An insane idea? Mark McCormack thinks otherwise.
“Can men and women ever be just good friends?” This question has long been a staple of women’s magazines, self-help books, and day-time television shows. And as conservative morality lessens, inspiring a culture of ‘hooking up’ particularly among young people, the question has fresh relevance. As highlighted by the film Friends with Benefits, where Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis collide (passionately and repeatedly) in search of sexual satisfaction without commitment, contemporary culture is throwing up a host of scenarios where the question can be asked with renewed zeal.
Yet the question belies an aggravatingly simplistic understanding of men, women, sex and love. Ignoring the assumption that all men and women are heterosexual, it is problematic because it conflates emotional closeness with sexual passion. While a seemingly innocuous question about the tribulations of heterosexual friendship, its implicit beliefs are that sex has to be emotionally-charged and that romantic love is necessarily sexual. If you like her, you must want to fuck her. And while Hollywood, Disney, and almost all of popular culture continue to promote this view of sex and love, increasing numbers of people are dissatisfied by its tenets—including those in open relationships and the majority of those who cheat.
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In the past, I resorted to just grumbling about the inanity of the question, bemoaning the simplistic understandings of sex, love, and the exclusion of sexual minorities from the mix. It was therefore with great joy that I read my friend’s new book that provides a brilliant analysis of sex, love and the human condition. The Monogamy Gap: Men, Love and the Reality of Cheating, by Professor Eric Anderson, offers a provocative exploration of sex and love, critiquing monogamy as a failed social institution that works to limit our sexual pleasure and restrict our ability to form long-lasting, loving relationships.
While Professor Anderson’s main target is monogamy, the book resonated with me so powerfully because it draws on sociology and psychology, alongside several branches of science, to demonstrate the problems of conflating sex and love. He provides an array of biological explanations as to why these men’s illicit desires are fundamentally natural, arguing that sexual desire is not biologically linked to emotional relationships, even if it can produce an emotional response.
Anderson’s argument is that monogamy is a social ideal, and not a biological one. He shows that it normally comes at considerable cost, either through suppressing sexual desire or risking being caught cheating. Drawing on a wide range of evidence, Anderson suggests that monogamy is an irrational ideal because it fails to provide a lifetime of sexual fulfilment. Cheating becomes the rational response to an irrational situation.
Of course, one of the main reasons for this conflation of sex and love is precisely to keep monogamy in its hallowed place. For without the idea that sex is necessarily an emotionally-imbued act, the reasons to stick with just one sexual partner fall away. Academic feminists have long highlighted the links between monogamy and misogyny (arguing that monogamy has historically been about the possession of women), and rather than rehearse the same arguments, Anderson highlights how monogamy also does not work for men. He argues that just as we would grow bored of the same food day after day, and just as we need more than one friend to keep us emotionally secure and intellectually stimulated, our mammalian bodies need multiple sexual partners to remain sexually satisfied. This is why couples have less and less sex the longer they are together, even though women’s sexual appetite peaks in their mid-30s. Anderson shows that sex dies as love grows and his argument matters because many couples view this decline in sex as evidence of a problem in a relationship, rather than a natural phenomenon of monogamous sexual relationships.
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Anderson also charts how society is beginning to understand the problems with monogamy, arguing that the requirements of what it means to be monogamous changes over time: from not masturbating in the 1950s, to not thinking of another woman while masturbating, to not watching porn, to not kissing another woman, to some men today allowed to do no more than kissing another woman. From this historical perspective, the possibility of having multiple sexual partners while maintaining a committed emotional relationship looks closer than we might otherwise think. Indeed, it demonstrates the effects that a more expansive and open sexual morality has on socially-enforced institutions like monogamy. And it is at this stage that Anderson provides his most provocative argument: Men cheat because they love their partners.
It is the ‘because’ that makes the statement so challenging. Yet Anderson’s argument is convincing: Intentionally focusing on younger men unburdened by marriage and parenthood, he argues that if these men did not love their partners, they could break up with them. Existing in the open sexual marketplace of university culture, and fuelled by high consumption of both alcohol and porn, these men do not need to be with their partners for access to sex (unlike undergraduates of past generations). In other words, if the 78% of university-attending men he interviewed who had cheated on their current partners did not love them, they would have left them. The logic, then, is clear—these men are with their girlfriends because of the emotional bond they share. Having undergone a rapid process of sexual habituation in a culture that is highly sexualized, it is men’s sexual dissatisfaction rather than any emotional one which propels them to have sex with others.
Anderson’s argument is contrary to what we have been told by our parents, religion, and Disney, yet it is nonetheless compelling. And it also makes clear that yes, men and women can be ‘just friends.’ With the conflation between sex and love unpicked, the capacity for sexless friendship and emotion-free sex becomes apparent. I suggest that ‘friends with benefits’ is a further weakening of the dominant position of monogamy. While still removed from the anonymity of ‘hooking up,’ it is nonetheless a search for sexual satisfaction without emotional baggage. The next thing society has to learn is that emotional relationships can be stronger without the complications of sex, and certainly without the strictures of sexual fidelity. And it is for these reasons that Anderson’s book is a must-read for all those who feel strongly about sex, love, and monogamy.
—Photo seanmcgrath/Flickr
This article and study should make every good man cringe. PEOPLE (not just men) cheat because their ego is flattered. Because they think they can get away with it. Because real life responsibilities seem overwhelming. Because they feel entitled. For a million other reasons, but NOT because they love their spouse too much to leave or hurt them. People who cheat are simply too afraid to first break up with their significant other before they try the new man or woman out. There’s good reason to be afraid. You risk losing half your assets, and half your family, at the… Read more »
This just sounds like the guy who wrote the book is giving men an excuse to cheat. BS in my opinion. The human race, at this point in time, is so oversexualized that all we do now is eat, sleep and breathe sex. It’s obnoxious, for lack of a better word. The constant pursuit of all things sex is bound to come back and slap everyone in the face at some point. The world can’t continue on like this forever. Just look at the Elliot Rodger story. That’s where the word is headed. I thank god I have raised my… Read more »
Cheating and having other sexual relationships when agreed upon/practicing non-monogamy are TWO different things. Cheating involves going behind someone’s back and breaking their trust. If you want to live that lifestyle, you should be in a relationship with someone who does too or at least be man enough to admit it and NOT get in a monogamous relationship. Plus, cheating happens in a variety of situations and we can’t blanket all of those…Sometimes it happens when people are bored sexually, but sometimes it’s about more than that–emotions, self unhappiness, not having enough sex….It doesn’t have to be that everyone cheats… Read more »
Sometimes DADT is just the thing in a relationship; sometimes, in another relationship, it isn’t. I know from experience I don’t like all the processing that goes with being poly. And I personally experienced manipulation in poly relationships.
Cheating is deceit. If you and your partner agree to define an untraditional level of openness in the relationship, then you’ve set new boundaries for cheating. Whatever works for both of you (or all of you if poly) is healthy. Break those boundaries, and you’re risking your partner’s emotional and physical health; hardly a behaviour of someone who is in love. People who are in love are honest about their needs and expectations. People who cheat are acting selfishly, period. To pretend that they are acting in love—and to conflate it with troubled relationship dynamics—is destructive to any progress being… Read more »
Hi Mark Do also women cheat because they love their man. Yesterday I read about the new report about sex in the UK. Men that cheated :50-60% of all men in committed relationships Women that cheated :50-55% -“- If I rember correctly. More interesting was however how little sex people have. Usually only three 3 times a month. So with all our cheating,open relationships,porn.prostitution and polyamor most persons have few sexual happenings each month ,at least if they live in UK. And maybe three times is not few. Maybe that is natural. Who knows? Maybe we are brainwashed to believe… Read more »
My memory is terrible . It is sex three times a week not three times a month.
” the median number of heterosexual intercourse episodes reported by men and women in the previous four weeks (that’s vaginal, oral, or anal) was five. In Natsal-2, it was four. Now it’s down to three. People may be getting more adventurous, but they don’t seem to be getting hornier.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2013/11/are_lesbian_sex_and_anal_sex_increasing_19_percent_of_young_british_women.html
Iben, you were right the first time. “…in the previous four weeks” = in the previous month.
Lame excuses for bad behavior, and nothing else.
And by the way, genuine monogamy may not be universal, or even common, but it does exist. Saying otherwise is the same inane “if I don’t like it nobody can” bullshit as the article claiming people all hate sharing a bed with their partners and it’s stupid to try.
I don’t think the author is trying to excuse cheating, but merely to explain some of the thought processes behind it.
So why don’t we all just have open relationships? become swingers? have the toy boys and mistresses etc… Lets all drop this ‘its only the two of us for sex’ for the rest of our lives BS and be blood honest with each other. I realised this shizzle a little while ago and I genuinely think that an emotional/love relationship is quite crowded with more than one person, but sex can and should be with multiple people when needed. Why the fudge can’t we all just drop the expectation and sit dow hand have open, honest conversations about this so… Read more »
This, seriously. It’s about the deceit, not the act. I’m in a healthy and yet open relationship, but my partner could still “cheat” on me by breaking one of our established rules.
Hi Natty
Let’s guess .
Take the excitement and danger aspect out of having a fling, will men still be as eager to cheat as when it taboo?
Maybe the frequency of cheating goes down when it is something you no longer have to do in secrecy , when it is no longer forbidden , when it is no longer a challenge, and it is longer a little boy’s revolt against the cage marriage is for him.
And the same goes for women.
If it’s not taboo, it’s no longer cheating, it’s just sleeping with Simeon else. My partner has two regular girlfriends and two girls he sees very infrequently. He’s not cheating when he sees them, because he has my permission. Likewise, I’m not cheating on my boyfriend by having a girlfriend, because it’s okay and within the established rules of our relationship. Neither of us would sleep with other people if we weren’t in an open relationship, but since we are, we both take advantage of it, and it has actually made our relationship considerably stronger.
Hi Wilson Sorry about my inability to write good English. The excitement to do the forbidden is the excitement some feel when they have sex with multiple parters while they are married or have committed your self to a monogamous relationship. I do not see polyamorous relationships as persons that cheat on each other, unless they the break the rules they set up for themselves. I am not negative polyamorous persons or their lifestyle. If they can live like that from their youth until old age and get their needs met,then I am quite impressed ! But in today’s world… Read more »
Why on earth would you have to move or find jobs for people? My partner and I are poly, and all our partners are pulled from the same city we already live in, and they all have jobs. I’m not sure I understand your logic there.
Hi Wilson OK. In my part of the world ( Europe) people move to where the best job possibilies are, and many also move because they have an education that demands that they do, like newly educated doctors( GP) they are ordered to move to the place that needs doctors the first year after they finish their education , officers in the army has to move with their family,… That is all Wilson. I wish you all the best, but to say that this is a familyform that is easily adapted to modern days society is questionable IF the relationship… Read more »
I’m not talking about having a “polyamorous family”, I’m talking about having other partners, such as friends-with-benefits. There’s quite a difference. These are not relationships that would follow you with a move.
Hi Wison
Thank you for answering all my questions. I do understand better when I read all your commonts earlier in this thread.
I think it is bold, courageous and a step in the right direction of having an authentic conversation, As a woman, I think we have lots to gain by listening and really hearing what men have to say.. I do believe that sex is a deeply primal drive in men, that I should try to understand more , if I want to have a long lasting relationship with a very masculine man. I love men fully free to be themselves.. My angle is that if we have that really deep conversation and face the primalness of sexuality, I truly believe… Read more »
It’s very interesting to me to hear your response amidst all these other more predictable ones. This article seems to offer an unconventional viewpoint for consideration, but instead of exploring its possible validity like you’ve done, these other responses are closed to the idea, with judgment not hidden. I am a man who would and will remain loyal in a monogamous relationship, but then I think I’ve probably always had a weaker drive than most men. You would think that would have made me a better candidate for women looking for a stable partner, but as a shy guy, that… Read more »
Hi Paul Do you kind if I break in to the conversation ? ✺”recognize that he is capable of separating sex and love? If a woman were “cheated” upon in a monogamous relationship, then, might he still love her completely? With that in mind, should she be SO jealous? “✺ It is not my impression that men are less jealous then women if she has a fling or take lover. It is said it is easier for women in monogamous relationships to forgive that their partner had sex with others , than it is for men. But maybe this is… Read more »
Men cheat because they love their partners. <— I call bullshit on this. Sure, men can love their partners AND still cheat, but that is at best a correlational relationship between the two variables, NOT causal. Anderson claimed that the young men in his survey who cheated did not break-up with their girlfriends because they love them. Bullshit. They did not break-up with their girlfriends because they want to have their cake and eat it, too. Besides being in love, there are many other benefits to being in a relationship, and if you can get away with cheating (and justify… Read more »
Flawlessly said Han Nee!!
Agree with Han Nee, 100%. “Cheating” is dishonest and disloyal. There is deceit in that–that doesn’t scream “I love you” to me. There are plenty of men who would never dream of cheating, and are quite sexually satisfied! There are plenty of men who have cheated and are so consumed with guilt that they will never do it again, because it was a mistake. There are also those men who cheat compulsively. And still, there are plenty of men who are in wonderful, sexually active monogamous marriages that have lasted 20+ years. Cheating is a cop out. It’s having your… Read more »
you’re dead right.
It’s as simple as controlling the urge, which in itself is natural. I think people will construct as many arguments as they need to validate their own behaviours.
Wow Han Nee…I couldn’t have said it better myself. I am a therapist specializing in Infidelity recovery for couples. What would be ideal behavior for those interested in having an open relationship or an affair is to be honest with their partner. Then there are no secrets or deceit and their partner can leave the relationship if they disagree with the affair or open relationship. Easy-peasy right? Except that most people who cheat do NOT believe their partner should have that choice. We (and are relationships) are as sick as our secrets.
Hi Sabrina
✺ “Except that most people who cheat do NOT believe their partner should have that choice. We (and are relationships) are as sick as our secrets.”✺
Interesting information, and a good comment !
This this this. I think that a huge amount of cheating could be remedied by better communication, especially communication of needs. If your needs aren’t being met, TALK TO YOUR PARTNER. In many cases, a solution can be worked out. If it can’t, and the need is a critical one (like sex), then you have two options after recognizing this incompatibility: break up or agree to allow each partner to do what is necessary to have that need met.
But! While completely right, you’ve missed the entire point of the article. It’s not that “cheating/lying” is good or right, or that people should be proud of it and use articles to prove that it’s ok. The point is that cheating is the alternative to breaking up. Having sexual desire for other people, even if in a committed relationship, is normal and natural, even though our culture says it is wrong. Faced with the consequences of the acknowledgement of those desires, most men (and many, many women) choose to hide, or lie, even when it’s just desire and not actually… Read more »
if polygamy is so natural, why does jealousy exist? i don’t believe that jealousy is a cultural construct.
Jealousy isn’t the issue – it’s insecurity.
Can you say more about this? I don’t disagree … my sense is that you are probably right, that insecurity is the greater issue, and that jealousy does arise from time to time, but exists more as a signal of an imbalance which needs to be corrected or a need which is not being met in the relationship than something inherently wrong in either individual.
Jealousy in other contexts can blow the walls out, but I suspect those folks aren’t good candidates for polyamory to begin with.
To me, jealousy, as you mentioned, arises out of a need not being met. Some jealousy is fine, even expected. Heck, I get jealous of the fact that my partner’s girlfriends sometimes get to see sides of him that I don’t, or that they don’t have to deal with the day to day reality of being a couple that lives together. But none of that makes me feel insecure in my position. I have zero worries about him leaving me for a woman or for another man, because our relationship is strong. Likewise, even though I get to do things… Read more »
Hi Wilson
Do we have good longitudinell studies of polyamorous relationships that can tell us how they develop over time?
I would love to read novels that describes persons experience from young until their death living in these kind of families. I call it a kind of family organization since I have no other word for it. Their life must be quite different from the life the rest of us live.
Sorry, don’t buy the argument. As a therapist I have never seen cheating, open relationships or even pornography work well in marriages. You mentioned the ” same food” every day in your argument. Well, think more of what happens when you eat too much or foods you shouldn’t.
Just because you haven’t personally witnessed it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I’ve been in a successful, stable open relationship for six years. I have friends who have been in open relationships for 20+ years. A friend of mine is actually a “second generation” poly guy – he’s polyamorous himself, and grew up in a polyamorous household. All are in successful, healthy relationships that just happen to include multiple people. It’s not easy, nor is it for most people – it takes someone who is a good communicator, with few to no insecurities, and a good heart to make it… Read more »
Hi Wilson May I ask you two questions : 1: Do couples in open marriage or open relationship promise each other commitment for life ? 2: If you are in an open relationship, not a polyamorous one,what do you say to your new sex partner or lover about what kind of relationship you can have to her or him? I wonder if you say this will only be causal sex,or you say your wife will always have first priority in your life. In other words what can a third part expect when he gets sexually involved with a person that… Read more »
1. Many do, yes. There are lots of different types of open relationships. Some are more along the lines of being married to multiple people (often all living in the same house), while others are at the other end of the spectrum, mostly involving sleeping with other people without much emotional involvement. And, there’s a massive range in-between. My partner and I are effectively married at this point and will be such on paper in a few months, and we’re committed to eachother for life. However, we don’t feel that such a commitment necessarily negates being involved with other people… Read more »
Mark you have obviously never suffered the pain and indignity and suffering that being cheated on comes with. This is merely an excuse for men unable to keep it in their pants. It’s all rather pathetic really.
Amen. Adultery has nothing to do with love. Purely it is done out of selfishness. Betrayal, hurt, sadness, deceit surrounds cheating….there is no silver lining.
I could go on for awhile about this subject, as I have been seriously contemplating it for some time now as it pertains to me. I found and find myself still in this same situation, I am a 52 year old married 23 years female. Many ups and downs in my relationship with my husband. He for years has used porn for money and not with and without my permission to get what ever it is he has been missing in our marriage, at one point running up a bill of 10000.00 dollars on phone and internet sex. All my… Read more »
Someone would have to be at least half insane to judge you negatively for what you’ve done – if your husband racked up a $10,000 phone bill cheating on you while you were ill, it’s absolutely reasonable for you to want to find someone who appreciates you more than that.
I think the problem here is the tacit assumption that people want to stay in relationships because of love – that if a guy wants to stay with someone he’s cheated on, it’s because he loves that person. I don’t buy that at all. A person might want to stay with someone they’ve cheated on for all kinds of other reasons: comfort, fear of loneliness, not wanting to face up to the resulting feelings of guilt/shame, and I’m sure there are dozens of others I could never dream of. I don’t see much alignment between loving someone – which requires… Read more »
Sometimes it feels like there is an attack on monogamy. That monogamy is viewed as a bad thing and is so outdated or whatever one wants to think of it as. I prefer monogamy and that’s the type of relationship I have been in for 7 years. That’s what works for me and my partner. Our sex life isn’t suffering at all. If having multiple partners works for you, then that’s cool. When one commits to be in a monogamous relationship with another individual who has that same understanding, cheating is wrong in my opinion. If monogamy is not your… Read more »
Thank you for saying that Mari. I sometimes read these articles and find myself turning into that jaded cynical shell that I see in so many other people. I too am in a very happy monogamous relationship where we talk very openly about sex and what we want from each other and we are happy, not perfect but happy despite some very ugly times. Each to their own, but some men like monogamy as do some women… monogamy and polyamory simply two lifestyles, neither more perfect than the other. The idea that failed examples of either lifestyle somehow proves that… Read more »
Hello. I’m a cheating husband–or I was cheating, until I got caught. People tend to try to universalize their experience when they talk about these kinds of issues, acting like if it happened to them then it must happen to everyone. Which I think is wrong. So I’ll just share my experience. I didn’t cheat, after 20 years of marriage, because I was sexually bored. I cheated because my wife had stopped saying “I love you,” had stopped asking how I was doing that day, had stopped sleeping with me, stopped working for pay and stopped doing housework, etc. This… Read more »
I agree that the book is simplistic and flawed. But you’re still a dickwad! I get that it was hard to be in a marriage while your wife was suffering from depression, but instead of being open and honest about how it was affecting you, instead of going to counseling and getting the support or working on a dialogue with your wife, you cheated on her. You exposed her to STDs (yep, even with the condom–did you use one each time?). You took the TIME you should have been working on your relationship with your wife and invested it in… Read more »
In my judgement, the word ‘cheating’ says it all. There is no ambiguity if someone is cheating, their actions are now taking advantage of someone else. The person being cheated on did not give their consent, therefore continued sex and relations with that person becomes nonconsenting. How many people, man or woman, do not feel betrayed to discover they have been lied to and manipulated by someone who claimed to love them? Sure, they may think their emotions toward that person constituted love, but their actions demonstrate a deep lack of respect for them, or their right to choose. In… Read more »
A dick has no conscience. Men cheat because they think they can get away with it. Period.
When I worked on the AIDS Hotline in mid-1980s we had more calls from straight men from gay men. The straight men had inevitably been unfaithful and were more afraid of being found out than of anything else. I told a straight woman about this phenomena and she said, “No one runs faster than a married man when he thinks he got caught.” Nor more fearful, apparently.
the more i read this site, the more committed i am to a lifetime of single celibacy if the man i’m with ever leaves me. i keep trying not to read it anymore. maybe this will finally do the trick.
Dicks aren’t attached to human beings? Your dick *really does* do the thinking for you?
I’m sure there are lots of ways that this argument is flawed. e.g. Man stays with girlfriend so that he can have sex whenever he wants? And cheats so that he can have sex that he actually wants?
As a college student, I have met some horrible men. (But mostly wonderful ones!)
(And I’ve met horrible women too!)
Quick confession to the ether: I’m a man who is currently “cheating”. I use the scare-quotes because I’m not married, but I’ve had two relationships with two women for the past year, with only one knowing the full story. It’s also important that the sex isn’t transactional or random, but is with two women who are pretty damn well self-actualized (graduate degrees, great careers, smart cookies). Being in this situation, i can tell you that it is far more emotional on my end than I expected. I’ve realized that I was pretty satisfied sexually in my primary relationship. it was… Read more »
Why is the assumption that only men have a biological and innate desire for sex? I’m a woman and I cheat on my partner precisely because I don’t think his lack of sex drive (relative to mine) warrants severing our true bond and the nurturing love I feel for him. I am committed to him for life. I’m not convinced that the occasional meaningless romp with another man can negate that, sorry.
How about you don’t cheat on your partner, because unless you have permission (which then I don’t think it’s really cheating) it’s a pretty good way to sever a bond. When you’re with someone, sex with someone else isn’t meaningless. If it is meaningless then there is no need to have it.
Occam’s Razor applies here. I think you cheat on your partner because you’re an asshole.
Any kind of relationship, whether friends with benefits or poly or monogamous, can be healthy if everyone in it agrees to the terms. I get the argument that maybe monogamy isn’t right for everyone, but that people do it anyway because of societal expectations. But that’s still not an excuse for cheating, because the other person is going to be hurt when their want/need of a faithful partner is not being met. I personally think that monogamy can work if people adjust their expectations to be more realistic, and also if they are willing to put in the work. I… Read more »
I am a bit confused about the methodology of the research.
a) I don’t know why it only focuses on men
and
b) It seems as if all the interviewees were students which is a very narrow sample.
any response to that Mark M?
The methodology is covered in great detail in the book – obviously this kind of article isn’t suited to explaining that in detail. In answer to the specific questions on sampling, I’d suggest: a) There are likely to be differences between men and women, so focussing on one sex seems reasonable given time constraints. One could also ask what about race, class, dis/ability, geography, ethinicity, almost ad infinitum. Given that the book recognises that it is only talking about men, I don’t see this as an issue. I also believe Eric is currently working on a project researching women’s attitudes… Read more »
thanks. I’m not an academic. I can’t afford it.
I only asked about the methodology. I won’t be buying the book I know why people cheat.
I mean I can’t afford to do a research study.
Non-academics have the right to criticise academic research without being told they should do it themselves. I am sure you criticise things like government, media etc without doing their jobs!
http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/archive/index.php/t-72777.html
Monogamy is possible. There are more studies to support this. But this is a start.