I think I'm going to have to go with "Appalachian Trail". In fact, I hope that euphemism enters the general vocabulary.

Hiking the Appalachian Trail is what you do with your paramour.

Other woman. Even that would be better. The use of "mistress" seems actually rather dated.

Paramour sounds good to me...and foreign!

> try referring to Maria Belen Chapur, as we do Mark Sanford, simply by her name.

Actually, we call him "that cheating moron" down here in the Carolinas. Fortuantely, it's a gender-neutral term.

What's not "satisfying" about it? It describes a romantic relationship with someone to whom one is not married.

***ducks***

J/K

Is that clear enough?

The word must convey the fact that he is a married, and not to her. Any term that does not misses perhaps the most fundamental aspect of their relationship -- or at least one of the top three.

What, exactly, is wrong with "lover" in English? Seems a VERY appropriate term with the necessary level of intimacy, but with no connotation of marriage or living together.

I'm still getting through my 30 Rock DVD's, so I must have missed that pronouncement from Lemon, but what is her reason for dissing "lover?" As an adult male, I've also had a lot of problem with the juvenile "girlfriend and boyfriend" terms, and use lover instead. What social faux pas am I guilty of, lol?

Shouldn't the stigma of the fact that he's married -- and not to her -- fall on him? After all, she's not the one breaking marriage vows, so why should she be the one to carry the brunt of it in the way we speak of her? He is an adult. She is not obligated to be the enforcer of his supposed values. So why, when he lied and cheated, should we want to call her out of her name, but not him?

For my money, "paramour" does just fine for both of them.

to Mark's bottom

Cum dumpster? The town pump? Whore?

I agree that "mistress" is problematic for all the reasons you suggested. I also think "girlfriend" is bad... she's a woman with kids and a career so anything "girl" irritates me. "Other woman" seems fine, but doesn't pass the "what about him" test. So if you were writing from the perspective of what she did, is he her "other man"? No... because "other woman" carries the connotation of possession. He has his wife and he has his other woman, both things he has collected.

But there wasn't much of an argument against "lover." It does pass the "what about him" test. It makes you uncomfortable? Well, maybe that's appropriate. To me, it's telling it like it is. Why search for a euphemism?

F--- Buddie.

with her purdy pink panties?

. . . she'd he his "outside woman."

... and call Mark Sanford and Maria Belen Chapur by what they are: scumbag cheat and harlot.

Look at a picture of Jenny Sanford. She looks anorexic.

Her forehead looks twice the size of her chest! Her legs are as thin as her arms! She looks very, very bad.

I think that marriage had much bigger problems than his cheating, and I think his cheating is now going to become her excuse to avoid her own problems.

I wonder about Jenny Sanford. I wonder if her starving herself isn't just a form of secret birth control.

She's trying to appear like a "quiver" woman in public while she starves herself until her periods stop behind closed doors.

I bet that's what's really going on.

She's using starvation as birth control, and he's ended up seeking solace from a woman with actual feminine curves.

I'll bet that's the real story.

'It Was Beauty Killed the Beast'

Really, now. "Harlot"? "Whore"? "Seminal spitoon"? Again, we're back to pillorying her because he lied and cheated. News flash: women are allowed to have sex with willing men. (I assume no-one's contesting the fact that he was willing; he went to her.)

Sleeping with a willing man does not make a woman a whore, a harlot, or anything else. A man who sleeps with someone else while he's married, however, is at fault, just like a woman who sleeps with someone else while she's married would be at fault. Convenient as it is for men who cheat to have the women they cheat with catch all the flak while they duck and run? All she did was sleep with someone willing.

If my husband cheats, you'd better believe the one I'm going to be livid at is him, not her. He is not a passive piece of property, that I should get mad at her for trespassing. He is an adult with free will and a sense of right and wrong that should have kept him faithful and didn't. That's his problem, and mine for as long as I'm married to him after I find out about it, (not bloody long, that) but not hers.

How about "Appalachian Tail"?

Floozy, jezebal, how about simply 'whore'?

Adulterer. For both of them.

Not as rude as "harlot," "whore," etc. "Cheater" doesn't work, because really, he's the cheater, not her so much. She's not exactly ethical, but all the venom should hardly be reserved for the person who did NOT break marriage vows.

"lover," "paramour" gives the relationship more legitimacy than it deserves. Too Harlequin, star-crossed romancey than they deserve, particularly in light of his chronic hypocritical moralizing. Note to GOP: if you're going to be a manwhore/airport bathroom pervert/hooker hirer, you might want to save your sermonizing for the audience in your bathroom mirror.

As for an appropriate name to describe him, nothing printable comes to mind.

Let's bring it back!

Etymology:

Perhaps from Dutch word "docke", meaning "doll".

The basic problem is the modern American English for Journalists is devoid of wit, and wit is one of the must common ways of making new words.

That's why most new words come from our sub-cultures that have a place for wittiness -- the net and the hood.

How about a "Trailmate"?