Are Women Naturally More Monogamous Than Men?
I stumbled on this interested bit that shines a spotlight on both men and women and their abilities to remain faithful to their partners. Check it out and tell me what you think… Be sure to read the whole thing!
Dawn Ricci is an expert who knows something about infidelity. She’s a private eye who’s been in business tailing cheating spouses for 14 years.
“In a three-month period,” Ricci said, “there were 211 women who hired our company to follow their husbands. There were 109 men that we were hired by to follow their wives.”
If Ricci’s business is typical, it looks as if men are cheating twice as much as women. But Ricci said women are catching up quickly.
Evolutionary anthropologist Helen Fisher says she doesn’t believe women are naturally more monogamous than men.
“I think we’re going to come to find, as women become more economically powerful and express their sexuality more during the course of this century, that women are just as adulterous as men,” she said.
Fisher’s evidence begins in the bird world.
“Warbler females seem to have a call or a song that they give out when their husband is out of town in order to attract extra mates,” she said.
And in most mammalian species, Fisher said, both the male and the female are totally promiscuous
According to Fisher, it’s rooted in the Stone Age. “Millions of years ago, if a woman had an extra lover, she would get extra meat from that male. She could get extra protection from that male,” she said.
And she could get extra sex as well.
20/20 spoke with a woman, who asked to be identified only as Jennifer, who was happily married for five years, but was until recently seeing another man. She said no one, including her husband, can provide everything — especially good sex.
“You need one that their touch makes every hair on your body stand on end and just makes your heart race a million miles an hour and you haven’t left the bedroom,” she said.
And when she would leave her lover after a night of passionate sex, she said she didn’t have an empty feeling or wonder when she would see him again.
“Complete opposite. It was like, ‘I just had amazing sex, and he’s gone, thank God. I have the bed to myself. ‘ ”
Jennifer is human proof that women today may not be more monogamous than men. Since her lover moved away, she’s been looking for a new sexual partner through an online dating service for spouses who want to fool around.
That’s what keeps Ricci in a business that is growing.
Personally, I believe that everyone has the ability to cheat, the ability to suppress that urge or temptation is another thing. Though I have personally never cheated on a partner, I have been in the position where I was falling out of love and the temptation became increasingly stronger and more difficult to avoid.
Following my divorce, I forced myself to take a year away from dating - regardless of how long you’ve been in any relationship or marriage, there’s still going to be a period of readjustment - of getting in touch with who you are, what you desire, what you need and much more.
Tags: cheating_spouses, Dating, happily_married, infidelity, monogamous, promiscuous, relationship, womanRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Dating in General
2 opinions for Are Women Naturally More Monogamous Than Men?
Liz Strauss
Feb 13, 2006 at 10:21 pm
I think that’s exactly right. As soon as women feel that they can take care of themselves the statistics will even out. Men don’t seem to have a corner on being disloyal in any other area of personal relationships or women being more loyal. We shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that we’re better on this one. I look around and see that we’re really not. As they say, “It takes two to tango.” :P
Gayla McCord
Feb 14, 2006 at 11:21 am
Well said Liz! We’re getting equal rights on most everything else, why not cheating too? :)
Thanks for commenting :)
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