An argument for why female cheating is condoned and male cheating is vilified

[Consept]

So first of all this is an overall look at this, its not necessarily personal to me in that im looking for justification for anything, i just think its an interesting talking point, here goes. 

Recently with lockdown being relaxed here in the UK ive had a chance to meet more people socially, some of which were female friends. We got into discussions about and around the title topic and i came to interesting perspective. So majority of women, if you ask them what their ideal situation is, are looking for one partner that they respect, that they look up to, that for lack of a better term is their 'one', someone they can put all their energy into and who will put all their energy into them (this is for marriage or long term). If you ask men they may say the same thing but if you get a bit deeper most men would be happy to sleep with other women if it was relatively easy and if their partner was cool with it (most partners wont be but you know ideal world). They would like to keep their partner as the main woman of course. (this will be different for different men of course but im not necessarily arguing about that).

Now heres the thing, when asked what would be the worse thing for your partner to do, cheat emotionally or cheat physically, men said they wouldnt want their partner to cheat physically and women said they wouldnt want their partner to cheat emotionally. In society physical cheating is seen as the only real cheating, thats the dealbreaker and if someone does that to you, you should leave them. Keep in mind though if a woman is satisfied sexually and emotionally with one person she most likely will not physically cheat. Men feel a strong obligation not to cheat, due to society pressure and so it sometimes is not even a consideration as its a bad thing. 

Heres the kicker though, if women feel that emotional connection is worse than physical with someone else then they should consider deep friendships they have with men cheating and actually worse than physical cheating by their own standards. You might say well you can be friends and it be plutonic, yes this can be true but usually someone in the equation is in the friend zone, meaning that one party can say to the other 'lets sleep together' and the other will be up for it. Usually its the guy thats in the friend zone. So in this scenario the woman is able to have an emotional connection with this male friend and get his time, his energy etc, but what he might want deep down, hes not getting. As an example one of the girls i talked to recently has a 'male friend', who likes her and she only gives him attention when she breaks up with someone shes saying, she never sleeps with him, but he constantly pays her attention and gives compliments etc. She basically gets her emotional and validation needs met temporarily before she meets someone more serious. This is not a unique situation. 

If you reverse the situation and say mens needs are more sexual, they do have emotional needs of course but theres more emphasis on the sexual needs. If I said theres a girl that l know likes me but i dont take her seriously for a relationship, i just give her a call when i break up with someone else to have sex and hang out, people would think im a user and terrible person. This also follows in long term relationships and marriages, women might have other male friends, these friends could be fulfilling certain emotional needs, maybe their partner doesnt listen to them as much or whatever. Now im not saying theres even anything wrong with this, in a way it makes sense, why shouldnt you get your needs met? But why does it not apply to men who want their needs met? Men tend to have a desire for variety sexually, as evidenced by the numerous porn categories, so this desire is there, but what we're told is to completely stuff this need and forget about it. But by the same token women are allowed to have their emotional needs met by multiple men, which they themselves consider to be the worse form of cheating. 

Keep in mind also humans were mostly polygamous or polyamorous for centuries, within their tribes. Even now its common place in tribal societies, to have multiple wives, assuming you have the resources to look after them. This is done because the first wife can no longer take over all the needs of the man, she basically is happy to get a younger wife to come and help. Im not saying this is perfect either, im just saying its interesting how if you grow up in another society your take on what we think are big issues is completely different. 

Anyway this is more to spark up discussion, so hopefully people wont get triggered, but interested to hear other viewpoints. 

 

[Consept]

31 minutes ago, Peter Miklis said:

@Consept I think this has to do with the way our current society and civilization is structured. In tribal societies, it is advantageous to let men do what they want, because the organizational structure of the tribe is very simple and population is low. People also die fairly quickly, so it's better to let men have their way and increase fertility that way.

This changed with invention of agriculture, humans settling in one place and with increasing of population and goverment complexity. Ordinary men couldn't just have multiple wifes, because result would be violence, chaos and losing of order. Also, tribe is a small community where everyone pretty much knows each other, it's almost like an extended family. In nation however, you are surrounded by strangers, and the only thing you have in common is you speak the same language. Which means nobody cares about you specifically, only prosperity of the nation matters. Women become a possesion, a prize for men of status.

Fair points and im sure they are valid reasons toward the tribal occurrence. Its also interesting to note that most other primate species, in fact all but one, operate in the same sexual way tribally. Which would be to say that if we take wholesale that this had to change because of larger populations, it still wouldnt be 'natural' to our species, evidenced by the fact that there has always been a high level of infidelity despite these social restrictions. 

The other thing is that marriage say before modern times, was really about 'owning' women, so it was more in the mans favour and was rarely to do with love. It meant the man could guarantee his line with his wife but then also be able to sleep with other women, thats where we get terms like bastard from. It also meant that women could not exercise these options and which is why theres been such a negative connotation put on female sexuality through the years. 

The modern western idea of marrying for love and marrying the one, is fairly new and only dates back around 150 years ago through writings and poetry. Previously 'love' wouldve most likely been that affair someone had that was too risky so they had to go back their partner. 

38 minutes ago, Peter Miklis said:

As for women saying they wouldn't want their partners to cheat emotionally, what does that mean? Like having a sex with feelings or just simply being platonic with someone? I think you can really only cheat physically.

This is really the crux of it. When women say they dont want their partner cheating emotionally it doesnt mean they have sex with someone else, it means that they form an emotional connection with someone else (sharing feelings, spending time together etc). As i said women see this as worse than actual physical cheating, reason being once you make an emotional connection with someone else its hard to hold more than one at a time. So women are of course worried about the guy leaving them. Im sure they wouldnt be happy if he had sex with someone else but it may not end the relationship. 

My point is that women by their own standards of whats the worse way of cheating for them, often 'cheat' emotionally with other men although they may not have sex with them. Potentially this could be because they have more emotional needs and can have these relationships without it turning to sex, usually however the 'friend' would have sex if given the chance. On the other side of the coin, men can have sexual relationships without connecting emotionally, although the 'sex partner' might want a more emotional connection. These are just core differences in men and womens operating systems. The thing is one side is completely accepted by society but the other side is seen as almost evil. 

You mentioned spiral dynamics as well and this tribal thing as a lower aspect, however, when you look forward green and above monogamy kind of goes out the window as people tend to accept these desires and find a way to embrace them, although it is very difficult to come to a solution. If you notice strict monogamy is really a staple of blue and it comes into orange but more for appearances as many cheat or push the boundaries of it if they can. 

[Tangerinedream]

it depends on the people and what they feel more hurt by.  it also depends to what degree the emotional cheating is.  there is chatting with a friend and then there is having feelings for someone and being more deep with them.  usually anyone having an emotional affair will eventually lead to something physical regardless of man or woman.   if emotions are involved it just means it's more "serious"

for example getting drunk and sleeping with someone who you just met Vs having deep feelings for someone else outside of the relationship and forming a connection over a long time eventually leading to sex and affair.

Edited May 15, 2021 by Tangerinedream

[Roy]

It's a stretch to consider most or all forms of emotional connection a form of cheating. I think we need to be more nuanced on a case by case basis, where as any unwanted sex act with another person is 100% clear cut cheating because it's physical.

For example you can be really good friends with someone in a relationship and give them emotional support, but if there is never that "intent" or clear physical line crossed from the person in the relationship we shouldn't call that cheating. It doesn't matter how malicious the intents of the "orbiter" are in the example if they don't get what they want. It takes two people to cheat. Of course it may be unwanted by their partner if they don't want them developing emotional connections with other people of the opposite sex. But if the intents of the "offender" are truly innocent and pure we can't call that cheating. It's just a miscommunication in that particular relationship.

You see it's tricky. This isn't black and white like physical infidelity. Equating the two (emotional vs physical) because of the dynamics of what males prefer vs what females prefer seems a slightly dishonest and convenient way to warp the reality of the situation.

Statistically men cheat more than women do. Ironically though the majority of conversation around this topic I've seen seem to be coming from men whining (not that this thread is that), which leads me to believe it's just them venting and expressing an insecurity based in bias and falsehood.

Unless a sexual line is crossed things aren't really clear. When people get upset that their partner has an emotional connection outside of the relationship they might be tempted to call that cheating because they fear what it might lead to, but that's entirely dependent on how deep the emotional connection is, or if it's used as a deliberate replacement for the relationship or not.

You may very well be right about the cultural bias and double standards. But fuck culture, we shouldn't be too concerned about it anyways as independent thinkers. You influence the larger healthier shifts that need to happen by being principled as an individual and leading by example. Crusading and fighting in gender wars just makes the situation worse, something most people seem to be unaware of.

Edited May 15, 2021 by Roy

[Preety_India]

You've got the whole definition of emotional cheating wrong.

By your logic, every friendship would be considered cheating if one of them have a partner.

Yes, we usually turn to our friends after breakups for emotional support, absolutely nothing wrong with it, friends are gender neutral, that is, their gender doesn't really matter. It could be a woman paying compliments or it could be a man. The man supporting the woman is just what friends normally do. This is not limited to the woman alone. My guy friends used to talk to me if they broke up . Many men hang out on a cup of coffee with a long term female friend they had since school or college to discuss issues with regarding wives and girlfriends. The female perspective offered by their friend helps them understand their own wife or girlfriend better. This is just plain friendship and it's not emotional cheating.

I never told my boyfriend not to talk to his female friends. In fact he had several female friends and I had no problem at all. 

People who try to characterize friendship as cheating are just deep down very insecure people. 

Now what is emotional cheating exactly?

It's when you aren't exactly physical with someone but you use the same gestures, language and mannerisms that you generally use with your partner. 

For example I'm not going to say "I love you " to a male friend. When the language between two people is of the intimate nature,even sexual where the boundaries between friendship and romance get blurred, that's where there is a strong likelihood that the person is engaging in emotional cheating. Because they are crossing the lines of friendship and veering into a more platonic form of love or romance which hasn't taken a physical form but the interpretation is the same, they use the language of lovers.

For example if I casually said to a male friend"hugs" just to assure them when they are upset or sad is very different from saying "hugs,I wanna kiss you." That's where boundaries need to be drawn between what's friendship and what should count as emotional cheating.

 

 

Edited May 15, 2021 by Preety_India

[Consept]

1 hour ago, Roy said:

Unless a sexual line is crossed things aren't really clear. When people get upset that their partner has an emotional connection outside of the relationship they might be tempted to call that cheating because they fear what it might lead to, but that's entirely dependent on how deep the emotional connection is, or if it's used as a deliberate replacement for the relationship or not.

You may very well be right about the cultural bias and double standards. But fuck culture, we shouldn't be too concerned about it anyways as independent thinkers. You influence the larger healthier shifts that need to happen by being principled as an individual and leading by example. Crusading and fighting in gender wars just makes the situation worse, something most people seem to be unaware of.

This is the thing im not trying to come across as a gender war type discussion, my point is more its understandable that women might want more emotional connections with more people as they are more inclined to want that. Men are more inclined to want more variety with sexual partners, im not saying either is wrong or bad, im just saying both should be more acceptable if it works for people. The double standards dont necessarily annoy me or anything like that, i just think we should find a way to get everyones needs met without deomonising, in this case, men.

The other thing is that ive probably not defined emotional 'cheating'. Im not saying every friendship will be that, but there are certain friendships that women have that can be seen as closer than a normal friendship and within this friendship they get things that they would do in a traditional relationship. The example is used with my friend who has a male 'friend' that she only bothers with in between relationships, this is obviously not a normal friendship relationship. I also feel a lot of friendships between men and women, the woman knows that the man might have feelings for them but also knows they can get validation and attention from them. As i said this isnt to say that purely plutonic relationships cant exist but im not talking about them in this instance 

[EnlightenmentBlog]

An argument for why female cheating is condoned opposite sex has it easier and male cheating is vilified my sex is disadvantaged ... again

On 15.05.2021 г. at 2:24 PM, Consept said:

So in this scenario the woman is able to have an emotional connection with this male friend and get his time, his energy etc, but what he might want deep down, hes not getting. As an example one of the girls i talked to recently has a 'male friend', who likes her and she only gives him attention when she breaks up with someone shes saying, she never sleeps with him, but he constantly pays her attention and gives compliments etc. She basically gets her emotional and validation needs met temporarily before she meets someone more serious. This is not a unique situation. 

It takes two to play. Why does this 'male friend' keep acting like an emotional crutch for this girl? Because he thinks he's going to have his needs met. Too bad he hasn't learned some game and he's going to get used until he realizes what's going on.

[Consept]

4 hours ago, EnlightenmentBlog said:

An argument for why female cheating is condoned opposite sex has it easier and male cheating is vilified my sex is disadvantaged ... again

Consider thats how youre interpreting it but its not necessarily my intention. To me its not whether one sex has it easier or not, if we weigh it up its probably even, for example if you take a man and a woman who are considered unattractive physically, the man has a much better opportunity to get a more attractive woman because the stuff he can work on is considered attractive by women (financial, personality etc). Because men tend to be more physically orientated its harder for a woman not considered attractive to land an attractive male. 

Thats just example but again i dont really like to use the term disadvantaged as there are pros and cons of being any identity, it would be quite simplistic to say a whole gender is disadvantaged. What im more looking at is perspectives that hold true when looking at statistics but are not really discussed in everyday society, which is what i presented in the argument. 

4 hours ago, EnlightenmentBlog said:

It takes two to play. Why does this 'male friend' keep acting like an emotional crutch for this girl? Because he thinks he's going to have his needs met. Too bad he hasn't learned some game and he's going to get used until he realizes what's going on.

Yeah 100%, the guy is putting her on a pedestal and getting a pretty crap deal in the process, this would be the same if a guy was just using a girl for sex and she thought it was something more, she would also need to learn her 'game' and not be played. This is my point, this argument is just showing the other side of the coin. 

[EnlightenmentBlog]

@Consept Fair enough.