Combine insecurity with abundant opportunity, the prevailing wisdom goes, and every man’s a cheater … right?
Part one of a two-part series
For the past two weeks, every day has brought a new article analyzing the seemingly perennial question of why men cheat. The sad saga of Anthony Weiner serves as the latest catalyst for all this punditry. Blame it on spring fever, but the pop psychology is particularly intense these days. In Jezebel, we read that narcissism is the real instigator of infidelity; in the Huffington Post, that the problem is the aphrodisiac of power—or, from the same site, that the problem is the special inability of the handsome to resist temptation.
These op-eds all share a similar theme. Straight men who possess “social capital” in one form or another (good looks, political power, fame, charisma, wealth) are intensely attractive to women, who (so we are told) are aware that men with this kind of social capital are scarce. And faced with this onslaught of available, attractive women, even married men with everything to lose can’t say no. Combine male sexual frailty with abundant opportunity, the prevailing wisdom goes, and every man’s a cheater.
The thinly disguised implication is that male fidelity is less a matter of virtue than of an absence of opportunity. “Those who can will,” the articles suggest, “and those who don’t are usually those who can’t.” For those of us who believe that men can be better (and in many instances, are better) than the way we’re portrayed in the media, that’s a frustrating message.
Part of the problem is that we don’t teach men how to be faithful to their wives or girlfriends. The culture says “don’t cheat,” and then either enables cheating or fails to equip guys with the tools to make sure they don’t break their promises. That doesn’t mean that the blame for infidelity can be sloughed off onto “society” any more than it can be blamed on testosterone. It does mean that men can do more to help other men who want to stay faithful do just that.
I identify a bit with Anthony Weiner, as I suspect quite a few men do. I was a bright, nerdy kid in high school with grades as high as my dating prospects were low. The girls on whom I had crushes considered me the dreaded “nice guy, but”—the sort in whom they felt comfortable confiding their own stories of heartache over sexy, tough, bad boys. As the pop psychologists would say, I had low social/sexual capital.
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In college, things changed. I lost a little weight and got a more flattering pair of glasses. I also found a confidence that honestly seemed to materialize out of nowhere. I remember the shock I felt at 20, standing at a party, clutching a red cup of beer in my hand, and realizing that the pretty girl standing in front of me was flirting with me. Like so many guys who bloom a bit late, I went through a lengthy and regrettable period where my main focus was on seeing just how much my growing social capital could get me.
I was married and divorced twice before I was 30, and chronically unfaithful through both marriages. I wouldn’t call myself a sex addict, but like Anthony Weiner, was hungry—even desperate—for validation. The actual sex I had with women was less important than the thrill I got from knowing that someone new was willing to sleep with me. I was chasing affirmation more than orgasm. The thrill wasn’t in getting close to new naked skin, the thrill was in knowing that yet another person found me desirable. It was as if I were trying to collect evidence that I wasn’t that nerdy, awkward boy whom everyone had teased in high school.
Just as Anthony Weiner was more interested in having women praise his naked body than in seeing their nudie pics, I cared as much about being told I was “hot” as I did about sex itself. (I wrote about this missing narrative of male desire for the Good Men Project in this post: “The Male Body: Repulsive or Beautiful?“)
At the same time, like so many men who cheat, I did want a monogamous relationship. I was in love with both of my first two wives and hungry for the stability that marriage could provide. I just had no clue how to deal with that gnawing hunger for sexual validation. In order to “work,” the validation needed to come from someone new each time. I’d make a promise to stop cheating, and then I’d find myself in a situation with another woman, and my compulsive curiosity seemed to take over. As self-destructive and joyless as it usually was, it felt like I had no choice.
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What I finally figured out—after two divorces, a lot of therapy, and some intense Twelve Step work—was that infidelity wasn’t something that just “happened.” I learned that there was always a critical moment right before I “lost control.” That critical moment wasn’t when I kissed a woman who wasn’t my wife; rather, it was when I first started flirting with her. I had to learn to analyze my pattern (and every cheater, like every addict, has a pattern) to find out the exact moment where a non-sexual, normal exchange slipped into something different.
But it’s not just about putting up boundaries. Staying out of bars and cutting off your Internet connection won’t do a damn thing to keep a man faithful to his spouse if he doesn’t address the core issue: his own hunger for validation. It doesn’t matter whether a man has high or low “social capital”; sooner or later, if a guy doesn’t work through his own sense of inadequacy, he’ll cheat on whatever woman with whom he’s in a monogamous relationship.
Hot guys, rich guys, and charismatic guys usually have an easier time finding those temporary hits of affirmation. But that doesn’t mean they’ll find it harder to give up cheating or harder to be faithful. Those of us who were “lucky enough” to have enough sexual capital to misuse are often the ones who can figure out relatively early that we won’t ever find what we’re looking for from random hook-ups and extramarital intrigues. And though there’s not much news in reporting that a senator or a rock star marked another year of faithfulness to his wife, more than a few men with “high social capital” have learned how to match their public language with their private lives.
I don’t know the current “buying power” of my sexual capital. But as sometimes happens, the other day, I got a smile and an old, familiar “vibe” from a woman in (of all stereotypical places) the produce aisle at Whole Foods. I gave her a polite grin and kept right on going. The temptation flared up to find out if she was just being friendly or was genuinely interested, and I quieted it. “You don’t need to know what you don’t need to know,” I said to myself, repeating the mantra I learned many years ago when I first started to learn the basic tricks for avoiding “slippery situations.”
Sexually exclusive marriage isn’t for everyone. We live in a society that has increasingly viable alternatives to state-sanctioned monogamy. Fewer and fewer of us can claim to have been forced into something that we didn’t really want and for which we weren’t ready. That means that those of us who want to be and stay married need to realize that the greatest impetus to cheat isn’t sexual frustration or romantic disillusionment or even the easy opportunities that seem to come most easily to the handsome and the powerful. The real problem is that relentless craving for validation.
The solution lies in challenging the men in our lives to get past that adolescent hunger for affirmation, that insatiable longing to know what they don’t need to know. And until we do that, we haven’t confronted the root cause of the infidelity epidemic.
In part two, next week, insight and advice on the details of staying faithful from some remarkable married men.
–Photo srqpix/Flickr
I see my own reflection… 🙂 thanks for validating this mental inadequacy Mr. Hugo, but can you tell me is there really any man in the world, who is so completely in love with his wife, the thought of all this inadequacy and psychological validation even doesn’t step into his mind, I am asking this coz I wanna know, if this is a thought that comes up due to growing up improperly? When I am in the company of my wife, I don’t get that thought at all, but when I step out to do my work or keep moving,… Read more »
I am a man and I disagree with some parts of the article. Although in general men would think that they would scored when they bring someone home from a bar (or a grocery store), in general they would later realize that she is a bad apple as well, which could stem from many reasons. She could just be as arbitrary in flirting as the man does, she could be desperate, she could be on a rebound, she could be just as needing validation as the guy does. Then the man would feel like he has not really “scored”. Then… Read more »
Answer is yes – my husband is good-looking and has been faithful for 17 years (as have I) although he is a big flirt.
you can only resist enough, the problem isn’t validation, its that you didn’t have a period in your life to sow y our wild oats, you were married twice in before your 30th birthday? 20 is not a late bloomer, most people have no idea who they are at that age let alone in your teens….
what you did was actually fairly normal, men in my opinion need to experience that period of “fooling around” before settling down, if you don’t have that you will always wonder and crave it
“what you did was actually fairly normal, men in my opinion need to experience that period of “fooling around” before settling down, if you don’t have that you will always wonder and crave it”
Good point, kaper. This also goes for women, which is why many ‘experiment’ during youth. It’s better than always wondering or feeling trapped or like you missed out on something.
wow-I wish I had read this 15-20 years ago when I was actively looking for that validation. Incredibly well stated and articulate article. I still desire the validation, but no longer actively look for it since I got married 10 years ago
What would you all say to the man who has cheated a few times over 17 years but has flirted with it alot. What would you say if this man is in a relationship that offers very little validation. My wife has “instigated” sex fewer than 5 times in 17 years. Is that something I should be able to live with?
Great article. But it is flawed, in at least one respect: it operates under the presumption that monogamy is natural and that faithfulness should be, by nature anyway, the rule. However, if one is to surmise that monogamy is NOT always natural (as suggested by some scientific studies), then it is the so-called “faithful” men who are behaving abnormally. An appropriate article could explore the lack of security faithful men grew up with, which has led them to crave the certainty often associated with monogamy.
“Hot guys, rich guys, and charismatic guys usually have an easier time finding those temporary hits of affirmation.” Gee, that’s exactly what I was saying in “Hot or Not: Why Women Shouldn’t Marry Attractive Men.” And I got skewered for it! Because people thought I said, “and all hot guys, rich guys, and charismatic guys will act on it,” which I did not say (nor believe). Oh well. It’s good you found your “tipping point” — the flirting. But, that isn’t everyone’s tipping point. I flirt, but I would never cheat on my boyfriend because I don’t want to hurt… Read more »
What post-feminism psychobabble… Sometimes people want sex for the sex or want variety for obvious reasons and not some grand, deep, Freudian drama. I happen to be happily married and monogamous in my own case fortunately (I have a great wife). But enough of this BS, people often like sex for sex’s sake for god sake.
I think the most important thing Schwyzer wrote here is that exclusive relationships are not for everyone. There are alternatives that may be better for some people than a monogamous marriage. Being exclusive can be challenging, and it comes with trade-offs that are worth it to some people and not worth it to others, depending on the individual. Those bits of wisdom seems very commonsensical to me, though I’m sure a lot of people would find them controversial.
Note to self to shop more often for produce….
One very critical element that I think has been missed in this discussion is the societal pressure for men to get married. It has long been established that the single biggest thing a man can do in his personal life to benefit his professional one is to get married and “settle down.” In the corporate world, employers greatly prefer married men to single ones when higher positions open up. Whether their preference is backed up by statistics or not, that puts a lot of pressure on aspiring men who, in their heart of hearts, might rather stay single. Even in… Read more »
Excellent point here. It’s like society makes political figures get married, lifts them up, and then tears them apart when they fail. Well, sort of tears them apart. I wonder if celebrities really are held to a higher standard than the average person or if infidelity is actually more forgiven when you’re rich and famous and powerful. (I saw Bill Clinton on the Oprah show after he was President. The women in the audience absolutely adored him.) And, all the allegations about JFK’s private life have only made him more popular, not less popular.
The structure and security that marriage provides is necessary for raising children who do not turn out to be malignant narcissists / sociopaths / psychopaths. (Per the UC irvine neuroscientist, whose life study is examining the brains of psychopaths (25% more white matter + no activity behind the occipital bones), and whose own brain is that of a psychopath, and yet he is not one, one’s nurtured childhood and one’s own choices can override one’s genes.) Adultery causes divorce. Divorce destroys a child’s nest and his or her ability to trust. it also causes a child to have to dissociate… Read more »
I think Hugo makes a very good point about many men cheating in order to meet some internal need for validation. Obviously that’s not the whole explanation for people not keeping a promise to be monogamous. (And I don’t think Hugo is saying that it’s the main explanation for every case.) However, I see some natural limits on this explanation, because if we take this validation argument to its logical endpoint, then I wonder where the committed relationship fits into all this. I mean, if having sex with women is some search for validation, isn’t having a sexual relationship with… Read more »
Hugo said that validation is a common motivation for new partners. He didn’t say that it’s that only motivation to have sex ever. People have sex for a variety of reasons that can change at any time. Even within monogamous relationship, there are plenty of motives. I would say that the need for validation disappears when you gain a little self esteem and stop looking to other people for validation. If you don’t need validation, you don’t need to have sex for validation. I think the change comes from the realization that whether or not someone is willing to have… Read more »
You make a lot of good points here but the thing that hits me right between the eyes is the definition of cheating. Like the vast majority of people in the Western World you define cheating on your partner as having sexual relations with someone who isn’t them. To me the act of cheating isn’t the sex it is the lie. We are conditioned from birth to believe that the only healthy kind of relationship is one that involves sexual monogamy. This conditioning has two sides. The first side is the most obvious, if you have a sexual relationship with… Read more »
I’ve always had a question about the swinging world or polyamorists — in the long run, doesn’t that lifestyle only benefit men? I’m a woman in my 40’s and my “sexual capital” has already plummeted. If I wanted to be a swinger, I can’t see myself attracting much interest, even though I’m in relatively good shape and reasonably attractive. Dating at this age is tough enough, believe me! Swinging? yikes! On the other hand, older men have an easier time. I imagine myself being in a polyarmous relationship in my 50’s or 60’s, while my significant other gets to go… Read more »
I’m not poly myself, but I’m guessing that there are plenty of men out there your age who are poly, and many of the younger women interested in multiple partners would prefer younger partners themselves. Seems like it would balance out somewhat. I can only imagine that a willingness to experiment with a polyamorous lifestyle would only INCREASE your “sexual capital.” I don’t know if swinging is a more “competitive” (for lack of a better word) sexual world. My impression is that it is more inclusive and less competitive.
OK Well I will preface this by saying I am Australian and the scene here may be a little different from the scene in the US from what I have read and seen, though I don’t think this is the case. My comments are based on my observations through my own personal experience. Think about it this way. If the men go into the swing scene to experience a variety of sexual partners and situations then there HAS to be women who they are persuing right? Yes, as in dating there will be particular women who are more popular than… Read more »
I’ve never been a swinger, but I am a sociologist. I remember that some of the research shows that while men want to start swinging, their wives often want to continue when the men want out. It turns out that the women are simply more affiliative, and this applies to swinging also.
And why would only your partner have fun with “a lot of other women” only? You could be having fun with a lot of men, even younger and fitter and all of that. Older men have NO easier time, trust me. Only the few dudes who are able to stay fit and hot when older will get many women… while older women, even when not that hot, will get many men wanting them.
Ethical Slut asks a challenging question I look forward to answering at length. Short version: monogamy isn’t for everyone. It needs to be positioned as one option among many, so that it’s chosen rather than settled for as the default. Like every lifestyle, it has its rewards and its costs, and we each need to do the cost-benefit analysis for our own lives and the lives of those we love. The calculus leads me to say, “Yes, I like monogamy, and I think it can be done well.” But as they say, your mileage may vary. And let’s have it… Read more »
All this talk about who monogamy is for and who it isn’t, at the end of the day and bottomline is BULLSHIT! There are over 35 sexually transmitted diseases and one contracted orally that a condominium won’t protect you from! Monogamy should be more about sexual health (of course love and respect to.) but it’s not f rocket science that many sexual partners brings one more risk duh! ? At this point in this crazy society and the way ppl view monogamy, it wouldn’t surprise me if the f humane race doesnt perish from f sexual diseases! If your gonna… Read more »
Hugh, your article was very thought provoking. I’ve been sitting here trying to decide if I would prefer a man with your history or someone who had been very loyal in proir relationships and had very few partners. A “reformed cheater” may have learned about himself and gotten it out of his system — or maybe not. I admit I would have a hard time trusting someone who cheated in prior relationships. On the other hand, someone who has had only a little experience may feel deprived and want more when the opportunity arises. I dunno. I once dated a… Read more »
I dunno. There were some things worth thinking about in this article, but I kind of got the impression that one man’s experience or opinion is trying to be mapped upon us all. I sleep with new women out of curiosity. I would cheat on a girl (which I’ve only done once) because she’s not paying attention to my needs, i.e.sexually, emotionally, on a day-to-day level. Not because I need validation. Author, it’s because you need validation that you cheat, not why people cheat in general. It’s too bad you’ve taken a while to know what you can/can’t do, have/don’t… Read more »
Um, you get that when a woman fails to “meet your needs”, it reads as lack of validation to most men, right? I.e., she doesn’t care for me enough/want me enough to have sex with me anymore. She’s telling me that she doesn’t want me, so I’ll go find someone who does. In other words, to validate me – to make me feel valued again. Meeting someone’s emotional and sexual needs on a day-to-day basis IS validation. You just proved the author’s point. You can make it just about sexual release, but I think the majority of people, not just… Read more »
Not bad, Hugo. I think I’ve always been more interested in the relationship than willy-nilly sex, but I’ve quite a few partners. I have no norms for other men, but I do feel contempt for “game,” “pick up artists,” and other things like that. The commodification part has no interest for me, nor does swinging. I haven’t been entirely monogamous in my current marriage, but have been for a while now. I do enjoy the buzz of an attraction, particularly at my age.
Dude, I can empathize with your take on cheating having its roots in a need for validation, but this may not be the root cause- it may only be your experience (as well as that of other men, but how many?). It’s my own opinion, and certain trends in the declining marriage rate may support this (if only in a correlative manner), that men (and women) cheat because sex is not something that should be legislated by social rules of who you can and cannot fuck. It’s within our most base and instinctual drives to spread our seed to further… Read more »
Monogamy doesn’t really have anything to do with likelihood. A friend of mine studies biology and she told me the testicle/brain ratio is where it’s at. Mens testicles are small compared to their brains unlike lions for example. Lions are not monogamous. Humans are.
Matbo, exactly.
All this talk about who monogamy is for and who it isn’t, at the end of the day and bottomline is BULLSHIT! There are over 35 sexually transmitted diseases and ones that can be contracted orally that a condom won’t protect you from! Monogamy should be more about sexual health (of course love and respect too.) but it’s not f rocket science that many sexual partners brings one more risk duh!? At this point in this crazy society and the way ppl view monogamy, it wouldn’t surprise me if the f humane race doesnt perish from f sexual diseases! If… Read more »
Great observations as usual sir! Do I detect some Bourdieu in there? I and a couple of other guys I know have a firm set of rules about this stuff. Cheating is out. Period. If we can’t commit then we do the respectful thing and don’t. Even then we promise ourselves and the other person that we’ll conduct ourselves as best we can in a way that is respectful. In fact it goes further than that. We don’t ever go home with someone we don’t like and give a damn about as a person. As a result we – mostly!… Read more »
Hugo, It is incredibly sexy to hear how self aware and evolved you are. You are so right about how men have that need for validation and until they do the work you have and find their self worth within it is a free for all out there. You are also right about our culture. We love to point out infidelity and the flaws but do nothing to stop it because we don’t talk about it’s roots and how we can heal what’s underneath that behavior. Our sons do need to have a new breed of masculinity that supports a… Read more »
Hugo, wonderful article. I have deep empathy for men today. For the Anthony Weiners, Tiger Woodses, and Arnolds. As you suggest, I feel as though we do not equip our sons with the belief in themselves that they are good in their own way and give them the tools to express it. The idea that “oh, men are being men” is denying the complexity of modern manhood. And, men are wonderfully complex individuals that deserve our love and respect. If, in fact, we do not give our sons the proper tools and examples to become the complex individuals that they… Read more »
An absolutely brilliant article which I shall be sharing with my female friends. My wonderful man totally agrees with this and has been through a similar journey.
I love the fact that you identify that it is down to faithful men to teach other men how to be faithful.
This one was spot on Hugo, and hit very close to home. I was a nerdy nice guy in high school. But once I got out on my own in college and gained a confidence I never knew I had, I proceeded to abuse it to an extreme degree. I slept with one girl before college. By the end of four years, that number was…well, higher. Much higher. Yet I was in long-term relationships for the vast majority of college. I just cheated like hell. And it wasn’t the sex, it was knowing that I could get her and that… Read more »