The source is Cosmopolitan magazine. (What else?) But which national edition? This cavalier conversation piece of a book, itself not far removed from a magazine article, makes pit stops in Japan, South Africa, France, Indonesia and counseling-crazy America in its quest for taboo knowledge. The shower-singing caveat comes from Russian Cosmo, but it would be good advice in any of these places.

“Lust in Translation” is divided into geographical regions, each prompting Ms. Druckerman, a former staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal, to a new set of stereotypes and generalizations. Since each chapter breaks down into a string of interviews and anecdotes, the book has no overarching structure or point. But its stories are colorfully told and often entertaining. While the book is made crass by the frank avidity of Ms. Druckerman's hunt for material (as opposed to wisdom), it has its share of wittier formulations. “In the parlance of French films, cheating merely signifies that you're the protagonist,” she accurately observes.

But let's begin at the beginning: with a 'round-the-world tour of contrasting adultery-related behaviors. When an American gets caught, there is anger (“Remember the day I beat your picture to shreds?”), lingering resentment and tons of talk. The book finds programs devoted to “Smart Marriages” and “Divorce Busting,” not to mention greeting cards for the cheating spouse who hasn't yet been caught. “As we celebrate with our families, I will be thinking of you,” reads one sub-rosa holiday message.

Yet a Frenchman tells Ms. Druckerman that “he had dropped out of therapy soon after meeting the woman who became his mistress, since he was finally happy.” One Orthodox rabbi ponders the Talmud on the rectitude of sex that takes less time than it does for a woman to remove a wood chip from her teeth. Philandering Finns are exceptionally comfortable with their behavior, perhaps because the Finnish press isn't moralistic about it and perhaps because they travel a lot. Finns answer sex survey questions readily, since the questioner who rings their doorbells is likely to be dressed as a nurse.

Although its author now lives in Paris, “Lust in Translation” devotes extra attention to American behavior, and to the advice business she calls the marriage-industrial complex. “I never realized how many different things could go wrong in a marriage until I saw all these cures,” she marvels. A recovering American adulterer can expect to spend “thousands of hours” discussing the affair and begging for forgiveness, which may never be granted. Meanwhile a Frenchman explains that he felt reasonably justified in opting for extramarital sex because of his wife's appearance. “I don't feel very much guilt, because I asked her so many times to change, to dress more nicely, more sexy, to go to the hairstylist,” he says.

According to this book, the common ground between France and America is the relatively repressed state of their sexual cultures, despite appearances to the contrary. When Ms. Druckerman gets to Russia, she finds a very different story: a boastful attitude about sex, combined with confusion about changing mores since the fall of the Soviet Union. In any case she is helped by an institute doing research on “patrimonial knowledge of Slavonic coitus,” which doles out advice on the topic of sexual harassment. The advice is that attractive young women working in corporate jobs can count on being harassed.

Speaking of virtual, Ms. Druckerman devotes only brief attention to cyberspace. “Not only are affairs not principally about sex,” she writes about Internet intimacy, “but you can have an affair without even taking your clothes off.” Yet the book's strict geographical and cultural divisions are transcended by what is now possible online, and the behavior encouraged by e-contact warrants greater curiosity. It may be the adultery of the future.

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