Charles Orlando calls out the folks who say that some guys are just born cheaters who can’t help themselves.
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There’s a common misconception that [some] men are so flooded with testosterone they are incapable of staying faithful. These men are simply “hardwired to cheat”… and women just need to learn to live with it. Two words: Bull. Sh*t.
Nothing wrong with men (or women, for that matter) dating or being romantically involved with multiple people. What’s needed is the integrity to state their intentions honestly to the people they are involved with — instead of hiding, lying, cheating and manipulating. The cold, hard reality: Those who “can’t remain faithful” are not only lying to everyone they are involved with… they are lying to themselves. These people simply don’t have the courage to stand up to their partner(s) and say: “Hey. I’m not happy and I need to do something/someone else” or “Look, I’m just not in a mental/emotional place to be in an exclusive relationship right now.”
It’s a choice to honorable and be upfront about monogamy. Not being upfront is either a I-want-my-cake-and-eat-it-too mentality… or cowardice. And to the guys who say, “Whatever! I got lotsa bitches! I don’t need to tell them sh*t! I’m a player!” Firstly, you need “lotsa bitches” because the moment one hears you calling them “bitches”, you’ll need to move on to the next one. Secondly, you’re not a “player”… you’re a manipulator who lies to get laid in an effort to bolster your self-esteem and sense of masculinity. If you were real, you’d be able to be up front about your intentions and tell the women you are involved with that you aren’t exclusive with them… that way, everyone is playing by the same rules. But you can’t… because they would dump your ass in a heartbeat… so you have to lie. Nice try, Champ.
Bottom line: You don’t need to be in a monogamous relationship… you just need to have honor and be honest about your wants and intentions. That way, everyone keeps their integrity and self-esteem.
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Originally appeared on Charles Orlando’s blog
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Photo: Flickr/Todd
Another reason the excuse is BS: if men are hardwired to cheat, then what explains women who cheat? Men do it because of biology, but women do it because of….what….culture? If women are wired to be monogamous, then that must be…what…”softwired,” I guess. If it’s “just biology” for one, then it must be “just biology” for the other. But, the “men are hardwired to cheat” argument fails to explain what exactly the difference is between men and women. I’m not bringing this up to shift blame to women or shift responsibility for choices that men make. I’m bringing this up… Read more »
Women could be “hard wired” to cheat too… from an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense for a female to have offspring by multiple fathers. More genetic diversity = greater chances that at least some of her offspring will be succesful.
I’ve read that in ancient Polynesia, when a boat arrived from a neighboring island, women (married or unmarried) would commonly seek out the visitors for sex. It was considered good for the tribe to hedge their bets that way. Villages in some parts of Africa had similar customs.
That males sense, as most of the monogamous females in nature cheat. And they cheat a lot more than the monogamous males. They cheat with not attached, younger and stronger males, so their offspring will keep being genetically diverse and strong. The same goes for non-monogamic females; they usually accept the stronger/most beautiful male first, but then always copulate with many other males right after that. Many even make “orgies” with many males.
Females in general, and of almost all species, undoubtedly feel a strong urge for variation.
So many commenters went straight to butthurt and completely missed the point the writer was making. He never claimed all men cheat, he never claimed most men cheat, and he never claimed women don’t cheat. This is all about the excuses made for men who cheat. For a long time now, people have claimed men cannot have one partner, it isn’t natural, they will always cheat. I’ve even heard the good guys are the ones who put the effort in to hide it better. These excuses are only made for men. He is just calling them out as BS. The… Read more »
I believe Americans are hard-wired to say people are hard-wired to many things, and oftentimes as an excuse for bad behavior. Really, I see that all the time. 😛
Josh, I agree
Choosing not to cheat Honors yourself more than anything else. Same as being honest does.
Time to give up this limiting belief once and for all. Personally, not only is 40+ years of believing this more than enough, I see now that this belief was the reason that 98% of the lovers I chose lied and cheated. “All men cheat” protected me from disappointment and heartbreak. It’s easier to think this behavior is intrinsic to men, than it is to know that available, loyal men with integrity are in abundance, but my sight is blocked by unconscious beliefs like “I am unworthy of an honorable partner with integrity, who values honesty as much as I… Read more »
Are there really people who believe this kind of nonsense AND believe it’s gendered?
Come, now. We can always discuss if monogamy comes natural, if it’s an easy or a sensible choice, etc. etc. We can talk about why people cheat. But gendered? No. We all know that cheating isn’t.
Lars — Where did I write that only men cheat. This article is about men who *do*… not that ONLY men cheat.
But why bring gender into it? It’s irrelevant.
It’s a thought-bubble piece, Lars. You and I may as well either write a better article or wait for something more substantial to work with. Here we have Anne, who isn’t taking this whole women-having-babies thing lying down, and you’ve puffed away the founding sands of this article to the extent that poor old Man from Mensa is hopping on one foot, you big scallywag. : )
My theory is that this is actually about the inadequacy of tech-savvy sounding analogies, and we’ll be seeing this article used and shot down later in a demonstration piece about creative philosophical writing.
Because that is a gendered excuse. An excuse usually men use. That is all.
To be honest, the only time I’ve heard of this excuse in in articles like this. In my world, men who cheat are weak, spineless moronic man sluts. The few that I’ve known to have cheated, end up living with the slut that he cheated with which makes they both morons. Which goes back to my question, why would a women want to stay with a guy who cheated on his wife?
A-fucking-men! Wish my ex was up front as to what he really wanted. Wouldnt have wasted my time on the lying sack of shit.
Just one more excuse for men not having to take responsibility and be accountable for their immature and immoral actions.
Are women hard-wired to have babies? I don’t think so.
Ann – Did you read the article? I actually discuss how it’s NOT an excuse.
There are roughly a million things we’re supposedly hard-wired to do that we don’t do anymore … and then there are just as many things that men do because we want to in 2014. Pretty sure biology has little to do with staying up late to watch the end of the Yankees game or downloading another song onto our iPod.
‘The science made me do it’ excuse is about as lame as they come.
I could not agree more. “Hardwired brain” is the new “Satan made me do it!”
I could maybe understand a biological determinist argument that says that the human brain is better at being attracted to multiple people than being attracted to only one person. Maybe. But there’s a HUGE difference between wanting to do something and choosing to do it.
Great point Steve.
That’s a MENSA level position? You just trotted out a trite line and shot it down with equally lightweight generality; and GoodMen published it. I’ve found life outside MENSA more complex than this BS article makes out.
I always see it as kind of funny that it’s remarked how often men cheat……what percentages….etc….
Without accepting that on average every cheating “bad” man has his equivalently “bad” cheating woman…….
On the macro level their numbers have to be fairly evenly matched…….yet it’s a male problem to be solved instead of a human issue that needs to be addressed.
WHY?
Because by making it a “male” problem, half of that population doesn’t have to take responsibility. Didn’t you know, ALL the bad in the world is caused by men?
Oh, poor thing. It’s so hard being a nice guy.
Not all, but most, yes.
Because throughout history not only was it OK for men to cheat but it was their right to do so. Not only did they have the access (since they were allowed out of the house without escort) society told them that they weren’t doing anything wrong. Only recently has the number of women who cheat gone up. This is due to having the same access to society and power over self that men have enjoyed for thousands of years. Women are catching up in numbers but aren’t quite there yet. which makes sense given history and social attitudes and changes… Read more »
Every cheater needs a person to cheat with,….always did…always will.
Women are and always have been as much a part of the overall culture as men have been…….So accept that women are just as culpable for both the good and bad.
Man = bad / woman = good, is a flawed viewpoint. Men and women are just as equally good and bad on the Macro level. Putting the blame for all the evil in the world on just men isn’t only wrong it’s horribly inaccurate
“Every cheater needs a person to cheat with” “accept that women are just as culpable for both the good and bad” These statements are flawed in the logic. Just cause every cheaters cheats with someone doesn’t mean the person are cheating with is aware they are part of an affair. Cheater aren’t always lying to their wives/husbands and honest to their girlfriends/boyfriends, can’t expect a liar will be honest. The second statement, looking at some countries on this planet, men have completely control over every aspect of life, work, society. They rape and kill women indiscriminately, how exactly are these… Read more »
Women knowingly cheat as often as men do. They are not that Victorian stereotype of good.
Women are just as evil as men are……not more not less……just being human
“Baby farmers” in the time you claim women could not be responsible for evil.
Claiming that women are inherently good and men bad, is sexist to it’s core…….and harms both men and women.
Who raises the children in those societies, who shapes there viewpoints when they are the most modifiable? If the women as a group said NO those societies would grind to a halt. All that is needed for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing to stand against it. Accept that the women are just as responsible for the societies they live in on average as the men in those same societies.
I’ve always loved the argument that because woman have children they are somehow still responsible for their childrens actions after they become adults. That is flawed logic because it says that a man is not capable of making his own decisions, whether good or bad. The truth is that men for the most part have had the political, economic and social power in this world up until recently. It was women yelling, kicking and screaming for our voices to be heard, listened to and be taken seriously that we in the West have enjoyed the outcomes of a more egalitarian… Read more »
But Kids do learn by example from the person who spends the most time with them. That example carries responsibility with it
“Who raises the children in those societies, who shapes there viewpoints when they are the most modifiable? If the women as a group said NO those societies would grind to a halt.” Ridiculous. Ignorant. And scary. That guy believes breaking the rules is easy, brings fast results, face no negative and violent resistance. He believes women actually WANTED to be sold, raped by their own fathers and husbands, enslaved. He believes women said yes, and never said no. He believes it is that easy to tell your children to be different, when you have a husband and the whole society… Read more »
Trey, why don’t you go to islamic societies and tell to the women’s faces they are as responsible for the culture they have never created and didn’t ever support (because their voices are never heard anything, for good or bad) and as responsible for their stonning, humiliation, systematic rapes and oppression? Why don’t you go shame them for not saying NO loud enough and not being able to teach their children to stop wearing burkas and stop beating up and raping their own wives? Why don’t you go as well and tell the gay men that they are just not… Read more »
Do you really believe that women in islamic cultures Don’t have any say in the culture? What a bigot.
“These statements are flawed in the logic. Just cause every cheaters cheats with someone doesn’t mean the person are cheating with is aware they are part of an affair. Cheater aren’t always lying to their wives/husbands and honest to their girlfriends/boyfriends, can’t expect a liar will be honest. ” Which leads me to ask, why don’t women know these things? Do these women ever go to the guys home? But these days, it’s okay to jump into bed with guys that you don’t even know? And how many of these women stay with the guy after they find out he’s… Read more »
Sorry, but even if someone needs another person to cheat, and even when the other person knows the former is cheating (many times they do not know)… the cheater is still the one going behind their partners back. The other person have no moral contracts to follow.
That is ridiculous blaming your wife’s toyboy which whom she cheats on you with as much as you blame her. He has never promised you anything.
Sorry, but even if someone needs another person to cheat, and even when the other person knows the former is cheating (many times they do not know)… the cheater is still the one going behind their partners back. The other person have no moral contracts to follow.
That’s ridiculous blaming your wife’s toyboy which whom she cheats on you with as much as you blame her. He has never promised you anything.
You forgot to mention women actually did create religion. They were life-loving, nature-admiring religions where evryone were accepted for who they ere. And these women got burned by the Church as witches.
Women invented religion? What a lousy thing to blame on women. Talk about unintended consequences — it’s like Frankenstein’s monster!
Many females did invent some religions in past. Didn’t you know? As I said, they got killed by the Church, though. The Church could never accept women being their own leaders, or religions not as hateful as theirs.