Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress?  Why embrace the bosom of another man's wife? (Proverbs 5:20).

The questions of Proverbs 5:20 are good questions.  Obvious questions, of course -- but if you really take the time to consider them, you can realize their effectiveness.  Why be captivated by an adulteress?  Why embrace the bosom of another man's wife?

Is it because you enjoy the physical sensation of an orgasm?  That's certainly a pleasurable sensation, and I definitely understand the desire to seek that out -- but does that really offer a satisfactory answer to the questions of Proverbs 5:20?  Is an orgasm (or a series of orgasms) reason enough to embrace the bosom of another man's wife (even if that woman is not yet married, i.e. has not yet found her husband)?  It sounds kind of absurd, if you really think about it on that level.  To do something like that just because it feels good seems remarkably shallow and pathetic.  Why do that?  I mean, really -- Why?!?

Is it because you crave the affirmation of a woman -- the reassurance of manhood that sexual conquest provides?  Again, it's understandable to desire these things... but again, I wonder:  Does that really offer a satisfactory answer to the questions of Proverbs 5:20?  A stroking of one's ego is not a noble pursuit, as understandable as it may be.  It's a selfish pursuit, a childish pursuit.  It's sad, really, to consider it in this light -- to allow oneself to be captivated by an adulteress and allow for all the collateral damage in one's own life and in the lives of those around, just so that one's own ego can be boosted.  Why do that?  Seriously -- Why?!?

Is it because you think you've discovered true love?  Who really believes that -- that the true love is the stuff of gushy infatuation all the time?  It seems to me that even the most atheistic, hedonistic critics of marriage as an institution would agree that true love sometimes has to fight through seasons of difficulty and disappointment.  If you abandon a relationship at the first sign of difficulty, that doesn't make you a Don Quixote on a quest for true love; it makes you a weak and shallow person.  In the grander scheme of things, illicit "love" is not really love at all.  So why would you want to do that?  It's all genuinely worth wondering:  Why?!?