RR Phantom
Location : Wasted Space
Job/hobbies : Cayman Islands Actuary
 |  Subject: Are women naturally monogamous?  Wed Aug 27, 2008 7:03 pm | |
| It is a universally acknowledged truth (and discussed many times over
in this column) that for biological reasons, men are unable to be
monogamous. It's simply not in their DNA to shag one chick for the rest
of their lives. Or to actually want
to marry before they've dated the entire cheerleading team. Or to
reject a threesome. Oh no. Traditional theory dictates that men evolved
to make love, women to demur.
Yet even while Charles Darwin's
eponymous philosophy dictated that women are sexually monogamous by
nature, recent research - and media headlines - prove otherwise.
A study by Diva TV found that
one in three women in the UK fantasise about having sex with someone
else, 27 per cent fantasise about having an affair, with a surprising
16 per cent admitting they dream of doing it with another woman.
According to Sarah Blaffer Hrdy,
professor of anthropology emeritus at the University of California,
it's not all that surprising either. "Female monogamy is fiction, not
fact," she says, and if we're ever to understand the way women work,
we'd better take notes ...
While Hrdy's theory has something to do with monkeys wanting more options in the way of multiple fathers for their children
(you can read more of her theory here), I prefer the hypothesis of Michelle Langley, author Women's Infidelity; Living in Limbo,
who makes a little more sense to me.
After her eBook was emailed to me by one Ask Sam reader on the weekend, I became intrigued by Langley's theories.
By Langley's reckoning, when a woman hits her sexual peak - usually
around the mid-30s mark - her libido awakens. And if a bloke isn't
meeting her demands mentally and physically - which he often isn't
considering a man peaks in his early 20s - there's going to be more
chance of her looking elsewhere if she isn't entirely happy.
Of course, it's entirely disgraceful and cowardly to cheat on your
partner. But, according to Langley, once the affair begins (which is
often as a result of a person feeling something is "missing" within
their lives), it's pretty difficult to give up. This is due to the
brain's release of a hormone called pheylethylamine (PEA), which
apparently gives the feeling one would have after taking cocaine.
"Just thinking about a person can increase levels of PEA," Langley
says. "Which is why we spend so much time fantasising about the people
we are attracted to."
Just like cocaine, the high of an affair becomes addictive. Suddenly
you find yourself unable to resist doing it, and while you never get
that same feeling you initially started with, you're always chasing
that same high.
But back to Lee.
I've long been fascinated by the mantra of "what goes on tour, stays
on tour". Heck, I once wrote an entire column about my disdain for men
who think that by being on tour they have the right to touch, shag and
flirt with whoever their heart desires because hey, who's going to know?
And a conversation not too long ago with an older Aussie WAG
confirmed my suspicions: "I always travel with my husband," she said.
"I always see the men without their wives fall in love with these
other girls. The rest of the women always ask me if their husbands
behaved well on tour and I always reply with a surprised, 'Oh! Your
husband was on tour with us? I didn't really see him at all!'"
Who would have thought that the tables would have been turned? Who
would have ever imagined that while the cat is away, the mice are the
ones who will play?
But aside from the recent revelations, more generally speaking, it's
no wonder that a man's greatest fear is this: paternity fraud.
You know the drill. Innocent men are cuckolded into legally
providing for a child that isn't even theirs and often never become
aware of the situation until it's way too late.
According to Dr Jeanette Papp, director of genotyping and sequencing
in the University of California at Los Angeles, 15 per cent of children
born in the Western world are victims of paternity fraud.
Down Under, the stats are a little higher at 25 per cent (according to a story on ABC)...
LNK |
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