Half of men condone cheating with a woman

By Contributing Writer on Friday, February 4, 2011 - 19:08

[Editor’s Note: This article was written by the team of ‘Gaelick’, an award-winning Irish website for LGBT news.]

Some stats are just plain weird, to me at least. For example, the average person’s left hand does 56% of the typing or 27% of female lottery winners hid their winning ticket in their bras. I mean, who thinks to ask? How many people do they ask to come up with this stuff? It’s all a little odd.  Last week Reuters had an article that I found very interesting. In it they say that 50% of men would forgive their girlfriend/wife for cheating, if it was with another woman! 718 college students were asked to imagine they were in a long-term relationship and then asked the question.

Two things came to my mind when I read this. Firstly that perhaps the men are thinking they may have a chance at a threesome and are so overcome with happiness that the woman’s indiscretion is forgotten, or that they just don’t see cheating with a woman as cheating. As though it is somehow less than, it doesn’t count as there was no penis involved. It is the latter notion that I find quite disturbing.

Cheating is cheating after all, no matter who it is with or why, it is something any couple would have to work hard to get over. More power to them if they do, it can’t be easy. However, to see a difference in the cheating based on the gender of the third party is just crazy, and frankly patronising. The research outlined in the article was carried out by the University of Texas and it also says that less than 25% of women would feel the same.

So how many men said they would forgive a betrayal with another man? Only 22%. I find it amazing that that percentage more than doubles when talking about cheating with a woman. The study says:

A robust jealousy mechanism is activated in men and women by different types of cues — those that threaten paternity in men and those that threaten abandonment in women.

So because we can’t get their partners pregnant it’s OK to sleep with them? Why didn’t someone tell me this before? Happy days! Seriously though, it does illustrate something about how many men view sex, relationships and everything in between. Not to mention our fear of abandonment which I frankly thought anyone in love, male or female, would have a touch of, it seems not.

I will try to console myself over this insulting stat by telling myself that the men asked were students and perhaps in 10 years would answer differently, but I’m not so sure.