Water as a symbol in Fatal Attraction

In order to understand the use of water in an Adrian Lyne film, you should probably look more widely at the use of water in his complete body of work. Lolita frolics under a sprinkler, Flashdance has its famous water dance, there's the bathtub scene in Jacob's Ladder, and Unfaithful has horseplay with water pistols, a car wash, a sink sponging, and a bath scene. It may be less about symbolism than about artistic preference.

Writing about his interview with Adrian Lyne regarding his "thing with water," Jeffrey Lantos says:

Yo, Adrian! What's with you and water? You got soggy subway stations, you got buckets of water falling on strippers, you got ice cubes dripping down breasts, you got people screwing in puddles and sinks, you got more rainstorms than Costa Rica. Even your roads are wet. "Water looks good on skin. It's evocative. And wet roads look better than dry roads." Oh, c'mon, I say, it's gotta be more than that. Isn't there some subliminal message you're sending? Adrian Lyne smiles and shrugs. "It must be some obscure thing from childhood."

I seem to recall that the tide coming in was often used as a metaphor for intercourse in older films.

I cannot really remember the film but perhaps water is symbolising lust - being released from taps, becoming dangerous when boiling and becoming calm and relaxed again with the (apparent) death of Alex.

I stress that I have no expertise in this area and this is merely virtual guesswork!

I think too, that the water symbolizes purity..(clean & pure) which to me reenforces the wrongful act of the affair. Also somehow, during other scenes such as the scene where she is washing dishes, the water symbolizes sensuality.