According to a new study ran by sociologist Eric Anderson from University of Winchester, men who don’t cheat are setting themselves up for “socially-compelled sexual incarceration”.
Eric Anderson also says that men who cheat give them the best of both worlds.
Most of men who cheat still want to stay with their partner – they just want to have more sex on the side.
The American sociologist who teaches at the University of Winchester in England says monogamy has ostracized men from doing what they most want to do.
Eric Anderson writes in his new book “The Monogamy Gap: Men, Love, and the Reality of Cheating”, that cheating is the norm, not the exception to it, and it’s high time that people start embracing “sexually open relationships that coexist without hierarchy or hegemony”.
In the study, Eric Anderson surveyed 120 undergraduate men – both gay and straight. The sociologist found that 78% of those with partners cheated, “even though they said that they loved and intended to stay with their partner”.
In an interview with the Huffington Post, Eric Anderson says men want to be emotionally monogamous, though their “body craves sex with other people somatically”.
For the purpose of raising a family, Eric Anderson says, it’s the emotional – and not the sexual factor – that counts.
Eric Anderson says: “Our physical desires don’t die; they just change from our partner to other people…When the sex dies, the relationship has just begun.”
To Eric Anderson, it’s better for men to cheat and repent for it, since telling their partner that they want sex outside the relationship is a tried-and-true relationship-ender.
“When men cheat for recreational sex – not affairs – they DO love their partners,” Eric Anderson tells the Huffington Post.
“If they didn’t, they would break up with them.”
Eric Anderson states that the feelings of betrayal many partners inevitably feel after a man cheats is simply because of a “socialized victimhood”.
The Huffington Post noted that in the study, men were perfectly alright with sex outside of a relationship for them, but not for their partners.
To this, Eric Anderson says it’s not necessarily fair, but he says monogamy often drives men to pursue sex with another in the future.
The sample size and targeted group is questionable to stand alone as a study, the Media Research Centre Network said, and asking undergraduate men about monogamy – in a time many are exploring and pushing boundaries.
In the article, the writer criticizes the idea that society is to blame for the issue and makes it an impossible standard for men to uphold.
