Why Men Cheat

Did you ever entertain the idea that monogamy is unnatural and humans are supposed to have multiple sexual partners?

Bingo. Though monogamy is not unnatural (90% of bird species pair up for life).

In biology, success is measured in having offspring that survive to reproduce and continue your genetic legacy.

Women produce a finite number of eggs, are only fertile for a few days in a 28 day cycle, and once pregnant cannot be fertilised again until after giving birth. Biologically sex is a waste of time once a female has been fertilised.

Men never stop producing sperm. They could fertilise a different woman every night, 365 children a year, if they were allowed to. The last emperor of Mongolia is believed to have fathered over 800 children.

That is the biological difference. Women are hard-wired to find a mate and get them to stick around long enough to fertilise them and if possible, long enough to help them rear the children to ensure the few children they produce survive into adulthood to reproduce themselves. Men are hard-wired to spread their genes as much as physically possible. That involves having sex with as many females as possible in as short a space a time as possible.

I await the negs from furious feminists and white knights, but it is all true.

EDIT: And **** you, anonymous people.

EDIT2: Correcting little tibits, as a biology student I shouldn't be getting this wrong...

reps on sight for LIFE for someone who actually understands the biology and evolutionary psychology

So basically what youre saying is, if im getting this right, alpha males should basically never settle down and **** around as much as possible, and let the beta whiteknights rear the children they cannot be certain are their own, and to provide for the female?

Oh, and in feedback to this thread... I think people only cheat when they're not getting something in their relationship that they need, whether that's reassurance, a more socially adept partner.... or exciting sex.

I don't think anyone, guy or girl, cheats when they're happy with their partner. A guy just wouldn't be bothered with another girl if his one was exhausting the f*** out of him every day with really good sex.

Bingo. Though monogamy is not unnatural (90% of bird species pair up for life).

In biology, success is measured in having offspring that survive to reproduce and continue your genetic legacy.

Women produce a finite number of eggs, are only fertile for a few days in a 28 day cycle, and once pregnant cannot be fertilised again until after giving birth. Biologically sex is a waste of time once a female has been fertilised.

Men never stop producing sperm. They could fertilise a different woman every night, 365 children a year, if they were allowed to. The last emperor of Mongolia is believed to have fathered over 800 children.

That is the biological difference. Women are hard-wired to find a mate and get them to stick around long enough to fertilise them and if possible, long enough to help them rear the children to ensure the few children they produce survive into adulthood to reproduce themselves. Men are hard-wired to spread their genes as much as physically possible. That involves having sex with as many females as possible in as short a space a time as possible.

I await the negs from furious feminists and white knights, but it is all true.

EDIT: And **** you, anonymous people.

EDIT2: Correcting little tibits, as a biology student I shouldn't be getting this wrong...

Goodness I nearly exploded with disbelief at your use of "need"!

But then I realised that perhaps these idiots do "need" things outside of what their relationship provides, their total lack of self-control having removed entirely the previously somewhat minimal element of choice from their actions. Thus, "I used to like it when my girlfriend kissed me, now she hasn't done it for two days, I NEED TO GO KISS SOMEONE".

As to your closing statement, I would suggest that guys would certainly cheat just as much in this situation. I will cite a little experiment here for your amusement and comprehension of my argument:

- Rats were presented with different kinds of buttons.
- Some rats had a button that, when pressed, dispensed a treat every time
- Some rats had a button that, when pressed, did nothing
- Some rats had a button that, when pressed, had a random chance of dispensing a treat

The rats that were guaranteed a result, either a treat every time, or no treats, stopped pressing the buttons after a while due to boredom. The random treat rats continued to press the button indefinitely.

I see your point, but effectively throwing your arms up in the air and going 'if it's gonna happen it'll just HAPPEN because that's just how they ARE and it has nothing to do with me'... is the easy option. It's the option of not taking responsibility for your - one's - side of the contribution to whatever went wrong.

Cheating is basically never justifiable. But it nonetheless doesn't come about from thin air. There are always a number of reasons behind it, a minority of which will be due to who YOU were, in relation to THEM.

As I say, this doesn't let 'em off the hook and anyone who cheats is unspeakably cruel and morally abhorrant.

I was going to make a comment on the biological aspect, basically in the vein that you're saying, but I figured that would probably bee too controversial for some of the kids on TSR.

That is the biological difference. Women are hard-wired to find a mate and get them to stick around long enough to fertilise them and if possible, long enough to help them rear the children to ensure the few children they produce survive into adulthood to reproduce themselves. Men are hard-wired to spread their genes as much as physically possible. That involves having sex with as many females as possible in as short a space a time as possible.
..

I'm no white knight, but you should know that this "men are programmed to cheat" theory was simply dreamt up by sexist men in the middle of the 20th century and has virtually zero reliable evidence supporting it. Its just bull**** - a theory invented for the sole purpose of justifying their immoral behaviour.

Other theories such as "why women are programmed to make sandwiches", and "why men shouldn't have to do the dishes for evolutionary reasons" are equally spurious. You can picture the bunch of guys sitting there:

"What else can we get away with by blaming it on evolution?"
"I know, lets claim we're programmed to **** around with strippers"
"Come on, thats ridiculous, they'll never buy that, no-one is that dumb"
"Its worth a try though isn't it?"
"Yeah"

Programmed was definitely the wrong word.

As for no evidence for it, I wouldn't go that far. We are animals, specifically we are primates. Monogamy is almost completely unheard of among primates, specifically apes. I will not say monogamy is unnatural, its just abnormal among primates.

As per usual, someone who hasn't bothered to read the post, but instead has decided to make a emotive decision

1. I pointed out THREE different studies that show that men cheat more than women. If you have something to actually refute that, please show me or don't bother to argue. I would be happy to discuss whether men cheat more than women, but I have presented FACTUAL studies (in another post) so if you're going to argue against them you should do the same as well.

2. I've never said that women don't cheat as well. All I said was that men are more likely to do so. This is factually backed up.

3. I am not trying to justify bad behaviour or believe any "rubbish" told to me. There is (usually) no excuse for cheating. Yes I may be putting forward a controversial point of view, but one that is back up in fact

I did read all of the original post as I explained in the edit, if you're going to post something that imposes a negative, incorrect stereotype to half of the world's population, then you can expect to get criticism. I'm obviously not going to change your mind and you're not going to change mine so we'll have to agree to disagree. We'll see whether you change your mind if you get cheated on by a girl. Would you say "it's your own fault" then.

So is living in houses, cooking food, driving cars, watching tv, walking upright...

So what?

Society is and has been moving to the Pair Breeding option for as long as theirs been civilisation (monogamy). There are many benefits to Pair Breeding, mainly for a womens perspective (help raising children, thus help propagating both male and females genes to next generation, ensure both always have a breeding partner...). In our society it is probably better to stick with one partner so both parents can support the children produced reach adulthood financially and socially supported, and ready to spread the family genes all the more effectively...

I see your point, but effectively throwing your arms up in the air and going 'if it's gonna happen it'll just HAPPEN because that's just how they ARE and it has nothing to do with me'... is the easy option. It's the option of not taking responsibility for your - one's - side of the contribution to whatever went wrong.

Cheating is basically never justifiable. But it nonetheless doesn't come about from thin air. There are always a number of reasons behind it, a minority of which will be due to who YOU were, in relation to THEM.

As I say, this doesn't let 'em off the hook and anyone who cheats is unspeakably cruel and morally abhorrant.

Cheating is pretty easy to justify. There are lots of justifications which are widely accepted and are popular. A sexless marriage say. Physical abuse. Threats to destroy you if you leave.

Also, many people speak about cheating, and your belief that it is unspeakably cruel and morally abhorrant is hardly universal. Cheating is one of the most popular gossip topics and unlike some more distasteful subjects people feel no urge to not speak about it.

I'm not saying it's good. But it's very understandable and justifiable in many cases.

What a load of *******s. Its much simpler than that.

You spend your entire adolescence learning how to get girls to have sex with you, for years you toil away without success, then you finally get good at it, get yourself a girlfriend, and then suddenly you're told that you can't do it anymore. Its taken years to develop this ability, to condition our flirting reflexes until they become second nature, and now we're expected to just turn it off like a ****ing lightswitch? It just ain't that simple. For years pulling seems like the hardest thing in the world, then you finally master it and not pulling suddenly seems like a serious effort.

Yeah, I mean I can see entirely where you're coming from, in relation to perhaps increasing a partner's desire to be with someone else. However, this doesn't change my opinion that, rather than cheating, a breakup should ensue once half of the couple realises it would rather be with someone else, and is almost certain to enact this desire. So yes, it would be reasonable for me to enquire what I did that contributed to my ex's desire to be with someone else, HOWEVER, I don't think this factors into her cheating on me.




Acceptable reasons for cheating:

>sexless marriage - No. Divorce, break-up, discuss an open relationship, examine ways to make the other half more interested in sex, explain the desire to be with someone else to the other half so they can react accordingly, assess how fundamental sex is to your happiness and ask yourself if you value sex over honesty and someone you've married's happiness.

>Physical abuse - No. If physical abuse is your problem, cheating on your partner isn't ANY sort of solution. If you find yourself in an abusive relationship, get out of it. Don't stay in it and make it worse than it already is, that's just offensively stupid.

>Threats to destroy you if you leave - DEFINITELY NO. If you legitimately believe someone will hurt/kill you for leaving them, they are probably just as likely to "destroy" you for cheating on them if they find out. Regardless, if you have the time and space to successfully coordinate some sort of additional relationship, you DEFINITELY have the time to get help and protection from the necessary authorities.

It doesn't matter how popular something is, that DOESN'T make it right or mean you have to accept it. Question the reasons people give for their actions.

Edit: Also, anyone making any sort of "nature" argument can just leave now.

Absolutely agreed. I mean strictly speaking, even if it came down to you - someone - ringing up their partner to break it off literally so that they could get with someone right there and then in the moment.... THAT is still WAY better than cheating, because technically, there's no overlap. It's the overlap that's so horrendous.

Also agree with your response to Nepene, which is basically what I would say, but with the addendum that obviously physical abuse is a controversial area and, by way of disclaimer, I accept that it's easy for me to say, on the outside looking in.

..... But basically I agree with you. Always a choice, even if that choice is understandably riddled with difficulty.

On nature argument: certainly explains a lot. Don't justify it though. It's funny 'cos as a general, we all like to think we're so 'above' nature - superior, somehow more advanced beyond our primal being, geared towards expanding a thriving civilisation rather than just bare survival, as it used to be.. but when it comes to cheating, suddenly it's all justified away by referencing our inherently polygamous nature. Well, that argument certainly has its place and, as I say, EXPLAINS matters... but still, doesn't contravene our free will, which is always sovereign. And if you're gonna argue that we are more about determinism than being able to choose our behaviour, moment-to-moment, then you might as well also say, therefore, that the next time you go for a poo you may not pull your trousers up afterwards because, well, poo-ing is natural and it's only envionmental conditioning that would deem it as 'wrong' if we didn't pull our trousers up afterwards, even though doing so is against our primal desire to simply do a sh** and move on -

to put it plainly, selective determinism doesn't excuse cheating either.

Yeah, I mean I can see entirely where you're coming from, in relation to perhaps increasing a partner's desire to be with someone else. However, this doesn't change my opinion that, rather than cheating, a breakup should ensue once half of the couple realises it would rather be with someone else, and is almost certain to enact this desire. So yes, it would be reasonable for me to enquire what I did that contributed to my ex's desire to be with someone else, HOWEVER, I don't think this factors into her cheating on me.

Acceptable reasons for cheating:

>sexless marriage - No. Divorce, break-up, discuss an open relationship, examine ways to make the other half more interested in sex, explain the desire to be with someone else to the other half so they can react accordingly, assess how fundamental sex is to your happiness and ask yourself if you value sex over honesty and someone you've married's happiness.

>Physical abuse - No. If physical abuse is your problem, cheating on your partner isn't ANY sort of solution. If you find yourself in an abusive relationship, get out of it. Don't stay in it and make it worse than it already is, that's just offensively stupid.

>Threats to destroy you if you leave - DEFINITELY NO. If you legitimately believe someone will hurt/kill you for leaving them, they are probably just as likely to "destroy" you for cheating on them if they find out. Regardless, if you have the time and space to successfully coordinate some sort of additional relationship, you DEFINITELY have the time to get help and protection from the necessary authorities.

It doesn't matter how popular something is, that DOESN'T make it right or mean you have to accept it. Question the reasons people give for their actions.