Hets are weird.

We like them well enough, but what the fuck is going on in their topsy-turvy marriages? How many in-name-only, mutually-convenient, put-a-brave-face-on, Fractured Fairy Tale unions gone-off-the-rails have we casually borne witness to?

Where does it all go wrong? Is it the strain of bearing the One Ring (it almost came between Sam and Frodo)? The infantile fantasy of princes, damsels, and the Happily Ever After coda? The social conditioning that says it’s the right and only thing to do? Maybe the self-mythologization of being descendants of a pair navel-less newlyweds and their inbred progeny?

The beyond-tawdry, impossible-to-look-away gauntlet of Tiger Woods-spawned scandals has offered invaluable insight into the private universes of too-pretty and -polished Super Couples. I’ve always suspected that few and far between is the man who actually marries his type; instead, he marries up the ideal spouse/mother and keeps his taste in trashy tarts either held in check or on-the-sly. Beauty is also, mind-bogglingly, not enough to keep a man even though it may be what initially nabs him. In the end, sexual availability will win out over being a perfect ten.

As an Awkward Family Photo enthusiast, I especially know that family portraits fraught with intrigue and secrets ready to be revealed imply far much more than they actually purport to superficially depict.

In retrospect, the Woods Family’s photo-ops bear multiple indicators of trouble from within: Daddy Tiger with his wall of giant teeth always beaming or on the brink of laughter has an almost mask-like affect that gives the lie; the suitable-for-breeding Scandivanian lass he never loved and/or regarded as a status symbol he quickly grew bored with, her head on his shoulder or leaned against his own too dutifully, too trustingly; the oblivious cherubic moppets nestled in the crook of his arm or seated on his knee; and, most tellingly, the pair of big, ostensibly loyal dogs whose guileless “J’accuse!” eyes reveal that they’re in on the joke of it all as they intently stare down the head of the household. Pups never harbor allusions about the master and the home he keeps. They only accept or resent the dirt he tracks in at their own discretion.

And so the uncouth-if-close-to-the-bone adage — Show me a beautiful woman, and I’ll show you a man who’s tired of fucking her — put forth by the power broker pigs of the world has the ring of truth, but there’s far more to this flare-out of a depthlessly bland superstar whose handlers couldn’t keep his kink under the radar forever than just the virgin/whore splitting of the women in his life.

One text message to his main side dish Rachel Uchitel seemed, if possible, even more convolutedly nasty-boy than even the condom-free sex, the doll-fueled deliriums, and the series of increasingly rode-hard-looking scores he worked his way down the lady ladder with:

“I had a dream we were married and I was leading the tournament. I came home, excited to see you, and there you were in the bedroom getting fucked by Derek and David. Some part of me thinks you would like that.”

The Derek in that equation is baseball player Derek Jeter (meh), the David, hot-ass Cro-Mag David Boreanaz (Interested! Very interested!) — both rumored to also be laying pipe with starfucker Uchitel — and the fact that Woods didn’t muster up jealousy so much as he did a vicarious thrill of sharing his space with two famous sex symbols has many a tongue about a true-life case of the presumedly mythic Cuckold Complex.

Herein, a hubby with all outward appearances of being perfectly well-adjusted, hyper-successful, or just schlubby achieves maximum arousal from his wife’s infidelities, fantasizing about, witnessing, and even participating in her trysts. The ultra-trashy spin in the Woods case is that it’s the mistress who’s the proprietary object and fantasy wife, and it’s his super butch man crushes he gets to symbolically nail through her by proxy.

Only one question remains: if said free-for-all tableau were to occur, would Uchitel be its centerpiece, or would she end up kicked out of bed as Woods and the boys ultimately have their own Sunday Bloody Sunday fanboy-style triple decker?

The Cuckold Fetish dates back as far as the 13th Century (it’s actually a cheeky allusion to a variety of female cuckoo with a tendency to ditch their mates in order to lay their eggs in other nests), appeared in Victorian literary proto-porn, and was a mainstay theme in pre-hardcore sexploitation movies helmed by auteurs/scribes like Doris Wishman, Ed Wood, A.C. Stephens, and Russ Meyer, but with the current resurgence in swinging combined with some harsh-light-of-day peers into some pretty wacky bedroom romps, salacious celebrity blind items involving man-heavy domestic arrangements, and the rise of the Man Slut, it all suggests that the Cuckold Complex has a hell of a lot more to it than just being a go-to dirty movie cliche.

So what exactly does the man get out of this scene? Clearly, there’s a masochistic element at work, with hubby getting all worked up by having wifey dig her heels (literally, maybe?) into him as he just happens to “catch” her getting plowed by the handyman, mailman, or pool guy. Is he getting off on her? Her paramour? The combo?

This parlor drama comes off as an inversion of the classic two-chicks-one-dick scenario wherein two doe-eyed nymphettes essentially perform for the man in control of watching and penetrating. The husband is now relegated yet aroused, not unlike those girlfriends and wives who apparently get some perverse jones out of their boyfriends or husbands banging men on the gay porn/escort rounds. It’s all good times until he takes too much of a yen for all-male-action and quits the bitch entirely. Careless…

The homoerotic factor is undeniable in any group sex situation with a slant toward one sex over the other. In a real-life or onscreen cuckold scenario, the wife may implicitly act as the excuse/justification for some guy-on-guy experimentation, the buffer in the male-to-male triangle. This has become a ubiquitous plot device in many a gay porn feature in the last ten years, with a token female in the cast playing wife or girlfriend sidelined as her man “discovers” the exciting role reversal that comes from being with a man. That’s the magical world gay porn conjures up: not only does the word “no” not exist, but every man is gay, and even the most inveterate chick-baller or “Leave me alone! I’m a family man!” -type can’t resist an upturned muscle ass.

Straight gang bang flicks are practically gay porn were it not for the presence of a lone female cock-socket. The director and cast have to put maximum effort into defusing any homoerotic contact or tension — “No Homo!” high-fives and fist-bumps are fine and well — between the rutting men. Imagine all of the B-roll that ends up excised because the male cast members accidentally grasp hands, have their heads touch, or find their balls slapping together. I’m convinced that in at least two out of every ten cast mixes, there’s that one guy who forgets himself and either slaps a scene partner’s ass or playfully reaches over and starts cranking his shank in a fit of juvenile spontaneity.

The benchmark for evaluating whether a fetish actually exists is if it can inspire a porn subgenre, and the Cuckold niche is alternatively a swinger-themed straight substratum or something of an offshoot of the nebulous Bi-Sex branch, the latter of which in particular can be tough to decipher in terms of exactly who its intended target audience is. Is it kink-happy gay men with a penchant for straight-bait, or curious straight-identified men who need a female presence as a self-defining crutch?

Thematically, they diverge based on that vantage. The straight-oriented ones — the likes of Cougars & Cuckolds, Cuckolded On My Wedding Day, and Please! Bang My Wife! — formulaically feature a husband whose (typically younger and friskier) wife gets it on with a bigger, rough-hewn, and more confident roué as he watches shamefacedly (DVD sleeves depict him with a mock “Oh ma gawd!” face of disbelief, his hands outstretched pleadingly, or his head held in his palms). Humiliation is key here, with the odd-man-out often being derided by his lady while she’s mounting her new piece (and his projected fantasy self?), having her underwear placed teasingly on his head, or himself being made-up in drag. If he does join in the romp, any interplay between he and his rival is blunted in favor of an archetypal hands-off men-on-girl threeway.

Gay-themed entries are more concerned with taboo-breaking and sport efficiently cut-to-the-chase titles like Blow Him, Then You Can Fuck Me, Forced Bi Cuckolds, and (my fave) Wanna Fuck My Wife? You Gotta Fuck Me Too. Narratively, if the husband isn’t using the wife as a bargaining chip to get himself some dick from an equal opportunity pick-up, then the wife cajoles/goads/coerces him into servicing her up-for-it stud, her role serving as a trigger for a bout of ass-thumping that wouldn’t otherwise occur. Everybody makes out like a bandit in a vignette like this. Call it Tiger Stripes & Cuckold Tails! if indeed a Woods/Uchitel/Boreanaz sex tape at some point arrives down the pipeline, hopefully with an emphasis on the bread in that sex sandwich and not the meat.

The moral of the story: make sure all the players are on board with the game, otherwise you run the very probable risk of ending up in a pretty crowded bird’s nest with everyone winning the booby prize while their reputations go the way of the dodo.

© 2010, Shawn Baker. All rights reserved. Nightcharm.com