Do people view infidelity different when it is committed by a man vs a woman?

RockinSocksII · 2018-01-06T18:00:11+00:00

From what I've seen, it depends on the sex of the person. Men are going to think women's infidelity is worse. Women are going to think men's infidelity is worse.

VAOTOMARNOCU · 2018-01-06T17:57:52+00:00

goatismycopilot · 2018-01-06T17:55:58+00:00

Most of the men in this sub think men cheating is okay and female cheating is horrific.

AlanHalworth · 2018-01-06T17:50:20+00:00

I think that there is a double standard where men's cheating on women is considered more acceptable than women's cheating on men. That goes back forever, with kings taking mistresses for instance. At the same time, there is another double standard: women can be more open about their experience of being cheated on than men can be. That's because they are less ashamed than men are, and more "breathe fire" angry. ("Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.") In contrast, a man feels deeply ashamed and humiliated and doesn't want to talk about or publicize his feelings.

tiposk · 2018-01-06T17:50:27+00:00

From the research that I've seen, there is a slight double standard against female cheating, although generally cheating is generally stigmatized regardless of gender.

I've seen cases where men are judges more harshly, but these judgments tend to come from very specific feminist circles that probably don't represent the average person.

I also think it depends on the culture. Many people where I used to live disliked male cheating but thought that it was a normal and inevitable downside of being a man. Female cheating on the other hand is considered the ultimate offense.

passepar2t · 2018-01-06T23:20:02+00:00

Men think it's worse when women cheat.

Women think it's worse when men cheat.

MoodyAres · 2018-01-06T18:28:59+00:00

When a man cheats it's because he's a unfaithfully morally bankrupt degenerate.

Whaen a woman cheats it's because her man wasn't giving her the affection and attention she deserved.

exit_sandman · 2018-01-07T22:41:15+00:00

My 2c: because 97% of the time, a guy who cheats on his wife doesn't leave his family for the side chick.

Also, 0% of the time a woman who is cheated on is set up with a kid that isn't hers.

SkookumTree · 2018-01-06T19:15:50+00:00

[removed]

pinkgoldrose · 2018-01-06T19:50:16+00:00

I've never seen anyone saying cheating was something done to the children. Maybe this blogger has trouble realizing where she ends and where her children begin. It sounds like she's just trying to make the man feel shittier by grouping in the children as victims, like it bears more weight if you say "but think about the children!". Or maybe she's trying to use the argument that she's more valuable than other women because she's a woman with children and so she's gained some status in society by performing the womanly duty of bringing children into the world and she wants to flaunt it.

Whisper · 2018-01-09T02:14:07+00:00

Duh.

Eggs are expensive. Sperm is cheap.

The two acts are not the same.

GridReXX · 2018-01-06T22:57:10+00:00

Yes I think men view it as the worst affront to them.

Just look at this Twitter thread.

..and the responses from the men LOL.

There was also this video of a man trying to act like his cheating past with his wife was NBD. She then admitted she cheated once after learning of his cheating and he literally started crying. Men are INSANE 🙄😂.

Electra_Cute · 2018-01-06T17:38:26+00:00

Obviously, just look at this subreddit for instance.

jeffersonsexmouth · 2018-01-07T05:57:51+00:00

If television geared toward women has taught me anything it's that cheating and its consequences are perfectly fine and a good thing if you have an excuse... if you're a woman that is.

Entropy-7 · 2018-01-08T03:32:04+00:00

I told my girl that I want a three some. She told me to have a three some with two other bitches. It remains to be seen.

despisedlove2 · 2018-01-06T19:06:21+00:00

Normal gynocentrism.

Cheating, regardless of who does it, is a relationship ender.

That said, there are biological overtones added on because maternity fraud is impossible but paternity fraud is common. That changes the graveness of the offense. Also, female cheating is invariably emotional in nature in addition to physical cheating. That makes it even more lethal.

Women are generally much better at cheating. They are evolved to be infinitely better at hiding affairs, having multiple affairs, committing paternity fraud, eliciting social sympathy when caught, etc.

daveofmars · 2018-01-06T18:39:13+00:00

I view cheating differently, because a woman can't get cuckolded with a child that's not her's. People here have tried to convince me otherwise, but a woman getting cucked is such an edge case that no one has been able to provide one real world example of it happening, so effectively there's a 0% chance. Critics can save me the hypotheticals.

Everyone is going to feel betrayed when their partner cheats, because cheating sucks, and each sex is going to see their situation as worse. What I know for sure is that, because only one sex can get pregnant, there will be asymmetry in how we evaluate men's vs women's cheating.

squidracer · 2018-01-06T19:37:17+00:00

When the man cheats the women gets most of his money and goes on to find the next beta bucks

When the woman cheats, she still gets his money and a new beta bux.

If women left with nothing, then men wouldn't give a shit if she left, but they can't lose ethier way

LewisCross · 2018-01-06T18:50:54+00:00

according to The Cathedral/zeitgeist, if a man cheats on his wife, he's a dog and an asshole and the lowest form of life there is.

If a woman cheats on her husband, it's because:

(1) he made her do it

(2) he drove her to do it because he was so mean/awful/sexual depriving/obstinate/emotionally unavailable

(3) he cheated on her first, so she is entitled to cheat on him

(4) she is empowered and exploring her sexuality and therefore has a right to cheat on her husband

(5) her husband is unable or unwilling to satisfy her sexually

(6) she never was sexually attracted to him/no longer is sexually attracted to him, and therefore, he cannot satisfy her sexually, and therefore, she is entitled to cheat.

Man cheating - bad.

Woman cheating - good, empowering, edifying, beneficial.

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goatismycopilot · 2018-01-06T19:48:53+00:00

I forget who linked the story but somebody posted a discussion from an NYT column from this batshit crazy lady academic justifying her cheating and kind of implying the wife/soon to be ex wife and the kiddies were all okay with it because they had bonded. She was a singularly unsympathetic character and he sounded like a spineless weasel, I am sure when the kids are older if they stay together and he does not cheat again, they will hate her. My piont is scenarios vary and mostly I felt bad for the kids who were likely doing kid eye rolls through the whole thing. I definitely thought the woman was an asshole so TRP assumes everybody is team woman when this shit goes down and they would be wrong.

caesarfecit · 2018-01-06T20:12:13+00:00

Because men are more capable of having sex with zero attachment. Women less so. Therefore a man having affairs in some people's minds is less threatening to a relationship (assuming the mistress doesn't get preggers and keeps her distance).

I don't personally hold with that logic. Cheating is cheating, and what makes cheating so toxic for a relationship is the dishonesty and the divided loyalties. That's why emotional affairs with no physical infidelity can be just as harmful to a relationship.

TheBookOfSeil · 2018-01-06T22:29:56+00:00

Edit: A lot of people are commenting on general differences in how cheating is viewed, but my question is why a man's cheating is viewed as an attack on the whole family but with women it is not.

It's only an attack on the whole family when it's the woman that wants to stay and the man does not. Otherwise, it's "I feel like you don't love/appreciate me anymore, so I found someone that does." Men aren't allowed to say this because of cultural norms.

But I don't see the same thing when a family man is cheated on by his wife. If this happens, he's the only victim, at least that's how it seems the public at large responds, or maybe I just miss the articles in the media.

That's because the women are viewed traditionally as being the ones keeping the family together. The man is just the provider, so most ties to the family involve with money, while women provide the care and emotional support.

I just don't remember seeing this type of response when a man is betrayed by his wife, even though it's got to hurt just as much.

It can, yes, but with traditional views regarding families and domestic situations, men aren't viewed with the same level of sympathy as women are during a "tragic" or stressful situation.

ThorLives · 2018-01-07T02:25:54+00:00

I think most people see cheating as bad, but I also think most people see male cheating as slightly worse than female cheating. Males who cheat are seen as deceitful, backstabbing, unfaithful cheaters. Women are more likely to benefit a little bit from the idea that women cheat when they aren't given enough love at home - example: "women tend to not cheat unless they feel either unhappiness in their primary relationship or an intimate connection with their extracurricular partner" (Link) and "women cheat mostly because they’re missing the emotional connection with their partners and feel lonely. They experience the lack of communication, passion, and even old fashioned intimacy such as holding hands." (Link) There's this underlying assumption that if men were doing their job, she never would have cheated. Could you imagine someone writing the reverse in an article? i.e. "men cheat mostly because they’re missing the emotional connection with their partners and feel lonely. They experience the lack of communication, passion, and even old fashioned intimacy such as holding hands." That would be laughable and unbelievable. If that statement seems shocking, it tells you something.

Kind of a side-note, but I remember reading somewhere about a society where (maybe ancient Greece?), when a woman was cheating on her husband, people would laugh at the husband because they believed that the only reason a woman would cuckold her husband was if he was completely inadequate as a man - i.e. it's his fault.

I also think society is much more accepting of women acting in accordance with her feelings than men. For example, if a woman says she cheated because she's bored in her relationship, I think people are more likely ask if: the relationship was already over (cheating was just a symptom), whether the man was doing enough (his fault), and the third response would be to say that cheating is not a reasonable response to boredom (her fault). I think it's different if a man says he cheated because he's bored. In that case, I think people: tell him that cheating is not a reasonable response to boredom(his fault), and ask if he was doing enough to make the relationship more interesting (his fault).

I also think that women are more talkative about relationships and will create a false narrative around the facts of cheating (i.e. if cheating happened against her, then she'll make him look evil; if she cheated, then she'll talk about details around the relationship (some true, some lies, some exaggerations) that justify or mitigate her cheating). I think that women have been much better about being talkative about their life experiences than men, and this has given them the upper-hand when it comes to painting themselves in a good light in all kinds of scenarios.

washington_breadstix · 2018-01-08T03:34:11+00:00

As other commentors have pointed out, viewpoints on this subreddit are not representative of "normal" people / society at large.

Outside of this subreddit, the "women are wonderful" effect has a firm grip on almost everyone. People continually assume that women always have the best intentions. Thus, they blame women less for cheating. If she cheats because she wasn't satisfied with the sex, then "He probably wasn't meeting her needs. She's a human with desires!"

TrueRustyShackleford · 2018-01-06T17:49:48+00:00

I was going to say that people don't see cheating differently, but yeah, you actually made a good point there about families. It does seem like a father cheating is seen more as a betrayal of the family and a reason to take his children away from him than when a mother cheats and it's chalked up to "well, I guess the relationship ran out of steam, but byones are bygones, they should divorce in a civil fashion".

stats135 · 2018-01-06T18:35:26+00:00

I've posted about this issue before. The problem with women cheating is that it's like rich people stealing.

I was walking out of a food joint with some take out in the ghetto areas a few years ago and a homeless man suddenly grabbed my food and ran. I wasn't angry that I was robbed. I empathized and actually felt sad. Sad that our society still has people that need to steal food to not starve. But if a millionaire robbed me there would be absolutely no excuse.

Your average man , your beta man, is sexually bankrupt. Whenever I see a man cheat I feel so sad that I live in an era where men have to lie and cheat just to satisfy their physiological need for sex. But women and sex are like millionaires and money. They don't have to lie and cheat and steal. They have other options and LOTS of it.

Title	Do people view infidelity different when it is committed by a man vs a woman?
Author	TRP_Hoplite
Upvotes	3
Comments	126
Date	January 6, 2018 5:33 PM UTC (8 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/7okkap/do_people_view_infidelity_different_when_it_is/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/do-people-view-infidelity-different-when-it-is.264122 https://theredarchive.com/post/264122

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