Why Women Can't Cheat (and Men Can)
The John Edwards scandal shows how infidelity is easier for men.
Luckily, the statistics show that we aren't as naïve as all that. Women are only seven percent less likely to cheat than men, according to a study released this week from the University of New Hampshire. All the unmarried twenty-something women I interviewed for this piece turned out to be cheaters who'd rarely been cheated on. Lauren S., 25, has fooled around in three of her serious relationships. With one guy, she says, "I was uncomfortable with him physically, and I felt smothered. He didn't let me be my full self. So when he went out of town for a few weeks I went to a party and ended up crashing in a bed with some other guy, and cheated." While she felt guilty, and her boyfriend forgave her, Lauren broke up with him a few months later for the same reasons that drove her to cheat in the first place. Cynthia, 28, has also strayed repeatedly. "But I do it at the end of relationship, when it's all but over anyway, and then I have to break up," she says.
In an MSN.com/iVillage survey of 70,000 people, taken last year, female respondents were twice as likely to use an affair to get out of a relationship. They also cheated to find a better emotional connection or to be with someone who made them feel sexy and wanted. Men, on the other hand, said they cheat for sex--more sex, better sex, variety of sex. Sex, sex, sex.
Women can cheat for sex too, but it's easier for men. Women don't have easy access to escort services like the Emperor's Club and happy-ending parlor massages (at least, not the way men do), and sex clubs and online cheaters sites are almost all marketed towards men. Even sites like Craigslist, which level the hookup playing field, can be a landmine of creeps for a woman looking for action. Moreover, women can't set up anonymous trysts the way men can; with the ever-present risk of physical assault it's prudent for a woman's to create a connection with a man before meeting him, to establish that he's safe and trustworthy.
For a married woman with kids, like Elizabeth Edwards (who has a nine-year-old and a seven-year-old), it's even harder to stray. According to Newsweek, women spend twice as much time taking care of kids and housework than men do, leaving them with less child or spouse-free moments to have a sexual tryst, let alone fulfilling, emotional relationship outside their marriage. And, despite the cougar trend, older women's sexuality is devalued in our culture, making it harder for a mature, married woman to find a partner in crime.
Discussion
This is such a weird story. The young women who cheat on faithful guys are seen as a good thing; faithful women are just "naive." Women who stay home and are cheated on are seen as victims who only stand by their husband because they're stuck - although both Mrs. Edwards and Mrs. Spitzer are probably rich enough to leave if they really wanted to. And the conclusion of the article is that women will be "stuck" being faithful so long as they do more of the child care and "lose their sex appeal as they age."
There's nothing good about cheating. We shouldn't cheer when women are dishonest and unfaithful just because some men are.
And of course the really odd thing - all those men were cheating with women. The women they slept with are cheaters, too, even if they weren't cheating on husbands of their own. Hunter was a cheater of the worst kind; she seems to have wanted to break up the marriage.
women are jus like men they cheat n lie same way because we are all human.the only thing is that man r the one who normaly have more than one sex partners.
