Are men truly professionals at the cheating game or are women the (af)fairer sex? Hidayah Salamat looks beyond the statistics.
Let’s play a game of Taboo, shall we? Jack Neo, Tiger Woods, Jude Law, Jesse James, John Terry—have you guessed it already? If you guessed “cheating,” “scandals,” “affairs” or anything else related to the dastardly topic of infidelity, you’re right. Unless you’re currently serving time (hell, even word gets around in there) or participating in the gazillionth season of Survivor, you should be the slightest bit aware of, if not very familiar with some of the biggest names in the celebrity cheat sheet. In fact, we are willing to bet that the mere mention of our dear local director will probably set off some alarms in your head. Neo and his more famous Hollywood male counterparts have made headlines at home and all over the world with their tales of deceit and scandal while news of natural disasters and the unpredictable economy have taken a back seat. Somebody please blow the whistle on the whole dramatic press conference shebang; it’s getting old. Did you notice that all the celeb cheats we mentioned (plus some more you can Google real quick) are males? Can we assume then that men are more likely to cheat on their partners than women? If so, does that make them better cheats? We thought of something even more fun than assuming; we went to find out.
What’s Going On?
The Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) has reported that
out of the 400 infidelity-rated cases they have received through their helpline
over the past year, 97 percent cite men as the culprits. Sounds like the men are
kicking arse right? Well, don’t be so quick to judge. “More men than women
cheat, for sure,” reveals Associate Professor Norman Li of the Singapore
Management University’s School of Social Sciences. “The statistics have
confirmed that. It’s generally two to five times more likely for men to cheat on
their spouses than women but that’s not to say that women aren’t cheating.”
Damien*, 29, can testify to this. “I was dating this girl for about six
months when I decided to meet up with an old friend from school. Naturally the
conversation led to the girls we were dating. Turned out there was only one girl
and we were both dating her.”
Men are from Mars...
“Since the beginning of time, men have proliferated by finding different
mates. In this way, the genes that cause men to be more sexually promiscuous get
spread throughout and all of a sudden, thousands of generations of men have a
higher desire for sex,” says Professor Li.
Many men find it impossible to
fulfil their desires with just one woman and look elsewhere for sexual variety.
They aren’t necessarily attached to a new partner and can have sex with someone
new without knowing anything about them, including their name. The reason why
men cheat isn’t rocket science. Many women spend all their lives deciphering
“mixed messages” when it comes to figuring men out but the message is simple—men
are superficial. “A study showed that when men were exposed to pictures of
attractive women for five minutes, they later began to feel dissatisfied with
their partners,” Professor Li explains.
Men have less of a moral problem
with “shopping around” for a new partner as compared to women. To them, this is
just an issue of sexual dalliance. In most cases, men who cheat don’t do so with
the intention of replacing their wives.
It is evident that the first humans
OK-ed the idea of multiple sex partners. But according to Professor Li, “Men who
allowed sexual transgressions naturally never gave birth to their own kids and
died out. Today’s men react more violently and get more upset than women do when
they are cheated on. In fact, up till about 30 years ago in the US, it was legal
for a husband to murder his spouse if she had committed adultery.” In fact, an
article in UK newspaper The Times discovered that several American
states used to have statutes that allowed men to kill adulterous wives without
fear of prosecution. These were only abolished in the 1970s. But even now, there
are remnants of this loophole in the law.
“You only need to look at the
papers to see that men who are discovered to have committed crimes of passion
with regards to an adulterous spouse tend to be given more leniency in court. In
fact, it almost seems like an excuse they use for murder,” observes Juliyanti
Jalil, a former executive for the Centre for Caregivers of the Asian Women’s
Welfare Organization (AWWA). “Men deem sexual infidelity more hurtful than
emotional betrayal. Watching their spouse fall for someone else is without a
doubt, a hundred times less painful than watching their spouse have sex with
another man. It is unforgivable,” she elaborates.
...and Women are from Venus
While men are sexual deviants, women rarely look for new partners to satisfy
their sexual urges. Says Professor Li, “Women have developed a different
mentality over time because when they were randomly having sex, they found
themselves pregnant and having to support their child without help from the men
because they just took off. The women today are descendants of the women who
generally became more careful about whom they select as mates. They tend to look
for mates who can invest in them.” So, women are born opportunists; they’re only
interested in affairs to remember and that have much to offer.
Professor Li
cites a study similar to the one conducted on men, in which women become
dissatisfied with their partners after reading stories about successful men.
“They’re thinking how there are all these other people out there and they start
to wonder why they’re with this one person.”
“Many of the women we’ve spoken
to cite loss of income as a reason for deviating from their husbands. They feel
like they’re not being supported financially. We also have women sharing about
their men being emotionally unstable so they look for another guy who can
support them emotionally,” reports Corinna Lim, Executive Director of AWARE.
It’s very rare for a woman to say she did it because she felt horny and wanted
more options in terms of sex; that’s more a male thing to say.
Unlike men,
women who find someone better equipped to provide for them may leave her partner
altogether. Johnson*, 32, had been married to his ex for close to two years
before she started seeing someone else. “We were trying to have children and by
the second year of trying, we had both become so exhausted we stopped having sex
altogether,” Johnson explains. “On some nights we didn’t even talk much; we just
went to bed. Even if we did talk, we’d end up quarrelling. It became such a
chore to spend time with each other. One day, on my way home from work, I saw a
man drop her off at the car park. I asked her about it but she kept quiet. She
didn’t even bother explaining. We ended up fighting about stupid things I can’t
even remember now. After a while, things got out of hand. Friends were coming up
to me asking me what was going on after they’d seen her with the same man a few
times in public. Of course I was angry. I kept demanding that she explain
herself. I even confronted the guy after finding out who he was. He said he’d
stop seeing her, but eventually, she left me. She said she had grown tired of me
being so detached from our marriage and ignoring her all the time. She wouldn’t
even listen to reasoning, not even from her parents. They have since gotten
married and now have a kid.”
The Lying Game
Let’s face it; women are better liars than men. Studies leading to this
discovery have even led to the publishing of the book Little White Lies,
Deep Dark Secrets: The Truth About Women and Deception by Susan Shapiro
Barash, where the author cites an online survey of 500 women in her assertion
that women lie about everything—love, sex, money and even plastic surgery. In
the book, Barash also reveals that women lie better than men, or are just
cleverer about it. Her assertions created an uproar and have been fodder for
talk shows.
As men are more prone to acting drastically upon a cheating
spouse, women have to take extra care in covering up their tracks. This is not
the case with men as women are more forgiving towards cases of sexual
transgression; the mindset is that as long as he invests, it’s all good.
When women cheat, chances are their partners are the last to know. And when
they do find out, it doesn’t usually come right from the horse’s mouth. Max*,
25, reveals, “She was pretty much what I fell for throughout. If it wasn’t for
the dude cluing me in, I probably wouldn’t have known—ever. It was only
afterwards that I started noticing little weird things here and there that I
thought nothing of before. She was (and probably is) pretty damn good at hiding
shit. In fact, she still remains sketchy about the whole affair.” Still not
convinced? The late Farrah Fawcett of Charlie’s Angels fame reportedly
cheated on long-term partner Ryan O’Neal for over 10 years. And we only heard
about this after her passing. Ryan denies this adamantly but then again, who
wouldn’t?
Women are also aware of the material consequences of infidelity in
marriages. “Usually, when women come to us, we determine first what they want to
achieve, be it grounds for divorce, the husband’s assets or custody of the
children,” explains Jaycee Choy, Project Manager of private investigation
company JP Knights Consultancy Pte Ltd. “Most women already know about the
affair and just want to make sure they don’t end up with nothing.” So you better
believe that if she’s the one doing the cheating, she’d have exercised a bit of
damage control first to make sure she doesn’t end up high and dry.
The Cheat Sheet
So it all boils down to one thing: While statistics confirm men still cheat
more often than women, the (af)fairer sex is much smarter about it. Not only are
they lying about every little thing, including stuff they don’t need to lie
about, they are also capable of maintaining the lie for as long as they need to.
While having a natural affinity for distorting or hiding facts is one of the
reasons why women are better at cheating, it isn’t the only one. “A woman’s
intuition is a very strong and admired quality,” explains Ilinadiah Ismail, a
family counselor for a voluntary welfare organization and a psychology major
from SMU. “We can sense when something is about to happen and are able to
pre-empt an outcome to a situation, which makes it easier for us to exercise
damage control. We tend to see what needs to be hidden and hide it before it is
found, and try not to put ourselves in situations where our credibility may be
compromised. Women are also known to be excellent multi-taskers. We perform many
roles in society and can easily hide behind each role we play in order to throw
off any suspicions.”
Also, women are perceived to be very emotional so even
if a cheating wife does express some emotion due to her guilt, her behavior is
not seen as being out of the ordinary and does not arouse suspicion. “It makes
women sound so manipulative and yet, to us, it’s only natural,” Ismail explains
further.
This makes us wonder. Could it be possible that women are cheating
more than men but they’re so good at manipulating facts that it never shows in
the statistics? Who knows? Maybe nobody ever will. After all, the one charm
about marriage or a relationship is that it makes a life of deception absolutely
necessary for both parties, or so says Oscar Wilde.
*Not real names
When is it cheating?
When entering into a new relationship, it is important to know where to draw the line between cheating and normal social behavior. It may be normal for you, but it could be a deal‑breaker for your partner. Go through this list together and mark the ones that you both feel constitute cheating so that you’re on the same page.
- Looking at other men or women
- Linking arms
- Air‑kissing
- Kissing
- Groping
- Talking all night on the phone
- Talking all night in person
- Having dinner with an ex
- Having drinks with an ex
- Flirting via SMS
- Adding other men or women on Facebook
- Having a long‑term relationship on Second Life
- Phone sex
- Webcam sex
- Oral sex
- Imagining someone else while you’re having sex with your partner
- Sex with a prostitute
- A hand job
- A blowjob
- A one‑night stand in Singapore
- A one‑night stand overseas
When to Blow the Whistle
Your intuition tells you something’s up but you don’t know when to speak up. Here are some tell-tale signs your partner is probably cheating on you and that you’re not just being paranoid.
1. You have significantly less sex or stop having sex altogether.
2. She comes home one day looking all dolled up when she’s usually plainly dressed, claiming she’s been doing makeovers at her girlfriend’s. Unless your wife is 15 (which makes you a criminal), that’s probably not the case.
3. When your man stops trying to make you laugh, or when your wife stops laughing at your jokes.
4. He/she brings the phone everywhere; even to the toilet and claims it’s for playing Tap Tap. Yeah, right.
5. You find tickets to movies you’ve never gone to see. In most cases though, spouses become immediately suspicious the moment they see movie tickets lying around. When was the last time you actually went to a movie together anyway?
6. There is an increase in credit card bills. Note the restaurants your partner goes to.
7. Whenever you think you’ve got sufficient evidence (we recommend hiring a professional investigator) to wring the bastard/bitch dry of all his/her assets.
How to Fix It
If you’ve both gone through the nitty-gritty and decide that the marriage is
worth saving, the marriage counsellors at AWARE are unanimous in saying that
your best bet is to stop making excuses and get down to it. “Many couples say
they have no time to work on their relationship. But you see, there are no
shortcuts. If you want the marriage to work, make the time. Find the time to
talk—like when the football match is not on, when the kids are not doing their
homework, and when both of you are alone.”
What about romance? Screw
romance. “You know what women are going to say if we mention date night?” asks
one counsellor. “They’re going to say, ‘I don’t want a date night, I just want
him to bloody do the dishes! I just want him to look around the house and see
what needs to be done.’ Taken for granted is a common problem for both men and
women.”
So if you want your marriage to work, forget flowers and expensive
presents (though no one will say no to these, we’re sure). Try being considerate
(gasp!).