Everybody's Talking about the Infidelity Test Kit

I am absolutely dumbfounded by this new product I found on Gawker. It's called CheckMate, and essentially it's a semen detector that supposedly works for either men or women.

Say you're a guy, and you suspect your wife is cheating. Piece of cake! You test a pair of her worn underwear for the presence of semen. How does it work? The website invents the euphemism "flowback," but I think "dripping" is clear enough.

Now, if you've been paying attention, you've noticed a small flaw in this scenario. How do you know it's not your semen that you're detecting? And the answer is, you don't.

"You must abstain from having sex with the woman you are testing for a period of 7 days to insure that any semen present did not come from you. Because relationships tend to breakdown [sic] slowly over an extended period of time, the vast majority of men using this product are not having sex on a regular basis anyway, and the 7 day abstinence period is never usually a factor."

In other words, you can't do her for a week beforehand. But hey, if you were doing her, you wouldn't be suspicious, right?

Their theory totally falls apart for women who suspect their men of cheating. "Say for example, he left the house on Sunday afternoon, and told you he was going to play golf. Then, when he came home and took a shower, you got his underwear and did the test. If any semen was present, what is he going to say? I was masturbating on the golf course?"

I'd say "Sure!" but I suspect it's a trick question. Like a guy who spends an afternoon in Bermuda shorts and a beret can be shamed by any societal norms.

The website says the location of the semen is the clincher. "Say for example you discover one small localized stain at the bottom of the underwear. This may indicate dripping after masturbation. But, if you happen to find a stain in the upper waist band area of the underwear, this would more than likely indicate he was at least semi erect, and may have pulled his pants back up quickly after ejaculating."

Um, a couple small quibbles. One, most men are semi-erect before or after masturbating. And two, if we pleasure ourselves in, say, the office bathroom, we aren't going to linger over brandy and cigarettes.

Still, I'll give the test makers one concession. if you find any evidence of flowback, you've got a problem on your hands.

Everybody's Talking about the Infidelity Test Kit^TM