On the one hand, I appreciated the way he approaches this. He is very rational, very calm, and very frank. When I read his article, fully expecting--based on the title--to become incensed , I found myself examining the issues dispassionately. I could evaluate his viewpoint objectively and weigh his evidence without bias.
But then I remembered that we were talking about a man cheating. And a woman needing to get over herself, take a look at things from his perspective, and then she'll understand that she was completely overreacting.
Wait...what?
All of a sudden his detachment, his rationality, his "honesty", and his dry wit became unbearably insulting.
What was his opening statement? Given the opportunity and complete freedom from any possible consequences every man would have sex with any woman he finds attractive. Its just the way men are, he claims. They like sex, they want sex, and if they can get it, no strings attached, they're going to take it. Sex, to a man, is nothing more than an extremely pleasant physical sensation and has no connections whatsoever to any sort of emotional attachment.
I've had enough discussions about this sort of thing with my guy friends that I will consider this much of his argument as...possible. I don't like it, but I'm willing to admit he might have a point. My problem rests more in the conclusion to which he brings this theory.
If a married man has an affair with another woman, it doesn't mean that he loves his wife any less. Quite the contrary--he still loves her every bit as much as he ever did. In fact, his little fling is so inconsequential that women really need to stop getting upset and realize that this is their chance to build a better, stronger relationship with their man. Don't hold it against him. As soon as you realize how unimportant it all was to him you'll see that you were just being silly to take it so personally. In fact, as you become all understanding and cool, you'll probably realize that that fling was actually your man's cry for understanding from you. If you had been understanding enough, honest enough, open enough he wouldn't have had to go somewhere else to get all of his needs met.
Wait...did you just imply that a man cheating is unimportant...and his wife's fault? Setting the deeper implications of that argument aside for just a moment, I have to address this basic rhetorical fail. You don't get to have that both ways Mr. Nicholson. You can't argue the insignificance of sex to a man
For the man it’s all the other way round. The act of sex happens outside himself. It’s something he throws away. It has no long-term consequences. So he can have his fling and still love you, unlikely though that may seem.
and then turn right around and claim that he was satisfying important, powerful desires he's always been afraid of telling his wife about
All I can say is, it may look infantile to you, but this is strong stuff. See it from his point of view. His waistline has expanded, his hair has receded, and he can’t always perform as he would like. He meets a woman who wants his body and likes him to talk dirty to her – My God! He’s born again! Just once, oh Lord, just once, let me live the dream!
Nope. Either sex is important and "powerful" or it is something he "throws away". Its not both. Where did you learn logic?
Am I being nit-picky? Ok, I'll let your contradictory rhetoric go and just respond to the general idea. Ladies, men just don't think of sex the same way as us and we'll save ourselves a lot of pain by seeing things his way. He cheats on you and you forgive him and you build your more beautiful marriage.
So, what you're saying is that this should be a world without consequences.
No, really. That's what you're saying to me. Each time you tell me I need to be understanding, I need to see things from his perspective, what you're really saying is that my perspective doesn't actually matter. Because if I could just get it into my head that my man can have sex with someone he doesn't love then I'll stop having to be upset and we can all be happy. It doesn't matter that he had sex with someone he doesn't love. Can you explain to me again Mr. Nicholson how this is supposed to be making me feel better?
What it comes down to is that morality, reason, and ethics are all one-sided. Women need to understand men, but men don't seem to be under any kind of advisement to understand women. A man doesn't need to consider that, while he may (or may not...) consider sex insignificant recreation, a woman considers it intimate and powerful (I'm going to go ahead and say "women" here and just hope it is a given that there are exceptions to every rule). No, men are simply instinctive creatures who can't control their actions and women need to appreciate what its like and then they won't get upset.
You know what, forget the women in this scenario. The sort of implications being thrown around about men here are about as insulting as it gets...
A good man (and perhaps, I'm naive for thinking they exist ) wouldn't cheat on his wife even if he didn't think there would be any consequences simply because he would understand that, known or not, his act was a betrayal of the one he loved. A good man wouldn't be able to accept that. A marriage is a union that goes both ways. A wife striving to understand her husband and vice versa.
I'm not saying that if a man cheats on his wife then that's it, the marriage is over. I've never been in such a terrible position, but I do think that it is possible for a woman to forgive her husband and for the two of them to build a stronger marriage. But I can't accept that it is because the wife just got over herself and realized that she shouldn't have gotten upset to begin with. No, for a marriage to survive such a serious blow it requires far more from both parties than you would have me believe Mr. Nicholson. And while I agree with you that true romance is two people loving and accepting each other through both success and failure, I think that you don't quite understand your own flowery sentiments. Love doesn't just mean that she will forgive him, but that he would never ever make her have to.
Sex isn't inconsequential to men. Not all men, at least.
ReplyDeleteOne of the main things that separates human beings from animals is that we can think deeply and rationally, feel empathy and compassion, and act in ways that defy our most primal instincts - like the instinct to reproduce.
The assertion that all men would have gratuitous sex if there weren't any consequences is moot. There are always consequences - repeated sex without commitment becomes addicting; it alters your brain so that women are perceived neurologically as objects instead of people; it reduces your capacity to feel empathy and compassion. Not to mention the possibilities of impregnating a random woman becomes your condom broke, or of receiving an STD, or (not least of all) seriously damaging the feelings of your spouse.
A rational, empathetic, intelligent human being should be capable of weighing these factors and deciding NOT to be promiscuous. I don't belong to the category of men who aren't capable of suppressing their animal instincts for the good of others.
I like your commentary, and I think it's very important. Thank you so much for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHere are two additional points I thought of (actually, one is just an expansion of yours)
First: your point "It doesn't matter that he had sex with someone he doesn't love." This made me think of the "other woman" in this scenario. Sex with no consequences, with no strings, assumes a class of women for whom sex isn't important - it necessitates the existence of (paid or unpaid) prostitutes. Prostitutes are women whose feelings and psychological well-being we as a society do not care about. And the thing that bothers me so much about prostitution is that by its very nature it assumes that sex is not pleasant for the woman. It is pleasant for the man, which is his side of the deal, and it is lucrative for the woman, which is her side of the deal. The very idea that one person would have to be paid - a lot - should be an indicator to how totally undesirable "sex without strings" is to women. The same thing with pornography. "It's just a fantasy, it's harmless..." totally ignoring the fact that every single thing you saw on the screen happened, at one point, to a real woman. (Even leaving all the other women in the man's life out of the picture)
The second thing, and I'm sorry if I have to be a little frank here for a minute, is that arguments like this totally ignore the reality of the sexual response in women. When I was engaged to get married, I was reading some books on sexuality from a marriage perspective (As in, written by doctors and marriage counselors - turns out you learn some very different things than you learn in high school health class). They pointed out some very interesting research that we don't hear about very often - that orgasm in women tends to be a cyclical response rather than a one-time event like in men, and that it is brought on by emotional closeness and feelings of trust. So a lot of unhappy marriage relationships stem from the wife not wanting to have sex because she's not being aroused at all. This makes the husband angry and accusative, but in counseling they discover than her lack of arousal comes from a lack of trust and intimacy with her partner. While I was reading about this, my fiance told me that he had "messed up" and used pornography. It was a traumatic day or two for me and I spent a lot of time talking things through with him and when he had apologized and promised to work at giving it up entirely, I shared with him a little bit about what I had been reading. I didn't make my point effectively, though. When I told him that women were sexually aroused when they felt trust and intimacy he said "so are you saying we might be in trouble right now?" with a wink. "No," I said, but I couldn't finish my sentence. I'm saying that when I can't trust you or I know that you're fantasizing about other women, I'm unable to be sexually attracted to you at all.