Why do men cheat?

Not the people, the diseases should be eradicated. You know micro-lifeforms that actually in the long term DO threaten the entire species of humans as a whole.


If there's a medical way to remove such infections, and viruses from the reproductive health area, as a species we should collectively do that first, and then resume the behavior of swapping partners and having multiple partners.


The problem is the behavior, (and there is a lag in test results, aka: false positives and false negatives) persists and now we're at a state culturally where tons of people are like:

OH just get antibiotics for that, no biggie.

^but such a mindset, actually fuels the creation of drug-resistant STD/STI's which poses a real threat that does not come from Judeo-Christian values.

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I think i clearly stated in my post earlier, that I was more concerned about the former than the latter issue about why I have trouble advocating cheating.


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In Karen J's case, she's cool and has a system down pat, but you can't tell me trust and planning didn't go into the life system setup that she's got going on now. And she has my respect because I'm sure she accepts the consequences should she get a bad test result.

Remember I was speaking broadly, and individual cases of how you might handle multi-partner arrangements do not disprove the problems I raised in the broad sense.

I am also not saying monogamy does either but in theory, monogamy if practiced right limits the spread of infection of venereal health issues.

The issue is that as it is practiced a HUGE portion of the populace practices "monogamy in name only", and is brushing all the dirty secrets into a shameful hidden corner of hypocrisy.


If you cheat or like non-monogamous relationships more power to you, make it loud and proud that you do what you do, even if you are branded as evil or immoral.

Also Christians have nothing in their doctrine that says it's okay to bully someone who is different from you or to try to leverage them using worldly resources to change, so that's where they are wrong.

 

Very true. These people have established over a period of years that they can be trusted. They don't want to catch anything incurable any more than I do.

Finding people you can trust is very important, but always hard to do.

We need to constantly re-think our personal arrangements and social standards whenever medical facts change. Social inertia is dangerous. I've seen (sexual) social inertial err in both directions.

Of course it does, but I don't see any chance of things going back to the old standard of "virgin until the wedding night, followed by absolute monogamy for life" anytime in the next few decades, if ever.

The lowest risk strategy is generally not going to be the most appealing to younger people. If I was still 25, my tolerance for risk would probably be significantly higher.

:cheers2:

 

anyone who cheats is an asshole I don't care what gender they are. You want a poly relationship then agree to it.

Biggest peeve I have with anyone in a relationship is dishonesty

 

If you don't have honesty in a relationship, you don't really have anything.

It still amazes me sometimes when guys get caught cheating in situations where there is no realistic possibility of getting away with it. I guess the power of testosterone can be so strong that nothing else matters.

 

Nah it's more than testosterone if that's the scenario.


It's more likely the person trying to lie their way out of a shameful morally bankrupt situation is just your classic sociopath.

 

Would you give the same reason for men sleeping around back in the days when syphilis was untreatable, often leading to blindness, insanity, and death?

 

l think men and women cheat, because, unless there is something very strong pulling us in the opposite direction, we'll act egoistically.

For those who cheat, they had an opputunity to get something pleasurable and no real reason, in their eyes, to miss that opportunity.

It is a scientific fact we don't make logical decisions. Well, we seldom do. Decisions are emotional and quite irrational.

 

It will be our undoing, is all I am saying. And I have a problem with that.

 

Yes, my perspective on this, if I were a time traveler, is timeless because the behavior and the deception that often goes along with the world of promiscuity, and sleeping around is timeless.


It's just the newer generation doesn't listen and learn from the older generation, so like progress is stifled and mistakes are repeated that really shouldn't be repeated, but they are generation after generation.

Religious dogma, linking shame with parenting children about sexual health issues doesn't help either. Like it or not, parents who do this to their kids, literally lay fertile and easily exploitable psychological ground for the next generation of "males or females sexual alphas" to hunt and chase and bang away and move on.

 

You still haven't explained why men tend to pay less attention to sexual medical risks, unless you're implying that women are morally superior. That's a possibility, but I'm not sure it's true.

Younger people are more optimistic about risk taking, and are under much more pressure to excel at sexual/social competitions, but older men can't use those excuses.

Timeless? In the glory days of the Roman Empire, young soldiers used to love visiting the brothels in Sicca Veneera, commonly pronounced Venereya. I'll bet you can guess which English term we got from there.

Evolution at work?

 

There are only a handful of mammals that are monogamous...humans are not one of them. Societal norms/values change over time and this is what shapes our view of monogamy. So for one to say "cheaters are assholes" or "cheaters are morally bankrupt" they still need to realize their position for even saying or feeling negatively about cheaters is based on taught morals/values. Go beyond those Judeo-Christian taught values and get to the root of why humans tend to be unfaithful a majority of the time. If society was the exact opposite (as it relates to monogamy) would you still have your same viewpoints? I seriously doubt it. Your viewpoints would sway with the crowd....just like it always has.

Again, I would argue that our non-accepting and judgmental society is partly to blame for producing the slimy liar and cheater. Cheaters lie and conceal their true feelings because they don't want to be alone. Oh yeah, we could say just be yourself, there is someone out there that will support you being your true sexual self but the numbers don't back that statement up. I would estimate (non-scientific of course) that less than 5% of the female U.S. population is supportive of this type of relationship. So if you are a secret non-monogamy believer, you conform and blend in with the rest of society.

 

Eradicating STD's would be the panacea that we are all waiting for but I truly believe it would have an adverse effect on monogamous relationships. Imagine a world without the negative consequence of disease, I think people would choose to truly do whatever their passions felt like at the time. My argument is that the overwhelming majority would not choose to be monogamous only (in this non-STD scenario).

 

My point exactly, you totally took the premise out of the next post I was going to make.

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@karen

That question is a bit unfair to answer partly because they're are so many variables.

Bacteria and viruses weren't discovered yet, and we were still in the land of superstition.

Sex then arguably was more political than it is now given the even worse wealth and education gap for humans then.

Sex for men then was all about power, pleasure, relieving stress from the life of a soldier.

And also I've been told that you get insanely horny when faced with life or death situations or when you live with the fear you can be slain at a moments notice.

Science suspects there is some mental mechanism men and women have, but men would fall into the historical example, of wanting to procreate before they met death.

The penis is dumb, it doesn't know for sure if procreation was successful or not, it does it's job and tells the brain, "okay I tried, NEXT!"

 

Or so they claim.

The other wife in our group of four admits nothing controversial to her "vanilla" friends. In fact, she would firmly deny swapping, if asked. The people she goes to church with would treat her like dirt, if they knew. Because of the internet, we've even grown hesitant to be open and honest about our arrangement far from home.

Liars (within a serious relationship) are assholes.

I used an example from ancient Rome, but even today, men seem to be significantly less concerned about these medical risks than women are.

 

This is a topic that can spin so many different directions for sure, but I’ll take a stab

Why does anyone cheat? Simple... Because they can. I know that’s a cop out but the real answer is almost just a simple. Whether or not a person will cheat is really dictated by a balance of a few things. You’ve all heard the saying a person is only as loyal as their options. While one can easily say there is truth in that I tend to think it sends the wrong message. Some people (men or woman) if given the right opportunity certainly would cheat on their partner. And it varies what the right opportunity is. Someone who’s in a loveless relationship who’s just going through the motions may be more susceptible to cheat if given the opportunity whereas that same person if they were in a very fulfilling relationship may not cheat if given the perfect opportunity. But the reverse is very true as well in that there are those who no matter how good or bad of a relationship they may cheat or might never cheat. Does that mean there’s no clear answer? No there is although detecting a potential cheater may not be so clear

It’s a far easier question to answer the reverse, why does a person not cheat? People who don’t cheat typically have strong ethical beliefs and principles which I believe stem from early childhood. But is a person with strong ethical beliefs and principles by definition a good person? Is a person who cheats by definition a bad person?

Think about the bigger picture and what cheating and sex even is, it’s having sexual relations with someone outside your partner. And sex is our fundamental means of procreation and obviously done mainly for enjoyment. What and who has deemed what cheating even is let alone if it’s wrong? Basically it’s a fundamental religious and societal belief handed down from generation to generation of our species. Most other species on earth have no concept of “cheating” and have multiple sexual encounters and procreate with multiple partners. You wouldn’t say a dog cheated on another dog would you? But why? Is a dog not sentient? Okay getting off topic here but you see where I’m going with this.

Bottom line, barring certain cultures our society as a whole has deemed that as a species, socially we are to mate with or be one person at a time. But we are obviously sexual creatures and the desire to have sex is powerful, but certainly more powerful in some than in others, if it wasn’t we’d of died off a long time ago. With some men or woman the urge to have sex is so powerful that whatever other moral or social beliefs they have are simply overpowered. A guy could have mind blowing blissful sex with his gorgeous wife and turn around an hour later, risk everything and cheat on her with the maid. Why? Obviously his sexual desire and urge beats out any other part of his belief system. Is that to say one can simply justify an in indiscretion with “Sorry my primal sexual instinct just won…” I guess so, that and a damn good divorce lawyer…

 

Well to counter that logic then, other species, especially the males, just outright kill their competition and babies they even suspect aren't sired from them.


Sure animals don't tack on a layer of cultural, and legal terminology to stuff. But you cannot say that it is culture or society alone that drives such resentment and bad emotional vibes to what we call "cheating".



And let me clarify something because I think we went off on many tangents of what it means to have multiple partners:

1. Cheating (implying deception + promiscuity) (also technically the thread's title)

2. Promiscuity (so like being with multiple partners irresponsibly; not cheating persay, but like sleeping with strangers and endangering your personal sexual health and those who engage in the acts with you, and by proxy the species at large)


^The above I have a problem with.


The problem is IN PRACTICE society merges promiscuity as I defined it, with having multiple partners.

Generally speaking, the concepts are inseparable, which is why for discussion's sake I've linked the two concepts.

In theory, yes they can be separated, and some individuals have done so in practice but I can't say that for society at large.


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@Karen, I don't really have an answer for why men aren't careful, perhaps they're just dumb, cruel, selfish, or a combination thereof.

But I am no less critical of males than I am of females.

It might be evolution at work, but I'm hesitant to say it is, because so much of what culture raises us with influences the behavior and the expression of urges.

You might have a genetic and brain chemistry making you more vulnerable to cheat, but that's no excuse, you aren't a machine and the urges don't control you by default like computer programing dictates a computer.

 

I am going out on a limb and stating if you make a promise and then don't keep it simply out of selfishness you ARE a bad person - anyone who gets into a relationship with me better understand this

 

Keep in mind too I'm intentionally going out on a limb to be philosophical about this discussion to the point of analyzing the very fabric of our societal beliefs. I've never cheated on my wife and she never has on me and we hold our marriage vows very sacred, but does that make me a good person? Just the same if a person who cheated on his spouse came up with the cure for cancer saving millions of lives are they still a bad person because they cheated on their spouse?

I know I'm making extreme cases but bottom line is people do what they want for a variety of reasons including cheating, but often don't think about the consequences until after the fact

 

^Exactly.

And I'm saying that does need to change, because to stay accepting of that means we're not even trying anymore to make progress, and that is bad; does that make you a bad/good person, that's up for a debate I'll concede that point, but I also want to say it is a bit skew.

The actions one does, can be a mix of good or bad, but whatever good you accomplish doesn't make the bad things you do neutral or even go away.

I could easily flip it around, and say what if someone spreads and STD/STI and that results in the premature passing of someone who would've developed the cure for cancer for others.


At a certain point, you can only go so broad in this conversation that is bordering on philosophy, because you have medical epidemiological statistics data that can ground us a bit more in reality vs. theory on this issue of "cheating/promiscuity".

 

Not sure you can attest to what your wife has or hasn't done with certainty. The very best cheaters are so precise and experts of their craft, their significant others have no idea. That is the point of cheating.