I'm sharing this primarily so I can call bullshit on this evolutionary psychology crap that says men are slaves to a biological impulse to procreate as often and with as many different partners as possible. To believe this is to accept that we are essentially unconscious and unable to control where and how we procreate.
This is an interview with Eric Anderson, an American sociologist at England's University of
Winchester and author of the provocative new book,
The fact that this is based on the responses of college males makes it highly suspect right up front - these are not guys who are known for their desire to settle with one woman. An accurate study would have a much broader age range, education range, and ethnic range.
My take is that a great deal of male cheating is the product of socialization that teaches young men that masculinity is based, at least in part, on getting laid frequently and with many different partners. The fact that women are cheating more often now is likely an element of their adoption of what are considered male freedoms.
I think that men would like monogamy, in general (obviously some men are more satisfied with multiple partners, as are some women - for whatever reasons), but to be monogamous, they must override their conditioning and the subtle (and not so subtle) cues that tell us "men are dogs."
Vicki Larson - Journalist, mother, thinker
Monogamy is failing men.
Not only is it failing them, but it's a "socially compelled sexual
incarceration" that can lead to a life of anger and contempt, or so says
Eric Anderson, an American sociologist at England's University of
Winchester and author of the provocative new book, The Monogamy Gap: Men, Love, and the Reality of Cheating (Oxford University Press, $49.99).
Cheating, however, serves men pretty well. An undiscovered affair
allows them to keep their relationship and emotional intimacy, and even
if they're busted it's a lot easier than admitting that they wanted to
screw someone else in the first place, he writes.
In his study of 120 undergraduate men, 78 percent of those who had a
partner cheated, "even though they said that they loved and intended to
stay with their partner." Contrary to what we may think, most men aren't
cheating because they don't love their partner, he says; they cheat
because they just want to have sex with others. And society shouldn't
pooh-pooh that.
Monogamy's stronghold on our beliefs -- what he calls monogamism --
brings ostracism and judgment to anyone who questions or strays from its
boundaries. That doesn't make sense to Anderson, who wonders why we
stigmatize someone who has a fling more than couples who divorce --
throwing away a marriage rich in history and love, upsetting their kids'
lives -- over something like sex.
Monogamy isn't the only "proper" way to be in a relationship, and he
says it's time that society finds "multiple forms of acceptable sexual
relationship types -- including sexually open relationships -- that
coexist without hierarchy or hegemony." It's especially important for
today's young men, for whom monogamous sex seems more boring than in
generations past because of easy premarital sex and pornography.
Dr. Anderson was kind enough to answer my questions by email:
Your study includes just 120 undergraduate men, straight and
gay; isn't that too small a sample to really know what's going on for
men?
If I were attempting to determine what percent of men cheat, then,
yes. Large-scale surveys show us that cheating remains the norm... I
wanted to examine the very notion of monogamy, not morally, but
rationally. I wanted to know why men want monogamy but nonetheless
cheat.
You say men want to be emotionally monogamous, but their "body
craves sex with other people somatically." People crave food, drugs,
booze, sometimes to disastrous results. If there can be self-control
with other cravings, why can't men control their body urges?
Humans are largely lousy at controlling our bodies' desires. We say
we don't want to eat that Snickers bar, but we also really do want to
eat it. We eat it, we feel guilty about it, and afterwards we promise
ourselves not to eat one again; but we nonetheless do. It is this same
phenomenon, only with cheating, that I explore.
The men in your study experienced a sharp decrease in the
frequency and enjoyment of sex after two monogamous years. Since no one
can sustain the kind of thrilling sex couples have in the beginning of a
relationship, isn't it a healthy thing that it decreases?
I wish young men got two years of good sex before it dropped off;
it's a lot less than that! It may, however, be good that the sexual
desire for one's partner weans; it means that we end up staying with our
long-term partners for the socioemotional connection and not for the
sex. If a couple is going to raise a family, it is the emotional
connection that counts, not the sexual.
Our physical desires don't die; they just change from our partner to
people other than him/her. We falsely believe that when the sex dies,
the relationship has also died. The reality is the opposite; when the
sex dies the relationship has just begun.
What about the idea that long-term relationships make sex become deeper, more intimate and more meaningful?
The diminution of sex is simultaneous to one's emotional bonds
growing stronger. Long-term partners may have more intimate sex (most
just have very little) but when men see a guy or girl who turns them on,
it's not intimate and meaningful sex they are craving.
Honesty is a huge part of a relationship. How good a
relationship can one have when there's deception, especially since you
say after men cheat spontaneously, they are more likely to plan
cheating?
Honesty is good sometimes, and horrible other times. There are good
reasons to lie; it is an essential skill for keeping community and
relationship peace. The reason men lie about cheating is mostly because
they know that if they ask for permission to have recreational sex: 1)
they will be denied 2) after they are denied, they will be subject to
scrutiny and increased relationship policing; 3) they will be
stigmatized as immoral, and most likely broken up with. Thus, honesty
doesn't meet their desires of having both a long-term partner and
recreational sex with others.
The way cheating men see it, it's either cheat or don't cheat, but
telling their partners they want sex outside the relationship, or
telling their partners that they actually cheated, is viewed as a
surefire way of achieving relationship termination. When men cheat for
recreational sex -- not affairs -- they DO love their partners. If they
didn't, they would break up with them.
Wouldn't it be less harmful to relationships if we became
serial monogamists -- marrying two, three or four times as our sexual
needs change?
Rather than marrying 20 times or more in one's life via serial
monogamy, we can keep one emotional lover and just have casual,
meaningless -- and hot -- sex with strangers. This gives us the
long-term emotional stability we desire psychologically, alongside the
hot, carnal sex we desire somatically. It makes much more sense than
lying and cheating, or the difficulty of breaking up with a loved one
simply because you want someone else's body for an hour.
Infidelity breaks up many marriages, but often it isn't the
act of sex that's so upsetting -- it's the deception and lying, clearly
problematic for the emotional intimacy you say men want. So cheating for
sex may be "just about the sex" for him, but not for his partner.
Infidelity does not break marriages up; it is the unreasonable
expectation that a marriage must restrict sex that breaks a marriage up.
One of the reasons I wrote the book is that I've seen so many long-term
relationships broken up simply because one had sex outside the
relationship. But feeling victimized isn't a natural outcome of casual
sex outside a relationship; it is a socialized victimhood. I'm not
advocating cheating; I'm advocating open and equitable sexual
relationships. When both in the couple desire this, when both realize
that extra-dyadic sex makes their partner happy, and they therefore want
their partner to have that sex, a couple will have moved a long ways
toward facilitating emotional honesty, while simultaneously withering at
jealousy scripts, which can be very damaging to a relationship. But if
one can't achieve this with a partner that's hostile to the idea,
cheating is the reasonable action.
Most of the men in your study were OK with sex on the side
for them, but not their girlfriends. That seems unfair and incredibly
selfish.
Monogamy is culturally compelled, so the decision has been made for
us. How much of a chance would a man stand to have a second date if on
the first date he said that he was interested in an open relationship?
At the point men enter into relationships they, too, think they want
monogamy. It's only after being in a relationship for months or years
that they badly want sex with others. But by this point, they don't want
to break up with their partners because they have long-standing love.
Instead of chancing that love by asking for extradyadic sex, they cheat.
If they don't get caught (and most don't) it's a rational choice.
But it is indeed selfish for men to want sex with others but not to
want their partners to do the same. This however is not just a "man"
thing. Women also cheat; they also lie about it; and they also want to
be able to cheat without their partners doing the same. Monogamy is a
problem for all sexes; it builds in an ownership script regardless of
gender.
You say love is a "long-standing sense of security and
comfort." So, wouldn't open relationships potentially pose a threat to
that security since, even if couples play by their own sexual rules,
there's always a chance one could end up preferring a new lover over
one's partner?
People in open relationships structure their engagements as to reduce
emotional intimacy. But, yes, of course it can happen. What I find from
those in open relationships, however, is that once they have had sex
with that person they fancied, they tend to get over them.
If we really want to prevent our lovers from developing the lust of
others, or worse, emotional intimacy with others; if we really want to
prevent men and women from cheating, we would be best to sex-segregate
our jobs, our classrooms and social arenas, too. Emotional intimacy is
the real threat to a relationship, not a one-off hour with a stranger
from Craigslist. Ultimately, there are no guarantees that one's partner
won't find love elsewhere. But controlling one's partner to prevent it
only makes matters worse -- it makes them want to leave you. A better
strategy is to be open, emotionally and perhaps sexually, too.
