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Monday, May 19, 2008

I Don't Even Know Where to Start

The spectacular (sadly blogless) Edith Whoreton, has once again funneled me a wonderful article. This one, from New York Magazine, is on sex and marriage.

There are so many things wrong with it that I don't even know where to start using my keen intellect and rapier wit to skewer it. So, I decided to start by letting you all read it. That is, if you have the stamina to slog through eight pages of the author's rambling anecdotes masquerading as a theory with a scientific basis (No, really! Cheating is evolutionary biological destiny! After all, the author's sister Alice agrees!) rather than waiting for me to summarize it.

I probably shouldn't even link to it, since it's so clearly a piece designed to incense people and sell magazines, but it touches on some popular myths and misconceptions (happily perpetuated by the sexually compulsive who are not in recovery) that I'd like to discuss. So, eh, what the hell.
Posted by at 2:51 PM
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22 comments:

  1. Strumpfkunst.deMay 19, 2008 03:46 PM
    This should be the right link:
    http://nymag.com/relationships/sex/47055

    And I stopped reading when he proclaimed that infidelity seems to be less of a problem in Europe. BS.

    I agree that countries like Italy might have a different view, but in a way it is even worse there - catholic society clashes with a "boys will be boys" mentality.

    I know one thing for sure - I know of no woman who is not worried about the emotional implications when her man cheats. That's us - sex means some kind of trust, so even though the man might yell "it meant nothing", we know that for the woman, it probably did. Maybe not love, but some sort of trust.

    But hey, what do men know? It still seems easiest to proclaim that "women don't understand their needs". I have my own needs, thank you very much.
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  2. Strumpfkunst.deMay 19, 2008 03:49 PM
    P.S. I remember living above a "model apartement", hearing the girls and guys screaming, telling my then-boyfriend about the girls. "See, they are probably having a blast, one orgasm after the other."

    Sure, those Polish girls without a work permit are really enjoying those encounters with mostly repulsive guys. They aren't just screaming to get the guys out of their place faster.

    Yes, and pigs can fly, and a guy can tell when a woman is faking. Puhlease...
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  3. Mary P Jones (MPJ)May 19, 2008 03:52 PM
    Thanks, strupfkunst! I fixed the link.
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  4. Thanks for the link. Now I have a nice little steam of anger to get me going for the day. hehe
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  5. Sunshine MorningstarMay 19, 2008 11:12 PM
    I made it to page two. Even the very first line of the article managed to piss me off, "When the Eliot Spitzer scandal broke in March, I had only sympathy for him: another middle-aged married guy tormented by his sexual needs."
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  6. As I said in a comment I just left on the article: another example of the useless navel gazing that passes as journalism these days.

    The article is a blatant ploy by the magazine to create controversy and agitate readers. And all I can do is yawn.
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  7. I agree with Ingrid...just a lame ploy to establish controversy and get press. I hated the article. The author has a cro-magnon mentality. The ape is just trying to rationalize a way to cheat on his own wife.
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  8. See, the thing is, I agree a little bit: cheating didn't come out of nowhere, it almost has to fill some kind of evolutionary need or no one would do it, ever.

    I think the best explanation I ever saw was that people are "opportunistic adulterers"--many will cheat if they think they can get away with it and if cheatin offers a 'better deal.'

    BUT.

    Ther eis a huge difference between someone who has an affair or two and someone who compulsively uses prostitutes one after the other, or who has serial affairs and can't exist without one. Everyone's entitled to make mistakes and desire/lust is complictaed, tricky terrain that is never fully under our control. But there is a whole continent between desire/lust and compulsivity. The first person is making a choice. The second is not. In other words I think the author is fatally confusing his issues, and mistaking wish-fulfillment for analysis.

    I know people who are in open relationships and enjoy them and are satisfied by them. It's not even remotely the same thing as cheating. One is honest and respectful of one's partner, and the other is not.
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  9. Hey, I'm dropping by your blog now--its so nice to have found women going through something similar to my situation.

    Anyway, I just read the same article today and it made my blood boil! How has the writer's wife not left him yet? Maybe she will now that she's read the article.
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  10. Slutty McWhoreMay 20, 2008 07:49 AM
    I'm sitting at Logan airport in Boston right now, where my flight back home is delayed. Before even checking your blog, I had actually bought that magazine because of that article. I found it to be a profoundly depressing read, especially because I'm just embarking on a new romance myself. It made me think "Really?! Is this what all men are like?".

    I agree with "Sawife" - this guy is just trying to rationalize his behaviour, as so many of my own clients do. It is perhaps true that men "need" more sex than women (or that they think they do!), but even if it is, jesus, why stand up on an altar and promise fidelity blah blah blah if you have no intention of keeping that vow? If you truly believe that men are biologically fated to spread their wild oats left, right and centre, then please don't get married! You can't have your cake and eat it!

    And, as a European, I can say that this author's premise that women there are more "realistic" about sex and infidelity is utter bollocks. In general, Europeans are probably less prudish about sex than Americans, but what does this have to do with trust, respect and marriage vows? No woman, no matter what her nationality is, wants or expects to arrive home one day early and find her husband fucking some other woman! Any woman would be emotionally devastated by that.
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  11. Mary P Jones (MPJ)May 20, 2008 07:54 AM
    margauxmede, welcome. I think I saw you over on Woman Anonymous's blog. Nice to meet you.

    As for that man's wife, if she's anything like me, she'd say she knew her husband best of all and the world was misjudging him -- and she'd be both right and completely wrong. I feel terrible for her.
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  12. Yes, but I think the difference is your husband feels remorse for what he's done in the past and is working on recovery. Her husband gloats about his as-yet-unacknowledged sex addiction in the national media.

    Thanks for the warm welcome. Nice to "meet" you too!
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  13. Mary P Jones (MPJ)May 20, 2008 09:34 AM
    margaux, he does now -- but he certainly used to justify his unhealthy behavior with the best of them. And I bought it for a long time.
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  14. Proof that men still think their needs are the center of the universe and not one man wondering why it is his wife might not want to sleep with him--maybe because you expect her to do everything and let you do as you please.

    And a fantasy does not a real life option make. Maybe if some men stopped treating their wives like maids who will always be there, their sex lives would be more interesting.

    Well, I have a biological need not to do any more housework. Why isn't that on the cover of a magazine?
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  15. By the way, if you really are going to read those first few chapters of my novel...I suppose I ought to confess that my main character falls in love with a guy with many problems--sex addiction being one. This may be what actually led me to your blog in the first place. Now, I keep reading because your writing is interesting and insightful...so I guess you could say that you've had some influence on the story...

    Hope that's okay.
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  16. vicariousrisingMay 20, 2008 03:09 PM
    Cheating as biological evolution is such utter bullshit. If this were even remotely true, people would have overwhelming parenting urges. But, no, it's conveniently about just the pleasureable sex part, not the actual procreational responsibilities after. We also probably wouldn't have the desire to be in relationships, but, hey, pretty much most of us do have a strong desire to connect to another person in a way beyond physical.

    And we wouldn't be saddled with such feelings of jealousy and hurt. Why wouldn't those evolve out too?

    Such self-serving crap. Sorry. I've had this argument with a guy before and it still steams me. Somehow, I doubt anything where we get off with fewer consequences and responsibilities is really a leap in human evolution. Sounds like extended childhood to me.
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  17. I'm still thinking about this article, and of course the author seems to think that the only reason people have sex is for the sex, when people have sex for more reasons than that, and people cheat for more reasons that variety. Some people to prove something, to get back at their partner, to whatever...

    Oh, this is going to be in my head for days!
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  18. I didn't even make it past the first page. He compares Vito Fossella's affair and deception to his sister's life as a gay woman in a family with her partner's biological children. So he's equating homosexuality with adultery - not just adultery but systematic deception of one's spouse. That's the kind of reasoning that makes people support DOMA legislation. Gay marriage has NOTHING TO DO with any other kind of relationship.

    Monogamy is not the issue. I don't believe that the number of sexual partners you have proves anything about your morals. Deceiving someone you love, on the other hand, does say something about your morals. If both people in a relationship agree about sex outside the relationship, that's fine.

    What an ass. And what tripe to actually print. I am not reading any more of it and I have no intention of going near the comments on the article {shudder}.
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  19. After reading all the comments I'm not even going to bother reading the article. It's clear by the picture that the sole purpose is to sell magazines. Sad, sad, sad... How many men will use the "science" behind this article to justify cheating? And where does that leave all the women who do it?

    I scratch my head.
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  20. Pandagon has a thread going about this article http://pandagon.blogsome.com/2008/05/21/service-industry-adultery/

    The quotes in there made me very, very glad that I didn't read any more of it.
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  21. I really just read the first two pages and then started skimming through it. It wasn't enlightening, and I agree, might have been written simply to draw up controversy & sales.

    I have a few thoughts. First, it wasn't very inflammatory to me, perhaps, because I'm not this man's wife. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, even if it stupid and ignorant. I found the article boring and predictible. His arguments are tired, old, and, dumb.

    Every relationship is different, with different needs, different expectations, different boundaries.

    I believe Maeve pointed out swingers who are mutually respectful and trusting to each other. Are they really happy? Only they can define their own happiness.

    Personally, I believe most relationships are defined by trust and mutual agreements and either spoken or unspoken contracts. If, in your relationship, outside sex is a breach of this trust and commitment, then obviously the relationship ceases to be a sustaining, healthy communion.

    No amount of evolution, blah, blah, blah, can excuse a consciously aware individual's act of betrayal.

    I'm done rambling. This guy really bored me. You're right, it's so obviously silly. I feel like I just watched a tv ad for aftershave, with bikini clad women draping all over men while they shave...

    So transparent.
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  22. Misery MarketingMay 22, 2008 02:02 AM
    Still you have to say the observations about testosterone levels effecting sexual attidudes and desires is fairly interesting. Maybe its made up but 92% of all statistics are made up as well.
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