Cheating in the 21st century. You could be doing it right now and not even know.

There are so many grey areas. Once upon a time, before the internet and video and instant messaging, there was only boldness to an affair. There was the action and reaction and nothing, really, in between.

Now the lines are so blurry. With things like video streaming of naked women doing strange things – like reading books or smoking marijuana or sexually pleasuring themselves. But he’s only watching, does this count? Apps like Tinder: is it untrustworthy to still have it on your phone when you’re in a relationship? What about the small but very significant step of moving from the intra-work messaging system to text messages and being Facebook friends?

It’s pretty clear: technology has changed infidelity.

I read an article in New York Magazine’s The Cut over the weekend posing the question: is porn cheating? This is not a new question. It’s been quietly whispered between girlfriends over long lunches and wine-filled dinners since the first Playboy was found under a boyfriend’s bed, and especially since the internet made volumes and volumes of porn so accessible. 

When your boyfriend or girlfriend gets their rocks off to something else or someone else – even if they are not in the same room – does that consistent as cheating?

Not if it’s porn?

What about live cam? Where women (women are more popular on live cam than men) perform sex acts, pleasuring themselves on camera, and men or women can chat to them as they do it. Request certain things. Spanking. Sex toys. Reciting Shakespeare while touching herself? (Apparently it’s a thing).

Still not cheating?

What about when he uses facial recognition technology, to find a porn star or live cam girl who looks as similar as possible to his “fantasy” woman – maybe an actress or model – and gets off on that?

The line becomes more and more blurred.

But porn is physical. The fidelity spectrum often involves more than sex. What about the emotional connection?

The term “work husband” or “work wife” is something we hear often. It’s a joke between friends. Something to laugh about… and also to be thankful for. A special person in an office environment is a safe place. A person with whom to get coffee, find new lunch spots, vent about a crazy boss or a difficult client or the seemingly endless distance to Friday.

But technology has blurred the line between work and home. And a work “husband” or “wife” can so easily become a part of that package.

A 2015 survey by career website Vault.com found 51 per cent of “business professionals” had experienced an office romance. 47 per cent of those surveyed were aware of the infidelity of a coworker who was married.

Technology, likely, is playing a huge part in these emotional-but-likely-soon-to-be-physical affairs.

Shifting to text messaging and Facebook friends is a small, but significant, step.

You can so easily open yourself, your life, to another. Through pictures and videos and funny captions via Instagram or Snapchat…. where the messages are conveniently deleted.

You have 24-hour, seven-day-a-week, access to that special person. Contact that can so easily be made in private. A quick message here. A sneaky photograph there.

This does not even touch on the variety of apps that are specially designed to facilitate cheating. Apps that are designed for privacy, to actively conceal sexy images or secret messages.

There are so many questions:

Is it untrustworthy to have Tinder installed and active on your phone, if you’re in a relationship?

What about posting sexy photographs, for the world to see?

What about messaging or photo sharing with someone more frequently than with your partner?

As technology slowly but very, very surely transforms every aspect of our lives, our personal relationships are not immune.

So what does constitute cheating to you? What is your partner doing with their phone right now? Have they crossed a line without even touching someone?

Will you even know?