WOMAN ON EARTH BY A HUNGRY GROUP OF MEN, PREFERABLY ALL [ethnic group whose male members are often hypersexualized in American culture, due in part to a complex legacy of discrimination]!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BIG THICK [rhyming masculine body part] NEED APPLY!!!"

Clearly I need to embellish my résumé. My first e-mail blitz, which doesn’t specify that I’m a journalist hoping to interview subjects, nets me a grand total of zero replies. Still got it! I change tack and name-drop GQ and assure recipients that their anonymity will be preserved. Most women continue to ignore me, some flatly respond no, and several are dubious about my identity.

Yet a few replies roll in. One is from Megan. (Identifying details have been obscured or altered slightly to ensure anonymity, and all names are fictitious.) She lists her weight at well over 200 pounds, her limits are "Anything Goes," and her tagline is "I’m too much for you." And what is she looking for? "Sex.... I’m not here at AM to meet someone for the opera, I assure you."

"Just to be clear, is this a sexy date or a formal interview?" she writes. "Ideally we could combine the two."

What the hell is going on here? What, exactly, is compelling these married women to set up "sexy dates" in droves, aside from easy Internet access? For years, our collective narrative of the errant housewife has run thusly: Neglected by her aloof or abusive husband and dying a slow death from her suburban prison, she falls into the arms of a dashing, romantic gentleman. In myths, novels, and films, from Helen of Troy to Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter to Diane Lane in 2002’s_ Unfaithful, _the affair of the rare philandering female is the centerpiece of the story, and its punishments are draconian (the Trojan War, ostracism and branding with an A, being cast in Must Love Dogs). On the other hand, just try to name every single guy who has cheated on Mad Men—and gotten away with it. Then again, _Mad Men _takes place fifty years ago.

In the real world, with greater professional equality between the genders and third-wave-feminist sexual liberation, are women cheating for the same reason that men have throughout history, as Megan’s profile suggests—that is, to sate their sex drives and gratify their egos?