What Do Men Want?

As if I would know, but it was maddening trying to follow it in last week's New York magazine piece, "The Secret Lives of Married Men." Building on the dinner-party chestnut that men have a deep sexual need (a biological imperative!) to spread their seed and so shouldn't be expected to remain faithful within a marriage, the author wonders why the European husband-cheating model isn't as welcome in our society as, say, gay people are.

He compares two women in a committed relationship and their two children with a man in a heterosexual marriage who's been caught cheating and is in the dog house. Why is the man in the dog house and these women aren't, he asks? Society should welcome them equally as the evolutionary by-products of progressive thinking and living.

The author's homophobic aside is an offensive distraction from his larger argument: men just can't help themselves because of their hardwiring, which you could buy but you'd need to figure out first how so many men have affairs with so few women having affairs. You could reason that that's where prostitutes come in, but I doubt in enough quantity to satisfy all that restless wiring passed down from Early Man. And are the women just being talked into it based on a male need?

I used to think that there were simply a few women having an astonishing number of liaisons to hold up the female end of the affairs until I realized that in my own experience it's usually the women who cheat; turns out they have a need too. I had this conversation with my brother a few years ago -- which women were sleeping with all the men, if the men all had so many partners and the women so few? "Well," my brother started slowly, "take your friends in college as an example..." Dear reader, he slept with two of them. Two! I was torn in my shock between feeling betrayed by my friends -- how could they never have told me? -- and the fact that this older brother had been a chick magnet without my knowing it, but that's family business. The point is, I didn't hear from my friends about it, and neither of them was even cheating on anyone -- they just kept it to themselves, quietly filling a need. I'd hazard that it's women who are sleeping with all the men who are sleeping with women who aren't their wives, and plenty of those women likely have husbands too. (The rest are younger unmarrieds, no? With sexual and other needs to meet.)

And if you've ever seen the L Word, which is lesbian Hollywood at its finest, you'd know that the old stereotype of the devoted, monogamous female partner seems as outmoded in the gay community as the Pendleton shirt. Not that, as in heterosexual marriages, the model and aim shouldn't be to commit in a trusting relationship to one partner (and in fact most couples do - 80%, to use New York's statistics, splitting the difference between the 15% of married women it claims who cheat and 25% of married men) but just that we are equally human and flawed, we men and women, and make mistakes, and sometimes face difficult choices. And sometimes we act on our inappropriate-for-society needs but more often we make the decision, maybe with complication and sacrifice but also with reassurance and joy, to be with this one other person we found, if we were lucky enough to find a person who makes us feel that way most days; and we act carefully, to not let her go.

Comments

[research]

Women wonder because evolution favors women who mate outside, not just the family, but outside the tribe. Why? Because "mutts" folks of mixed heritage are genetically stronger.

[martykz]

At the top of Maslow's pyramid of human needs is that of self-actualization. Variety in recreational sex should be an ecstatic expression of that need. As usual, there is a duality, or better in this issue, a continuum.of individual preference; all the way from the insular married octogenarians to the swinging singles. One thing I insist on- that is until the age of 18, children should be provided the stability and predictability of a home life that permits them to study and develop with minimum distraction by their parents' (homo or hetero) self-serving behavior.

[malamute]

Uh, no. Within Maslow's framework, sexual needs are classified primarily as physical needs, inasmuch as reproductive impulses are hormonically-driven imperatives only slightly less driven than the quest for sustenance and shelter. Sex serves a secondary function of servicing love and belonging needs.

Ascribing sex to the self-actualization level - a level few achieve - is to erroneously, and unnecessarily, ascribe rationality to it. And we all know that our boners aren't rational beings.

Freud is useful here: sex is primarily about the id, not the superego.

[martykz]

I believe you are confusing procreational with recreational. Once we have seen to the needs of the species, sexual liberation and actualization, such as in the Kama Sutra may become transcendental.

[boulddenwyldde]

The thing that got me about the New York magazine article was the survey that accompanied the rather unfocused essay. Lifetime number of sex partners? Men: 35. Women: 6.

I'm no statistician, but I find this hard to reconcile. Most likely answer: There's a whole lot of lying going on.

Stephanie Sandberg hints at the same thing, learning long after the fact that two of her college girlfriends slept with her brother. They never let on, and neither did he. At least not with her. No telling how much bragging the brother was doing with his buddies.

The crux of the issue is probably conformity versus independence. Just look at the handbooks they read. Women are all about "The Rules." Men are all about "The Game."

[kappa08]

We're all animals, period. Sure, higher intellect. But at the end of the day no different than the dog you walk.
Those of us that are/were married know that woman control the sex in a relationship. They have the power. Texas pilgrim cult aside. Evolved relationships render the same results. So if "man" is starved of a basic need. He will float. And if "woman" is taken for granted. She can easily "get attention", because of the power they have over man's sexual appetite.
It does not surprise me that women are "cheating" more. And I appreciate any article professing the reality of the situation instead of the typical society view that women are dedicated victims in this "man's" world. When we all know in the world of sex. It's a "Woman's" world. Period. It's balance that need not be changed.

[DennyCrane]

The more people cheat, the more it becomes accepted or at least more forgivable. Someone might think cheating is wrong, but what if a lot of their friends are doing it? Do they condemn their friends and find new friends or do they start to think cheating isn't such a big deal? Or worse, do they start to see it as fun and exciting, feeling like their friends are having all the fun and they're missing out? This is the sad truth about people.

[longislandlol]

great stuff

[dadw5boys]

So many men cheating!!!!

HMM Exactly who are they cheating with??

WOMEN!!!!!!!!!

Takes 2!

Women, to me, seem more affected by the Hormones in our food supply making them more sexually agressive while the same studies it is making men more passive. Not many men would have tolerated a wife sleeping around in years past. Even songs like "Don't take your love to town" didn't come out of the blue. It has been happenng for a long while.

[vipersdad]

well... there's always toe-tappin' Larry Craig - don't forget!

[OtayPanky]

Unless they're on the down low, those cheating men are cheating with cheating women.

And unless there's a small number of uber-wenches servicing all those cheating men, the numbers wouldn't be all that different between the sexes.

Of course, this is a heterosexual observation, only. When it comes to affairs, casual sex, etc., sexual mores of gay men may actually be very different from lesbians.

[Peddler]

Ms. Sandberg:

Men cheating; women cheating; statistical reporting on the rate of cheating; heterosexual cheating; homosexual cheating;....etc. I have been married for almost 40 years to the same woman with three wonderful children......and I have never had the desire to cheat nor would I ever. It is not hormonal or either man's or woman's need to cheat......it is love, values and morals........something that our current society is lacking. There is no simple answer to your article and probably no rational answer as to why individuals drift away from their realtionships. Marriage is a commitment, and you have to work at it to make it a success......there are no magic formulas nor companions........either you are committed in total are you are not. Do we make mistakes......sure we do......but you have to work them out. Sometimes I believe that cheating on your spouse is a "cop-out" from reality.......because cheating doesn't resolve the problem.......it only complicates it. My dogma of life is to do "my best".......but do it only once.

[edwcorey]

I read where about ten percent of children are not the putative father's child. Have you checked yours?

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/08/20/whos_your_daddy/

[blueshield]

A better title here (and more accurate to the quoted NYT piece) would be "Why is Monogamy So Important If so Few Are Doing It

[ambiancemoushkila]

bingo !

[peterg76]

Um, really? You "hazard that ... plenty of those women likely have husbands too" based on anecdotal evidence of two women who were *not* cheating?

[charley0008]

I believe based on my 60 yrs experience that women cheat as much, if not more than men, in varying degrees and pretty much always have. One of the big differences is that women have social cover, "they don't need to do that" while men are natural suspects "they need to do that." It makes me laugh.
But the writer raises a good point, women do not tell. They are very protective of that social cover even with their friends. For one reason it is a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" for women and it can be pretty harsh. If he strays 'he is following his natural primal need' but that whole silly thing washes over to her, the implication, spoken or not, is that somehow 'she failed to meet his needs'. The other of course is the equally silly notion that this 'natural primal need' in men makes him an easy target to be 'seduced' by the 'other' woman! He is a victim of his primal need!
But when women stray they are still seen as an aberration and men get to be the victims again! It makes me scream. No wonder women never tell!

[DianeDfromPhoenix]

Interesting piece, but the L Word is about as representative of lesbians' lives as Sanford & Son was to African Americans'.

[aceholiday]

cmon guy why are you hating on sanford and son?

[Ides]

I'll have you know all of the folks in my neighborhood owned junkyards. In fact, I ran around the house everyday on Sunday shouting, "I'm comin' to see you Lizbeth!" White people just don't understand our culture and think we're all the damn Cosby family or something. (Only about 40% of us have a half-dozen children, one or two of which we occasionally forget about for months at a time when a cute light-skinned granddaughter is born because we're so busy ruling Wall Street and being doctors out of the basements of our 1,000,000 dollar brownstones).

[whitey7]

Women cheat as much as men? Puuhhlease! I don't know how you can take a couple of flawed studies and throw away common sense.Do we see businesswomen filling strip clubs and brothels in every city across the country?No.However, we have to have an entire multi billion dollar industry to serve men.I'm not sure any acedemic study will be able to collect reliable data on this topic as people tend not to tell the truth for a myriad of reasons.

[PDXPLT]

You consider going to a strip club "cheating"? Wow, that's harsh.

And there's hardly a brothel in "every city in the country" anymore. Maybe in a town in Neveda. I'd dispute the claim that there is a multibillion dollar industry based on adulterous male activity.

[ratcityreprobate]

Who knew? I always thought it took two to cheat.

[Ides]

But one of the two isn't in the marriage.