Why Schwarzenegger Affair Has Such a Big Yuck Factor

Politicians have affairs. Actors have affairs. We get it. In fact, affairs among the rich and famous have become so de rigeuer that it should be deemed newsworthy only when a celebrity is proven to be faithful.

So when it was revealed Arnold Schwarzenegger had an affair with his housekeeper, one might have expected a collective yawn with maybe a few cynical comments of "what else is new?" Yet certain details of Schwarzenegger's affair and paternity of a child while married to Maria Shriver make his transgression one of the most heinous sex scandals in recent years -- an amazing feat considering his competition.

Here's why Schwarzenegger's affair has created such a big ruckus:

Schwarzenegger's affair partner was his housekeeper. Getting sexually intimate with a stranger is one thing. But when a husband has an affair with the woman who flips the family's pancakes and makes the beds (only to lie in one of them later), the sanctity of the home is violated. Worse, the woman kept working for the couple 14 years after she became pregnant with Schwarzenegger's child, making Shriver seem foolish for being the only one in the triangle not privy to the secret.

Schwarzenegger's affair partner was pregnant at the same time as his wife. We're not sure what kind of sex education they teach in Austria, but Schwarzenegger had to know there was at least some possibility the baby that housekeeper Mildred Patricia Baena was carrying was his -- at the same time his wife was pregnant with the couple's fourth child. The two women likely commiserated together during their pregnancy, with only Shriver unaware that Baena's pregnancy had far more in common with hers than she realized.

Shriver defended Schwarzenegger. Shriver defended her husband against allegations of groping women during his first campaign for governor of California, alleging her husband was a good man despite his own admission that he "behaved badly sometimes" toward women, according to the Sacramento Bee. Political pundits even credited her public statements with saving the election for Schwarzenegger. Shriver's gallant defense of her politician husband is rivaled on the humiliation scale only by Hillary Clinton's misguided attack against right wing conspirators when rumors swirled that her husband, former president Bill Clinton, was intimately involved with an intern in the Oval Office.

Schwarzenegger fathered a secret child. Affairs are bad enough, but when they result in the birth of a child whose relationship is kept hushed up, they have a harmful ripple effect on all of the family members involved. The children of both families not only become the subject of gossip, they must also cope with shaken trust and identity confusion. Son Patrick Schwarzenegger even changed his surname to Shriver on Twitter this week, according to Entertainment Weekly.

On the plus side for Schwarzenegger, his wife was not known to be suffering from cancer when she found out about her husband's affair -- unlike the wives of Newt Gingrich and John Edwards, for whom there is a special place in unfaithful husband hell. Still the former movie action hero who loved to compete in body builder competitions most likely wins the award for being the biggest lout, a dubious honor that demonstrates big muscles do not necessarily translate into great character.