There’s something fundamentally off putting about New York Magazine’s cover article this week. Maybe it’s the constant rehashing of the tired trope that men want sex more than women, and this is why they cheat; maybe it’s the author’s casual assumption that we’d all be so much better off if wives simply turned a blind eye while their husbands went off and banged 20-year-old waitresses. Though the piece does give a nod to polyamory and the notion that women, too, might want to take on multiple partners, the overwhelming vibe is that sexual variety is something that men deserve, and that their wives should happily allow them — with seemingly no thought or consideration towards what, exactly, these wives might want.
Most telling is the following paragraph:
When I got back from the Kinsey Institute, I told my wife all about the evolutionary data and Erick Janssen’s questionnaire, and she got agitated. “Okay. Let’s have an open marriage. And I have to be out Wednesday night.”
I said, No thanks.
It’s not that we take issue with the premise that monogamy is unnatural, or at least unworkable in the long term for many couples. It’s that this piece seems so taken with the idea of men as long suffering victims of their rampant libidos, who somehow deserve a little infidelity — while their wives, presumably, stay home and take care of the kids.
Sure, we’d probably all be better off if we had a more relaxed, more European, sensibility about sex and sexuality. We’d also be better off if we talked more, and more openly, with our partners, communicating our needs and finding workable solutions (which may or may not involve opening up the relationship).
Whining about our right to cheat on our partners, on the other hand, probably won’t do shit.
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Comments
Well said.
May 20th, 2008 at 5:40 pmI thought the article was interesting and thought-provoking, but quite bleak & depressing, and made me feel like “love everlasting” with the “special someone” is a rarity these days. (Although, I certainly would like to achieve that.) As it was written from primarily a male POV, the article really reaffirmed that many men simply do not have the tools to deal with the complexity of modern relationships. And the marriage institution is often a rigid system that often collapses under the weight of expectations & obligations. Lux is right, communication is key, as is having a flexible attitude. At the very least, in the post-Spitzer era, people are talking about it now and I think that’s a good thing.
May 20th, 2008 at 6:36 pmAnd still, i know of absolutely no man, married or in a monogamous long term relationship, who wouldnt want/enjoy/etc having sex with someone else.
May 20th, 2008 at 7:47 pm>>who wouldnt want/enjoy/etc having sex with someone else.<<
but then what does that mean? physically enjoy? emotionally enjoy? is this in the absence of the possibility of losing someone you love? because i certainly know men who wouldn’t want to have sex with someone else because it would mean the end of their relationship. do you know any women who wouldn’t want/enjoy/etc having sex with someone else?
May 20th, 2008 at 7:53 pmAl oof,
It means that if you ask them (with or without the “if noone would ever know, etc etc clause”) if they would like to have sex or enjoy doing so with another (desirable, not just anyone) woman rather than their long term couple most guys (all i know, but i dont know everyone) do say yes, hands down.
Having second thoughts about doing it because of the posible outcomes is quite valid and real, but misses the utterly undeniable fact “most guys are -pigs- and want to have sex”.
Monogamy isnt natural. Thats why males are larger and heavier than females, its related to monogamy/poligamy mass gender ratio (applies to primates, insects, etc etc).
Fun thing is that monogamy is actually quite helpful for guys, if it werent so commonly practised it would mean that most of us wouldnt ever get laid (1 guy hoarding 5 girls means 4 lads with 0)
But for the alpha male who would be spreading their superior genes like crazy, its still quite hurtful/preventing/antirampant libidoish.
May 20th, 2008 at 9:40 pmI stopped reading after the Mark Penn quote. I was happily reading along in the saucy article, getting kind of into on the subway, and then all of a sudden…mental image spoiler! Jabba the Hut ruined the moment. Blech.
May 20th, 2008 at 10:13 pmso my question, isil, is do you know any women who this isn’t true for? because who wouldn’t want to have sex with someone else?
and i don’t think that wanting to have sex with someone other than the person who you’re in a monogamous relationship with makes you a pig. i don’t know anything about pig libidos, but certainly it only makes them human.
May 20th, 2008 at 10:57 pmI know quite a few gals who are quite happy with their husbies, which isnt true the other way around. sexwise.
Sex drive for some girls is far lower than for most guys.
pig was between ” ” or hmm - - because ” “s where already in use.
Wild pigs do have the largest cum load of any land animal, around 60ml-100ml per cum. Now thats what i call libido.
May 20th, 2008 at 11:36 pmbeing happy with your husband is not the same as not wanting to have sex with someone other than your husband. and i would guess that the women who say they are happy with their husbands, so far as i can tell, are just answering you with the second thoughts in mind. i mean, from a sexual standpoint, why would a person not want to have sex with different people? i just can’t wrap my mind around that, and i don’t have a particularly strong sex drive. i mean, it’s not about the frequency, right? because the men you’re talking about aren’t just saying they want to have sex more and their wives don’t give it to them enough? or is that what you’re saying?
May 20th, 2008 at 11:49 pmThank you to LUX ALPTRAUM for bringing up this article. This is a new low for New York mag, in my view.
May 21st, 2008 at 2:08 amAl oof,
I said, and i qoute, “happy (tannanan) sexwise”
They are happy, with the sex they get from their husbies (or bfs or whatever), and do not consider or want to or would enjoy sex with someone else.
Its more in the variety of gene spread longing overtaste than in the frequency, but 1 fuck per week surely does help guys glancing sideways while polishing their newly grown fangs.
May 21st, 2008 at 11:21 ami say, man or woman, if you want to bone someone else, do it. then your dumb ass gets to deal with the consequences. i just wonder how much that 50-something year old man is going to have to pay in NYC to get some strange.
May 21st, 2008 at 11:45 amIf only people were more like the Mangaians…
May 21st, 2008 at 10:39 pmISIL and AL OOF,
I have been thinking that biologically it makes more sense for women to want more sex outside a monogamous relationship. Given that women tend to be more cerebral about their horniness, wouldn’t it make sense that they would mentally get bored with the same person over and over again?
It’s kind of hard to speak for how other gals get aroused, but for me it helps a lot to have new and different things going on. I like a carnival in the bedroom.
May 24th, 2008 at 12:53 pmSecondlastwish:
“I like a carnival in the bedroom.”
With cotton candy and everything?? Count me in!
May 24th, 2008 at 2:16 pmHaven’t humans developed the tradition of monogamy? Why would we do that when other animals have not? Is it all about instinct, and is the desire for sexual promiscuity only in our genes? I don’t accept the notion that higher/lower libidos can serve as a reasonable excuse for cheating. On either end. I can more easily wrap my mind around the need for variety than for the unfulfilled sex life.
I am in a happy, committed relationship. I am totally satisfied sexually, and yet, I would definitely have sex with some one else whom I desired if a “no strings attached” opportunity were presented. But the thing is, in real life, when you are in a relationship, there are always strings attached, which is why I will never cheat. Because I am capable of thinking. And humans (men or women) who really *need* variety shouldn’t put themselves in relationships. But people do anyway, because there are other needs that they want to satisfy, including security and emotional support.
Other animals don’t need emotional support, but somehow people do. Should anyone simply be allowed to leave the source of his or her support, to have sex with someone else? It’s not fair, unless it could be agreed upon (i.e, if both partners agree to have sex with other people, but still depend on each other).
Also, if men want to take a more lax approach to sex/commitment, in order to facilitate variety in their own sexual realms, does that mean that they would be okay with their wives or female counterparts having sex with many (or any) other men? I don’t really understand the implications here.
I think that the way people are thinking about it is all wrong. Men do not have an excuse to cheat because of their instincts or higher sex drives (which is something that varies by the individual, so I also don’t think it makes sense to make generalizations by statistics when in any given relationship an woman’s sex drive might be higher than the man’s). That’s crap. And women don’t have the excuse, either. If you want sexual variety, find someone who is openly okay with it, or don’t settle down with someone. Other animals might have multiple partners, but there are no feelings involved. They never make any commitments, and they don’t hurt each other. If you want to discuss different ways to approach relationships and sex, that is fine, but don’t just try to give people an excuse to hurt other people. That’s not productive at all.
May 24th, 2008 at 2:29 pmi don’t know isil, i guess we might run in different crowds, because men and women seem pretty much on the same page about this amongst people i know. the men are just less likely to think the issue through realistically, and answer as if the question is “if there would be no other consequences, then…”
May 24th, 2008 at 5:24 pm[...] A right to infidelity [...]
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