I came across the following article on Salon in which a woman asks Cary Tennis whether she should disclose to her friend that her friend's husband, after the friend went to bed for the evening, tried to seduce her on their couch while she watched TV with her friend's husband. He did not answer the question, but stated:

Dear No Clue,

When you stay over at her house, your friend doesn't have you and her husband sleep naked together in the same bed, does she?

She doesn't have you shower with her husband, right?

We understand these things. There are certain cues to arousal that we try to remove from the chaste realm of family, so that sexual taboos remain intact. We try not to let children look at pornography. The wife does not parade naked around the house in front of male guests. And the husband does not sleep naked in the same bed as the wife's friend.

Other cues to arousal are less obvious. Some boundaries are less clear. And some people are aroused by situations that seem innocuous to others. I'm not saying that watching TV on the couch is a big turn-on and everybody should know that. Yet I suspect that there is something about this situation in which friendship, family and sexual intimacy come together in a confusing and unhealthy way. And I assume that everybody plays a role in such confusing triangles — you, the wife and the husband.

Now, I know that if given a written test he could tell the difference between you and his wife. And logically he knows that it's not OK for him to seduce his wife's friend. But if you test the lizard brain, it just says, "Ugh. Woman on couch. Rub feet. Get boner."

I'm not making excuses for him. He's way out of line. Nor am I blaming the wife. A wife ought to be able to go to bed and leave her husband in a room with her friend without fear that he's going to hit on her. And you ought to be able to sit in a room and watch TV with your friend's husband without his hitting on you.

I guess what I'm arguing for is greater self-protective awareness of the complexity and variation in human behavior. Things are not always going to be as they should. People don't always act right. You need to recognize a bad situation and take care of yourself — which you did, after a fashion, though I'm troubled by the fact that you "made your excuses." You don't need to make your excuses, girl! You need to get that man's cotton-picking hands off you!

You need to say, "Get your goddamn hands off me, you moron, I do not want a fucking foot rub, I'm so off limits you need an East German passport just to sit next to me."

The thing is, I believe that we are more animal and primitive than we pretend, and that is why cultures have evolved fairly strict taboos to preserve marriage. While consciously we know that friends of our wives are off limits, no woman is off limits to our unconscious desires; it's always at work seducing people regardless of taboo. That's why taboos, to be effective, must be not only understood mentally but enforced physically through customs and conscious behavior.

In some cultures strict control is kept over single women. That is oppressive. Women ought to be free. Men ought to control themselves. Instead of controlling their own behavior, some men in positions of power try to control women. That is wrong.

I am against controlling women. I am for maximum freedom. But with maximum freedom comes maximum responsibility. Not everyone is going to play by the rules and it is foolish to pretend that they will. Things are going to happen. You've got to set your own boundaries.

Mohammad