The Monogamy Gap - Men, Love, and the Reality of Cheating, a new book examines monogamy an true love.
There is resilient cultural myth that equates monogamy with a test of true love. It creates the idea that cheating is evidence that your particular love was not strong enough. Accordingly, most men, straight or gay, strongly desire monogamy. However, despite the fact that monogamy is held as a cultural ideal, cheating is rampant, with ¾ cheating.
Bronze sculpture of an elderly Kashubian married couple. Their relationship went through a test of his temporary work emigration to the USA. Kaszubski square, Gdynia, Poland. The percentage of people who confide only in family increased in the USA from 57% to 80%, and the number who depend totally on a spouse is up from 5% to 9%
There is resilient cultural myth that equates monogamy with a test of true love. It creates the idea that cheating is evidence that your particular love was not strong enough. Accordingly, most men, straight or gay, strongly desire monogamy. However, despite the fact that monogamy is held as a cultural ideal, cheating is rampant, with ¾ cheating.
Credit: Wikipedia
The Monogamy Gap, by Eric Anderson, is a controversial new book that does not seek to cure men of their cheating behaviour. Instead, the Monogamy Gap offers a far more radical idea:
Men cheat because they love.
A sociologist, Professor Eric Anderson brings forth the voices and emotions of men who cheat. Drawing on interviews with 120 straight and gay men, the book brings the startling reality that instead of men cheating because they do not love their partners, they cheat to satisfy their sexual desires without desiring to disrupt their emotional relationship.
The Monogamy Gap explains how sex for one’s partner rapidly deceases after the initial, intense passion of an early relationship. However, men’s desires do not decrease; instead, the longer they are in a relationship the more they want sex with someone else. However, men still desire the cultural capital given to monogamous relationships and are therefore afraid (or unwilling) to discuss an open-sexual relationship with their partners. They therefore find themselves living with competing emotional and sexual desires – simultaneously wanting monogamy and recreational sex. Cheating presents itself as a rational choice for these men. Rather than breaking up a loving relationship for erotic sex, men use cheating as a way to keep their emotional relationships, while fulfilling their sexual desires. In this sense, cheating (which normally goes undiscovered) retains the function of keeping monogamous couples together.
The Monogamy Gap is a tour de force that draws on a promiscuous range of concepts, theories and disciplines to highlight the biological compulsion of the sexual urge, the social construction of the monogamous ideal and the devastating chasm that lies between. Whether single or married, monogamous of open, straight of gay, The Monogamy Gap is a compelling and provocative new book that:
Contacts and sources:
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Publication title: The Monogamy Gap
Author: Eric Anderson
Publication type: Book (Hardback)
Publication date: 01 March 2012
ISBN number: 9780199777921
Price: 32.50 GBP British Pounds
The Monogamy Gap, by Eric Anderson, is a controversial new book that does not seek to cure men of their cheating behaviour. Instead, the Monogamy Gap offers a far more radical idea:
Men cheat because they love.
A sociologist, Professor Eric Anderson brings forth the voices and emotions of men who cheat. Drawing on interviews with 120 straight and gay men, the book brings the startling reality that instead of men cheating because they do not love their partners, they cheat to satisfy their sexual desires without desiring to disrupt their emotional relationship.
The Monogamy Gap explains how sex for one’s partner rapidly deceases after the initial, intense passion of an early relationship. However, men’s desires do not decrease; instead, the longer they are in a relationship the more they want sex with someone else. However, men still desire the cultural capital given to monogamous relationships and are therefore afraid (or unwilling) to discuss an open-sexual relationship with their partners. They therefore find themselves living with competing emotional and sexual desires – simultaneously wanting monogamy and recreational sex. Cheating presents itself as a rational choice for these men. Rather than breaking up a loving relationship for erotic sex, men use cheating as a way to keep their emotional relationships, while fulfilling their sexual desires. In this sense, cheating (which normally goes undiscovered) retains the function of keeping monogamous couples together.
The Monogamy Gap is a tour de force that draws on a promiscuous range of concepts, theories and disciplines to highlight the biological compulsion of the sexual urge, the social construction of the monogamous ideal and the devastating chasm that lies between. Whether single or married, monogamous of open, straight of gay, The Monogamy Gap is a compelling and provocative new book that:
- Examines men, monogamy, and cheating through an interdisciplinary framework that takes sociological, psychological, and biological theories into account
- Makes the case for the controversial ideas that cheating is evidence of love and keeps couples together
- Presents new empirical data on the topic
- Offers new theories to explain issues related to monogamy and sexuality
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Publication title: The Monogamy Gap
Author: Eric Anderson
Publication type: Book (Hardback)
Publication date: 01 March 2012
ISBN number: 9780199777921
Price: 32.50 GBP British Pounds
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