BoomerGirl.com

I feel like I'm outside the party looking in.

I must confess that despite two marriages lasting a total of 39 years, I never had an affair.

How dull of me!

Neither of my husbands had affairs.

At least, not that I knew about.

And if they had confessed to affairs, I would have kicked their butts out of the house.

(Yes, I divorced my first husband, but not for infidelity. He was much too dull for that — but, as they say, that's another story.)

I mean, who are these women standing by their men looking beat up and humiliated, like the ashen-faced Silda Spitzer? Are they circling the wagons, protecting their children?

Think of the recent sex scandals: Hillary standing by President Clinton; Dina Matos McGreevey beside her husband, New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, while he was confessing to be gay; Suzanne Craig next to Sen. Larry ("I have a wide stance") Craig, who was arrested in a gay-sex sting in an airport bathroom.

Even Michelle Paterson beside the new governor of New York, DavidPaterson, who confessed — without being asked — to several affairs.

"We have a marriage like many Americans," the new New York governor said, pointing out he had not broken any laws. Somewhere, I read that Spitzer or some pundit called sex outside marriage a "victimless crime."

Hello! Look again at Silda's face. And has anyone talked to their daughters?

Stephanie Coontz, a professor at Evergreen State University, told New York Times blogger Tina Kelly that these public sex-outside-of-marriage eruptions show "progress."

Coontz points out that it hasn't been that many years since daddies took sons to prostitutes for their first sexual experiences. Women, she adds, were encouraged to "look away" when their husbands dillydallied.

Phooey!

The only thing these "confessions" prove to me is that the old double standard still exists in America.

I mean, how many men have you seen standing beside their wives as the women do public confessions about infidelity?

Silda Spitzer gave up her life as a hard-driving corporate lawyer to become a stay-at-home mom. And we all know how much he appreciated her sacrifice.

Hillary Clinton at least continued — and continues — to follow her own career path.

Former Gov. McGreevey now says his wife engaged in sexual threesomes. She denies it, but whom do you believe?

Suzanne Craig, meanwhile, just hangs on.

Probably because she agrees, in her heart, with Dr. Laura Schlessinger, who says men cheat because "the wife does not focus in on the needs and the feelings, sexually, personally, to make him feel like a man, to make him feel like a success, to make him feel like our hero. He's very susceptible to the charm of some other woman making him feel what he needs. These days, women don't spend a lot of time thinking about how they can give their man what they need."

Dare I ask if wives are entitled to get their "needs" fulfilled, Laura?

When will we see women walk away from politicos who cheat like this?

I guess when pigs fly.

And if that makes me a feminist, I'll proudly wear the label.