Men – for centuries, this gender has held exclusive rights to calling women everything from harlot to bitch.

Nietzsche once said, ‘All of us live in the “Prison house of Language”; if it is the prison house, then the question is who made the prison. It is man-made, constructed by male dominance.’

A certain subset might argue that humans are naturally polygamous. This subset will perhaps argue it because they’re off getting their jollies with someone who isn’t the same person they’ll be going home to that night.

In a post about Lady Lucy Houston, I wrote of Husband No. 2, Theodore Brinckman: ‘Although she adored him, he wasn’t the most faithful of husbands. She soon found out about another “wife” he had stowed away somewhere, and made her way over to this woman to offer her a horse-whipping.’

The Lady got it right – right?

When us women get our claws out regarding our cheating other half, it’s rarely aimed in the direction of the cheating other half; instead, we prefer to show our talons to the other woman. There is, of course, a problem with this approach: what if you don’t know you’re the other woman?

Last night I took note of an interesting revenge status on Facebook. Nikki would like the world to know the following:

‘[Mr. X] is nothing but a lying cheating deceitful player.
‘Long term girlfriend and been seeing me and god knows who else for a year!! Absolutely disgusting!! Bout time people knew what he’s capable of!
Not the nice guy you all think he is!’

Mr. X is a promoter, apparently. I had a look at the website, where there happens to be a picture of him, and I have to admit that I am impressed that he even manages one girlfriend at a time.

The women hanging off him are clearly unaware about the rules surrounding men wearing leopards on their clothes. Stay away, ladies, unless you’re hankering for a venereal disease.

Many people, myself included, would crawl into bed and cry at finding out the person you’ve been seeing for a year is whoring himself about. I can tell you from personal experience that finding out you’re his bit-on-the-side is much worse than finding out he’s got a bit-on-the-side.

There are various websites aimed at shaming the bit on the side – ShesaHomeWrecker.com being a prominent one – but would it surprise anyone to know that there are even pro-affair sites available, like Ashley Madison and theaffairguide.co.uk? That said, take it to those sites, Cheaters, instead of leading on innocent women!

If you look at revenge sites, you only occasionally see the Bit on the Side waging the war. Interestingly, the original Other Half tends to shame his/her significant other but post a picture and the name of the person they cheated with. Is this fair if he/she didn’t know?

Nikki had no idea that the man who was ultimately her boyfriend was not exactly available to begin with, but if Mr. X’s girlfriend gets wind of this yearlong fling, you can bet Nikki’s face would be on a site somewhere as a homewrecker when she is as much of a victim as the Original. If the person I was dating claimed to be single, how can I question their integrity?

Across the pond, they have a website where you can check (obviously this only works if you’re dating an American. In America. So it’s really kind of useless here) if you’re dating a cheat.

Playerblock.com actually invites you to enter the name and number of your paramour to find out if they happen to be on Playerblock’s database of cheats, and even has a handy little “Spy Shop” to enable you to find out for yourself if it’s the best idea to stick around if they’re acting suspicious.

Of course, the husbands and wives posting on these sites are probably the husbands and wives of the people creating profiles on Ashley Madison, a site which allows women to plug themselves for free but making men pay through the nose – apparently they even charge you £15 to delete your profile should you change your mind about embarking on an affair in a digital world that perhaps stays in the digitsphere for all eternity (see my awesome colleague shaming me with a five-year-old tweet just yesterday).

You may be devastated to know the site was recently hacked, with the amazing hacker team, the Impact Team, displaying this message:

Shutting down AM and [sister company Established Men] will cost you, but non-compliance will cost you more: We will release all customer records, profiles with all the customers’ secret sexual fantasies, nude picture, and conversations and matching credit card transactions, real names and addresses, and employee documents and emails.

It hurts my heart.

This site apparently has many members who claim that they’re ‘clean’ – a comforting code for ‘I get checked every now and again because I don’t use protection’. If you’re tempted to go there, you might want to check when they last got themselves tested, but keep in mind that the window period for HIV is anywhere between twelve weeks to six months, and best of luck to you. </sarcasm>

I imagine Nikki to be the cheery type – the one who won’t rub it in too much – I’m imagining something similar to these (images courtesy of PleatedJeans.com):

If they do manage to patch things up, though, I at least hope Nikki manages to arrange this:

At this moment, Nikki says that the ‘ex’ would like to talk. She’s pretty certain it’s out of fear – after all, she, like many cheated-on people, does not approve of cheats, which basically means that she wants to be able to tell this man’s girlfriend exactly what he’s done.

Mr X may not have his other life exposed following their little heart-to-heart – although I personally think that his other girlfriend should be free to make a decision based on all the information, such as her boyfriend is a cheating scumbag.

What would you do in that position? Would you want to tell your cheat’s other half, or would you not want to ruin their happiness? Do you believe it’s unethical to not tell? Likewise, what about the cheat? If you discover you’re somebody’s other woman, is it better to cut them off or publicly shame them?