A tangled web of sex and money.

If you’ve ever watched an episode of Dynasty, Falcon Crest, Desperate Housewives or even Sex and the City, it would seem that the affluent are too busy hopping from bed to bed to make time for their wives or husbands. And I’d like to say that nothing could be further from the truth.

But I’d be lying.

In “The Sky’s The Limit: Marketing Luxury to the New Jet Set”, a survey of 594 jet owners bared all, and the results are revealing. 53.5% of the men and 72.4% of the women admitted to having an extramarital affair.

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. A female friend of mine who works as a VP for a high-profile international marketing firm tells me weekly of her married male colleagues’ frequent escapades with secretaries and prostitutes all around the globe. And sites like SugarDaddy.com, where affluent men seek “companionship,” seem to validate her stories.

According to Nicole Mclelland, a reporter for Mother Jones who posed as a “sugar baby” on SugarDaddy.com, there are up to 200,000 users on the site at one time. And that’s not even the most shocking part of her article (not recommended for the easily offended), which exposes SugarDaddy.com for the virtual brothel that it is.

Now to be fair, affairs weren’t the only thing uncovered by “The Sky’s The Limit” survey. For instance, men noted more frequent sex and greater number of partners as primary benefits of having wealth (yawn), while women cited higher-quality sex as the main advantage (not really sure how that works). And both men and women felt that their sex lives were more adventurous and exciting because of their wealth.

Maybe it’s because they can afford “fringe” services like The Play of Seven Knives, a well-concealed, seven-part erotic “treatment” that takes place over the course of several months. Administered by professionals called Adepts, The Play of Seven Knives involves long, luxurious baths and a massage technique using special oils and a very sharp, handcrafted knife. The fear of being cut is supposedly what intensifies the sexual experience, which is often solicited by powerful, mutli-family corporations, but also by High Net Worth individuals seeking the ultimate “adventure.” The price: $2 million.

So what, then, are we to conclude?

Is affluence an aphrodisiac? Maybe.

Does it lead to immoral behavior? Not necessarily, but there’s evidence to suggest that it greases the rails.

It seems that the only clear conclusion is that affluence can hold the power to make people believe that they won’t get caught, and if they do, well, it’s a risk they can afford to take.