there are real differences between the genders, and it is EASIER for women to be monogamous. you don't see them spinning around on the street to check out men's asses or jacking off to porn every day.

and just because SOME women do SOMETIMES doesn't make it equivalent to MOST men doing it MOST of the time.

I wonder: Do more (or less) women end relationships for cheating than men leave women because of cheating?

Thanks for addressing this, but no, it's not clear that women are better at monogamy. All studies show that women cheat just as often as men. I am a woman and it is hard for me to be monogamous, it is fucking hard ass work. If there is any reason that I'm "better" at it is not because of biology but entirely because society demonizes my sexual autonomy and minimizes my sexual needs.

The only thing that's "clear" is that we live in a culture that associates sexual promiscuity and conquest with masculinity, objectifies women as sex objects, equates a woman's worth to children and marriage, and puts sexually active women into the slot of "slut" and "whore."

@1 It's hard to know if women aren't checking men out in the street or watching porn or being non-monogamous because it's natural or because years and years of societal conditioning have made them feel like it's something nice girls don't do. Sure, it's possible that some part of the female tendency towards monogamy is innate, but as long as we live in a world where female desire is marginalized, it's going to be impossible to say how much.

My suspicion is that, absent sexist societal conditioning, men and women's desire for multiple partners will be similar over the course of the lifetime, but vary in how it ebs and flows at different ages. Just as men's and women's libidos seem more similar than stereotype would suggest, but peak at different ages. I also suspect that the desire for monogamy will vary much more for any two particular individuals (of either gender) than the statistical differences between men and women as a whole.

@3 - There's a book called "Not Just Friends" that takes a scientific/psychological look at infidelity.

One clear pattern emerges - most men who cheat still love their wives and do not want the marriage to end. Most women who cheat want out of their marriage. (It's a pattern - yes there are exceptions.)

All recent studies show that infidelity rates among women are rising to match the infidelity rates of men. It is likely that women have always been as unfaithful as men when opportunity arises, but that they haven't been honest with researchers in the past (the same disparity exists in studies which gauge number of sexual partners across gender). Women have a lot more opportunity to cheat now.

Women are better liars about this sort of thing. You could go with evolutionary psychology to explain that, or just blame the patriarchy.

This is a really resource-rich article on the subject.

@7
The difference is striking when you consider that it's much easier for a woman to find a willing partner for an extra-marital affair.

Of all the guy's who haven't cheated, a good percentage simply haven't had many opportunities.

I think it has to do with different learned behaviors. (Everything I say at this point is laden with gross generalizations, but please excuse that and assume words like "most" and "usually" are implied throughout)

Men and women are both horny, but men have to chase it. After awhile, we incorporate it into our self-image...we chase, and the number and quality of the catch is part of what defines our self-worth.

The behavior women learn is exactly the opposite. Women GET chased. Most any woman can get laid easily. Hence, their goal is to be desired. That's their learned behavior and their definition of sexual self-worth. But they don't need the actual sex part. Just inspiring the impulse serves most of the purpose.

So it is that men have a harder time being "monogamous" in the sense that we need the actual sex to get our sexual self-worth fix. A woman only needs to put on a skimpy dress and make some heads turn to get hers.

Monogamy goes hand ind hand with love to women. Monogamy makes for a good relationhip to me, it means we invest time and effort in each other and work together for the better of our family, instead of wasting time around investing it on others. I find that cheaters and polys are simply persons (mostly men) who are not satisfied because they made a poor decision before hand. Women generally don't, because we plan meticulously for this since way before we reaching adulthood.

All I'm gonna say is that I've been very privileged in my life to have known an awful lot of married women who weren't very monogamous.

This post by Dan was total comment-bait, but I think people were exhausted by the lengthy comment war on the previous related post.

Anyway, I don't usually do polemical posts, but come on, people - OF COURSE men cheat more than women. Of course they want to more often and with a greater variety of partners. Men are fertilizing machines, and this same basic, biological urge, more basic even than sexual orientation, is supported by quantitative evidence, anectodal evidence, evolutionary logic, and plain common sense. It's not right, it's not wrong, it's just the way it is.

@4 thank you for that clear and lucid response. You said it best. Exactly what I was thinking.

I think it comes down to the fact that a man can impregnate around 2 women per day, but a woman can only be impregnated by one man every 10 months.

or maybe our culture/society brainwashes women into accepting monogamy more than men. there is all sorts of "acceptance" out there of male promiscuity. that has GOT to influence the actions -and desires- of women.

@12: There are studies that indicate you're wrong.

I think it's that women are better at covering their tracks.

@17: Hmm. Well, first, I'd like to see those studies, and second, I think there may be some confounding factors there (hard to say without seeing the studies, but still), such as women being willing to answer sex surveys at all being a self-selecting group with a likely bias toward non-traditional/open-mindedness, just to name one. But one thing they may not address - even if men's actual number of cheating instances roughly equates to women's in some cases, there is a HUGE difference in desire for same and number of attempts: A man who wants to cheat will try maybe a dozen times before he's successful. A woman? Try once or twice. We're still looking at a huge gap there.

@14,

Only two women a day?

@17

I don't think so. I honestly think it's easier for women to be monogamous. When I'm in a relationship, I can see random hot men and admire them, but I really only have interest in fucking my boyfriend. If I were to fuck hot-random-guy, the sex simply wouldn't be as good b/c of the lack of emotional connection no matter how hot his body is. I want good sex. And good sex happens with emotional connection (I think that's how many women are built) so I don't have a problem forgoing hot-random-stranger. I'm only really torn if I develop emotional connection with hot-random-stranger which takes time/effort to establish and therefore is less likely to happen with us women unless we really seek it out.

Men, on the other hand, are pretty much mindless fuckbots for anything that moves so it's harder for them. I'm rarely flattered when everyday men throw compliments at me & express their desire to fuck me. It's just so common & predictable that it means nothing after a while. Fat, ugly girls: you're not missing much.

Personally, I think that, minus social conditioning to be "nice girls," women are just as non-monogamous as men are. Bear in mind that, until quite recently, women had far less uncontrolled access to the opposite sex than men did (women stayed mostly at home). Also, the consequences of infidelity for women are often much greater; men are much more likely to be family annihilators, and suspicion of infidelity is one of the triggers. A woman who's been cheated on occasionally kills her husband, but it happens far more often the other way around - a man who's been cheated on or who thinks he might be, slays his spouse.

@18 for someone worried about factors that attribute to the findings of these scientific studies, you have posted nothing but gross assumptions about how that's "just the way it is." Source?

#19, two a day seemed practical. In theory, I suppose an average guy could squeeze out 4-5 per day if we had the ladies lined up.

#20, could your second paragraph be any more pretentious?

I can certainly have more than 5 orgasms in a day, but after the first half-dozen, I can only ejaculate exclamations.

There's an ethnic minority in China, the Mosuo. They live in a matriarchy... and while they seem to have something equivalent to marriage (as a threat :D ) - there's also one thing they don't have: monogamy.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeit…

So - raises the question: the safer & more accepted women feel in a society the less they need "safety" of a marriage or marriage-equivalent?

@18: here's one supporting women's greater need for monogamy:
The value of monogamy in emerging adulthood: A gendered perspective.Citation Only Available Schmookler, Terra; Bursik, Krisanne; Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Vol 24(6), Dec, 2007. pp. 819-835

And here's one that seems to support you and 17:

Sex differences in self-reported infidelity and its correlates.Citation Only Available Brand, Rebecca J.; Markey, Charlotte M.; Mills, Ana; Hodges, Sara D.; Sex Roles, Vol 57(1-2), Jul, 2007. pp. 101-109

...but if you look closely you see problems, like I was predicting. The participants are unmarried, thus bending the definition of "cheating" itself, the definition of "cheating" is expanded so far that it includes just kissing (!), and lastly, no one asked the men or women how often they WANTED or ATTEMPTED to cheat vis-a-vis how often they actually did. With women's likely extremely higher rate of success at seducing men, this is a siginificant but ignored question.

whoops sorry that last was for 17 and 22, not myself.

@26 "The value of monogamy in emerging adulthood: A gendered perspective" is entirely based on gender role PERCEPTION of need of monogamy, not a biological one. There is nothing about men being "fertilizing machines." Your "common sense" is based on societal perception, gendered expectations, and patriarchy - not reality.

@20 - unlike @22, I'm having a hard time finding a part of your comment that doesn't offend me. Way to use your personal experiences to represent all women.

Speaking for myself, I know equally as many women who enjoy sex with multiple partners and no emotional connection as women whose sexual proclivities align with your own. And I know equally as many men who prefer emotionally-invested sex with a partner as - actually, sorry I don't even know any "mindless fuckbots." And based on your assessment of men, I have to ask - are you really straight??

As for us fat, ugly girls: oh, honey, trust us. You've made it quite clear we're not missing out on anything if it has to do with you or the life you're living. In fact I'd venture to say there are hundreds of "fat, ugly girls" out there getting more and better sex than you've had in any of your emotionally deep, meaningful, holier-than-thou relationships.

But then again, you're above sex for sex's sake, so that won't matter to you.

@28 - the anti-essentialist feminism your comment seems to derive from is quite passe these days - quaint, even. It's no longer automatically a bad thing to notice and acknowledge innate - there, I said it - differences between the sexes. You want to talk "reality"? The average load of ejaculate contains about 60 MILLION sperm compared to one egg per monthly cycle for a woman. Adolescent boys are so involuntarily horny they regularly ejaculate spontaneously during their sleep during early to mid puberty. Porn consumption is almost entirely by men. The ratio of men searching for women explicitly for sex on sites like Craigslist or Ashley Madison is roughly 10 to 1. Do I need to go on? I'm not knocking all feminist viewpoints or theory, just the ones that want to reduce all sex differences to social causes. 'Taint so, sweetheart.

Oh and DonBito - don't be too hard on Confluence. She speaks for a lot of women (unfortunately), and I think she's just being honest. But I, for one, would rather rather date someone like you!

To add to @29, making assumptions that all men are sexually ready and available and women withhold sex is a very dangerous generalization. This on one hand minimizes the autonomy of a man's sexual choices. So many times we see male rape victims marginalized because "men always want to have sex." If you're seen as just a mindless fuckbot, your choice in the matter is negated. This then becomes entwined with masculinity and those men who say "no" are called pussies and fags by both men and women.

On the other hand, this makes women as something to be pursued and won and taken. Men are taught at a young age that women don't like sex or don't want to have sex or only like love and relationship sex so you have to push and push and push until they submit. Almost all women's first sexual experiences happen through manipulation and coercion, not an emphatic YES. And this is seen as a natural situation and completely condoned because, as @20 pointed out, women want relationship sex and men want to fuck everything. Women will try to trap you and men will try to fuck you. How neatly we fit in our cubby holes!

@30 Jesus, now you're pulling out pseudo science to back up your claims. Female homo sapiens only produce one egg a month and that's your evidence that we are more monogamous? You do realize that female homo sapiens have a short gestation period and are fertile extremely often, unlike say Panda bears which are fertile once a year. This means we are made and encouraged biologically to have sex OFTEN, not less. As for your 60 million sperm, not that much. Chimpanzees have much larger balls and more significant amounts of sperm as they have sex much more often and many more partners. Looking at where female and male homo sapiens fit in the mix of our evolutionary cousins, we are perfectly suited to serial monogamy. Anthropologically we are social animals that depend on a community to survive and raise children - not monogamous relationships.

As for ejaculation and young boys, that has nothing to do with men not being able to be monogamous. Young boys also have random boners - does that mean they're sex crazed animals? And what do you have to say about the male libido falling off while only increasing for women, peaking in their 30s? What about when women go into menopause and no longer have eggs and are hormonally different? How does your reasoning work out then?

As for porn and hookup ads, that is entirely a product of a patriarchal society and has nothing to do with male libido or "natural" sexual needs. As I said earlier in this thread, our society champions male sexual conquest as true masculinity, sexually objectifies women while putting a high value on female purity/virginity, minimizes female sexual need and demonizes female sexual autonomy, and punishes all who deviate from this accepted standard. You see male sexual pleasure everywhere you go, not because men are that much more horny or they have 60 million sperm in their balls, but because male hetero sex is priority in our culture.

@30 - You get an "oh, honey," too!

If you must know, my sexual preference as far as emotion being involved is actually the same as Confluence's. I'm just not an unbearable prick who assumes that the way I feel is the way everybody feels, and insults as many people as possible saying so.

Also, if you must know, we would never date because a) I have way higher standards than that and b) I'm a dyke, darling. Or is lesbianism "passe" just like constructionist feminism?

For the record, it's not not at all a bad thing to acknowledge innate differences between men and women - it's just a bad thing to note differences between men and women and assume they're innate. And why you think reducing people's sexual identities to their biology is somehow preferable to reducing it to social influences is beyond me. What biological imperative was it that made you assume my ire at Confluence was a secret desire to sleep with you?

I'll give you a hint: it was patriarchy, sweetheart!

Ha! This is my first experiment in polemical discourse on SLOG and it's succeeding beyond my wildest dreams. I played the avuncular/patronizing card with accusations of being passe and calling a woman I didn't know "sweetheart," and I played the louche/false gallantry card by implying I would deign to date someone who I implied would be pleased by the gesture. Both took umbrage! Whammo! Two feminists in a 10-7 split!

For the record Kersy, I think you bring up good points about human vs. animal biology, and that's not me being patronizing or gallant. But I seriously do think that constructivist feminism can tend to become a totalizing paradigm that blinds people to simple realities, such as, for instance, that there are obvious, measurable evolutionary rewards for male promiscuity, and virtually none for female. This is not "pseudo science," it's just simple biology and math (and you're right about the sperm-vs.-egg comparison being essentially meaningless - I employed that more for its metaphorical power). And sometimes people, following social-constructivist reasoning, substitute abstract notions of a Patriarchy as an agency when it's really Nature.
The truth lies somewhere in the middle. So, DonBito I don't assume sex differences are innate, but I don't assume they're not either. And I think Kersey kinda does.

By the way, are my pickup methods working on you girls? Gotta prove what I'm arguing here.

Here ends my polemical experiment.

Just because I rightly acknowledge that men are mindless fuckbots, doesn't mean I don't want to fuck them. They've got the equipment I love and there's no changing that. Sorry, lezbos - ya couldn't pay me.

Yes, Lance, I'm just being honest. And no, DonBito, I'm not universalizing my experience. I ain't coming out of leftfield with the notion that women are more interested in relationship-sex than fucking everything. Generalizations like this don't mean that everyone fits them - but a lot of people do. Look no further than pop culture to find heaps of evidence that support what I'm saying. Talk to your average chick on the street, look at biology, etc. Deal.

And sorry for offending all the fat, ugly people - I just tell it like it is. My point was that everyone trying to fuck you all the time is fucking boring. I'm more interested in someone that comes along who doesn't immediately try to fuck me (or at least hides it well enough) and instead tries to get to know me first. Then, and only then is he gonna have a shot at my snatch. This pisses you off, men? No problem. I will point you in the direction of the nearest 'ho who will be more than happy to service you. Have fun!

Historically, for women who are not good at monogamy, the consequences have included beatings and murder.

"You do realize that female homo sapiens have a short gestation period and are fertile extremely often, unlike say Panda bears which are fertile once a year. This means we are made and encouraged biologically to have sex OFTEN, not less."

We're not comparing women to panda bears. We're comparing women to men. Men are encouraged biologically to have sex EVERY FEW HOURS.

It's been my experience that the eyes of men and women both wander. In the circa 1970s nuclear family model (that seems to pass for traditional to contemporary conservatives), it would be a matter of course that a homemaker (i.e. a woman) would have a strong incentive to lock in a commitment from a breadwinner (i.e. a man). Interestingly, it was conservative economic values such as deregulation and disparagement of wealth redistribution policies that deteriorated the common paycheck and made the single-breadwinner family much more difficult to manage. Nowadays, it usually takes multiple paychecks to provide for a single household, hence the interdependence model roles are less clear. There are significantly fewer folks (and more men) who are purely homemakers.

Note that economic roles became obscured in agrarian eras after the invention of the plowshare, when oxen were employed to till the lands. Even before then everyone (including nobility!) worked the fields during sowing and harvest. Western pre-Christian (heathen) traditions oft provided ritualized opportunities for members of a community to intermix (i.e. have sex outside a committed relationship), allowing those attached to sterile partners still a chance to breed. The Beltaine (May Day) rite in which Mordred was (allegedly) conceived was one such drunken revelry, as were practically all the winter traditions supplanted by Christmas. And the presence (or lack thereof) of such traditions never stopped entire towns from getting drunk in the meantime and boffing the snot out of each other.

In the classical (Greek and Roman) epochs, the stereotypes were reversed. Now, there's no term for a male slut (unless you count cad or rake) because it's assumed all males are sluts. We continue to see this in the media. In the classical times, women were so stereotyped to be unable to help themselves, and it was a sign of manhood to be particular and selective with one's choice of lovers. This does put the escapades of Julia the Elder into a new perspective.

I think that once we can eliminate the gender expectations of society, and can get past the Abrahamic value of abstinence until marriage (which really only makes for weaker marriages between incompatible couples), and nail contraception so that it's cheap, easy, and available to both sides, we may find that both sexes sometimes like to play the field, and that both sexes also sometimes like the comfortable routine that is monogamy, but that neither sex is more predisposed than the other, except due to reasoned awareness of the (social and biological) consequences of sex.

PS: I'd like to see some viable stats regarding the behaviors of the lesbian community, given they are the least disposed to communicating STIs and don't get pregnant unless they really want to do so. I've heard stereotypes that they're the most monogamous of all sectors, but the (sizable) community I know here in SF is a rather orgiastic lot.

@38 LOL. Every few hours??? Now we're just making stuff up. I have penis! I need to fuck everything! You have a vag, you don't want to have sex as much as me! I'm just fulfilling my biological need and you're just a dirty slut!

Anything to condone male sexual behavior.

Kersy, you have no idea what you are talking about @40.

In fact, you should really learn a new tune in general.

Right. No, please tell me more about how my biology and "common sense" make me more monogamous. I love it when men explain where my sexual needs stand.

That's not my position at all. Do you actually read other people's comments?

Oh Lancey Dearest, (34) -

Go read up on the evolutionary advantages of polyandry in female animals and you'll see why your statement from above IS COMPLETELY BLINDED BY YOUR OWN CULTURAL PREJUDICES. There are many potential advantages to polyandry.

"I seriously do think that constructivist feminism can tend to become a totalizing paradigm that blinds people to simple realities, such as, for instance, that there are obvious, measurable evolutionary rewards for male promiscuity, and virtually none for female."

Again...JESUS CHRIST Lancey, for someone acting all hoity-toity about his ability to draw on science to back up his claims, you just really fell flat on your face.

#14 said a mouthfull there!
(I think it comes down to the fact that a man can impregnate around 2 women per day, but a woman can only be impregnated by one man every 10 months.)
Fertilizing machines!!!

Confluence, you sound pretty boring yourself. Or should I say, pretty fucking boring. Glad you have love, but kee-rist, what your BF must put up with.

For the record, fat =/= ugly; there are a lot of very attractive fat people, even a few obese ones, and there are a lot of ugly thin folks too.

All of my female friends have higher sex drives than my male friends. All struggle with monogamy at pretty much the same level. The only difference is that some of my female friends are worried about being labelled a slut, while none of my male friends are worried about being labelled at all.
And for the record, I am a women in an open-relationship and there's no way I could do monogamy again!

All of my female friends have higher sex drives than my male friends. All struggle with monogamy at pretty much the same level. The only difference is that some of my female friends are worried about being labelled a slut, while none of my male friends are worried about being labelled at all.
And for the record, I am a women in an open-relationship and there's no way I could do monogamy again!

All of my female friends have higher sex drives than my male friends. All struggle with monogamy at pretty much the same level. The only difference is that some of my female friends are worried about being labelled a slut, while none of my male friends are worried about being labelled at all.
And for the record, I am a women in an open-relationship and there's no way I could do monogamy again!

20/Confluence: If I were to fuck hot-random-guy, the sex simply wouldn't be as good b/c of the lack of emotional connection no matter how hot his body is. I want good sex. And good sex happens with emotional connection (I think that's how many women are built) so I don't have a problem forgoing hot-random-stranger. . . . Men, on the other hand, are pretty much mindless fuckbots for anything that moves so it's harder for them. I'm rarely flattered when everyday men throw compliments at me & express their desire to fuck me. It's just so common & predictable that it means nothing after a while. Fat, ugly girls: you're not missing much.

Many men have their best sex with an emotional connection (that's certainly true for me) but men don't need that connection for great sex like women tend to do. That's one of the general differences between the sexes.

Not true, however, that men will fuck "anything that moves." Some men may, but most men need to find a woman attractive and/or sexy.

Women who are attractive may feel that fat ugly girls aren't missing much in not getting a lot of attention from men, but they'd never trade places with those fat ugly girls.

Dueling stereotypes! It's like Goddamned Deliverance in here.

In my gross generalization and experience, it's AFTER the woman gets the commitment and children she wants, she becomes a commitmentphobe just like the guys. I have so many female friends who come to me with their issues, and loveless relationships with the fathers of their children, and their spouses, and they just HATE IT. Then they all wish they fucked around more when they had the chance before they settled down.

I don't think it's a men vs. women thing. I just think human beings are just insatiable!

And with that lovely tidbit of sexual peak being off, men and women are PERFECTLY adapted to making each other miserable or at least driving each other insane.

The grass will always be greener on the other side, and depending on your level of oppression, even the threat of forever scarring your children isn't enough to quell your insatiable desires.

#35: "My point was that everyone trying to fuck you all the time is fucking boring."

Well, maybe for you.

"I'm more interested in someone that comes along who doesn't immediately try to fuck me (or at least hides it well enough) and instead tries to get to know me first. Then, and only then is he gonna have a shot at my snatch. This pisses you off, men? No problem. I will point you in the direction of the nearest 'ho who will be more than happy to service you. Have fun!"

It's one thing to share your belief -- a not-unreasonable one, really -- that many, or even most, women need some kind of emotional connection to enjoy sex. It's entirely another to imply (or flat-out state, in your case) that the presumed exception, a woman who might actually engage in sex without said emotional connection, is a "ho" whose intention therein is only to "service" the man. Unless perhaps I misread you, and what you're suggesting to men you don't care to fuck is that their recourse should then be to seek the attentions of paid prostitutes. Either way, I think you are coming off as slightly judgmental here... *cough*understatement*cough*

I would direct you all to this:

http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catal…

Anecdotal evidence is always suspect, but genetics doesn't lie. If unfaithfulness weren't just as common in women as men, there wouldn't be so many evolutionary strategies to combat it.

@59 +1

To the posters stating their belief in a general differentiating trend between male and female sexual behaviour - eg. 'most men are worse at monogamy than most women' - how do you rationalize the existence of exceptions? For example, if you're citing an innate biological basis for female fidelity, do you suspect the 'exceptional' women who want many sex partners with no emotional connection necessarily required to be more likely to have some elements of male hormonal make up rattling around their system, or is it a social/psychological thing? Not necessarily disagreeing with your POV here, just curious.

Actually, it's just that women can separate sexual attraction from the wish to screw somebody. Women can admire a hot guy or gal. Women feel sexual stimulation from being around a hottie. Women can enjoy thinking about a tight ass, or firm abs, or a musical voice, or a pair of smouldering eyes. And women can orgasm to these thoughts.

That still doesn't mean they necessarily want to screw the person.

What makes a woman feel the desire to have sex is different for each woman. For myself, it has to do with how I feel about the person. It does NOT have to be romantic love. But there DEFINITELY has to be trust and mutual respect. If I've agreed to be monogamous with one person, I will certainly not be feeling respect for myself or any outside partners if I were to cheat. That dampens the mood considerably. It's not sexy to feel like I'm sneaking around. Only people who do something they are ashamed of sneak around and hide what they're doing.

As a side note, the respect issue is one reason I don't encourage women to have one night stands, unless they are completly 100% certain that they won't care if the guy they slept with has no respect for them and thinks of them as sluts. I know most guys don't get hurt like that, unless they're in a long term relationship. If a one night stand doesn't respect a guy in the morning... well, he's already got his orgasm.

These are my thoughts, for what it's worth. Keep in mind, I've never (yet) been in a monogamous relationship. But I still don't have sex, or even *wish* to have sex, with every person I'm attracted to. There are tons of hotties I notice who I would turn down if they ever approached me.

By the way, a straight man said the same thing I'm saying in the March 23, 2000 column.

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Savag…

It is the last letter, by Happy and Devoted. Dan unfortunately just dismissed it as a "line". Maybe if Dan ever reads my comment on this post he will understand better what that man was trying to say.

I think that it is worth a look into how and why women cheat/want to cheat. I would argue that men are more likely to want to hook up with someone else, as a desire for sexual gratification. But that women are continuously having to battle connections. Not just people they want to sleep with and not all the time. But occasionally meeting people that make you wonder if you are in the right relationship, if you would be happier with them, is a intense and painful thing. And when women mentally give them up even if/especially if nothing happened, can be a really intense loss that is hard to share with your partner because it inherently attacks your current relationship.

I think it's important to look at why women want to cheat. I think that Dan was on the mark that a majority of men are struggling with sexual monogamy, then what to have sex with other people. I think that for many women, connecting with other people is a rarer and more paramount thing. When women connect with someone they are questioning their whole relationship, they are wondering if this new person could be the one, looking at all the things that make them connect. And I would say more often than not, women don't do anything about it. But letting go someone who you could imagine as a real partner, is really painful and you can't talk to your partner about it because it really does threaten the mortar of your relationship. And its not that there is something wrong with your current relationship every time women have these feelings, sometimes they are just there. And, unlike men, there isn't a simple sleep around answer for it.