August 4, 2011

Infidelity is a one way street

The good news is that we’re finally talking rationally about infidelity.
More and more couples are choosing open marriages-- that is, marriages in which they spouses agree that being sexual with someone outside the marriage is okay.

The bad news is that no one seems to want to talk about the obvious: male infidelity is different than female infidelity. I hate to let the cat out of the bag, but men and women are different. Not only are their sexual appetites different, but when they do want sex, they want it for different reasons.

I’ve written previously about the fundamental mismatch in sexual appetites between men and women. The natural corollary is that no one should be surprised by male infidelity. Frankly, I don’t think anyone really is surprised when it happens. So why does our society continue to be shocked and appalled when men are unfaithful (if that's what you want to call it)?

August 2, 2011

Ask Men dating survey results

As I mentioned earlier, Ask Men has partnered with Cosmo to put together a great survey on the dating habits and tastes of men and women. Check them out if you have the chance. For now, I'll summarize the best results relating to the topics of this blog:

On marriage:
  • To the question of whether or not they believe in marriage, 85% of women say “Yes, definitely!”, while only 66% of men say they plan to participate. Hmm, I wonder if that is a reflection of who is favored by the rules of engagement.
  • How important is a prenup? 32% of men say somewhat or very important, versus only 26% of women.  Do you see a trend here?
  • When asked which sex gets screwed in divorce courts, 79% of men and 41% of women say men get screwed. 1% of men and 18% of women think women get screwed. So both sexes agree. Men get screwed. Can we update these laws now? Waddya say we make things a little more fair?

On infidelity, sex, and attraction:

August 1, 2011

Sex drive and marriage

One problem with marriage, or any lifetime monogamous relationship for that matter, is that men’s and women’s sex drives just don’t match up long term.

The male sexual appetite is stronger, stays high for longer, and is focused primarily on a physical attractiveness, which tends to decay with time in women (in both sexes to be fair, but less dramatically in men).

On the other hand, the female sex drive is weaker, peaks during “child bearing” years, falling off dramatically over the age of forty, and tends to be more about non-physical qualities, many of which, such as power and success, increase in men as they age.

To illustrate this imbalance, I complied some data from several different sources to develop the following chart. It plots the male and female sex hormones with age, relative to their respective peak production: