tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/infidelity-745/articlesInfidelity – The Conversation2023-02-20T19:01:09Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1974282023-02-20T19:01:09Z2023-02-20T19:01:09ZCan adultery be inherited? Kate Legge investigates after the ‘king hit’ of her husband’s affair – which seems to run in his family<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510992/original/file-20230219-22-f0e5i8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=53%2C0%2C6000%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gregory Pappas/Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>What happens to individuals, families and communities when someone has an affair? </p>
<p>When journalist and writer Kate Legge first let her ex-husband read her work on infidelity – his infidelity (particularly with “a close girlfriend” of Legge’s, but also more wide-ranging) – he thought she was too judgemental. But the book she eventually published, <a href="https://thamesandhudson.com.au/product/infidelity-and-other-affairs/">Infidelity and Other Affairs</a>, is a wonderfully thoughtful, mature and somewhat eclectic exploration of the breakdown of a marriage and Legge’s endurance through and beyond it. </p>
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<p><em>Review: Infidelity and Other Affairs – Kate Legge (Thames & Hudson)</em></p>
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<p>When Legge uncovers her husband’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/lifes-short-have-you-had-an-affair-41019">affair</a>, that “cataclysmic king hit”, she soldiers on, researching to understand this catastrophe and seeking solace in the stories of others. She suggests there are many reasons given for infidelity: </p>
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<p>drought in the marital bedroom, domestic discord, impulsiveness, insecure attachment, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-loneliness-is-both-an-individual-thing-and-a-shared-result-of-the-cities-we-create-198069">loneliness</a>, neuroticism, <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-narcissism-a-mental-health-problem-and-can-you-really-diagnose-it-online-188360">narcissism</a>, discontent, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-success-in-drug-rehab-programs-need-more-than-just-anecdotes-to-prove-they-work-76081">substance abuse</a>, a desire for risk-taking, a quest for self-discovery, an escape from the monotony of monogamy. </p>
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<p>Yet nothing on this extensive, yet slightly clinical list was a truly satisfying answer to why someone might have an affair: taking a step that in many monogamous relationships will stretch or break the bonds of trust, time and intimacy. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509928/original/file-20230214-14-tlcb3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509928/original/file-20230214-14-tlcb3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509928/original/file-20230214-14-tlcb3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509928/original/file-20230214-14-tlcb3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509928/original/file-20230214-14-tlcb3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509928/original/file-20230214-14-tlcb3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509928/original/file-20230214-14-tlcb3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509928/original/file-20230214-14-tlcb3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Kate Legge’s discovery of her husband’s affair is a ‘cataclysmic king hit’, followed by a search for understanding of infidelity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alan Weedon</span></span>
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<h2>Adultery: nature or nuture?</h2>
<p>The first half of the book is a broad-ranging meditation on adultery. Legge speaks from lived experience – she shares her own story with calm generosity – but writes too with a journalistic inquiry. She probes the issues of love, lust, desire, domesticity and infidelity, prodding the many layers of married life to produce a rich and nuanced vision. </p>
<p>While her heart struggles to comprehend betrayal, her intellectual curiosity is stirred: she realises there are generations of philanderers in her husband’s family, both men and women. </p>
<p>Research, too, suggested there were familial links, possibly because affairs were normalised in some ways, or even because there is a biological core. Perhaps as a distraction from the tragedies surrounding her, she asks the question: is infidelity driven by nature or nurture?</p>
<p>And so begins her exploration of the layers of infidelity, passion and deceit in her husband’s family. They travel – together – to Broken Hill, to uncover the absorbing life of his grandmother Jean. </p>
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<p>Legge carefully crafts a life; the kind that is generally lost to the historical record, leaving no trace in the archive. The matriarch Jean is brought to life, painstakingly retrieved through rumours, family records and interviews. </p>
<p>In the harsh sand dunes deep in the outback, Jean had marked her world, first as a pregnant teenager, giving birth to an illegitimate child who she – unusually – refused to surrender to adoption; then as a wife and publican, scraping together a living in the harshest of physical and mental environs. </p>
<p>It is a magical read: Legge brings to life the beauty and tragedies of life at what must have felt like the end of the earth. She wrestles, too, with the ache and desire of Jean’s affair with her lodger Roy, described as “younger, carefree and cashed up, in stark contrast to the man of the house”. </p>
<p>Just as in Legge’s own situation, where seemingly everyone knew about the affair but her, Jean’s lover was common knowledge in the tiny town. Things came to a head when her son Colin (the father of Legge’s husband), full of rage, told his father about his mother’s affair. Colin was ejected from the family, while Roy too was booted out, to be tragically killed in war. Jean and her husband Fred endured: probably unhappily, but central to the web of family. </p>
<p>Colin – himself a victim of the illicit affair – would eventually grow up to be a philanderer too. This time, it is a specifically gendered treachery. His wife, Legge’s mother-in-law, was left to clean, cook casseroles for the children and steak for him, and handwash his socks, while Colin shook his tail feathers at business dinners and romanced the young and willing. </p>
<p>When it all fell apart, his abandoned wife was outraged by the domestic expectations as much as the infidelity: both plaintively and powerfully, she noted she should never have washed the damned socks. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-not-just-sex-why-people-have-affairs-and-how-to-deal-with-them-92354">It’s not just sex: why people have affairs, and how to deal with them</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>‘Forgiveness is healthier than bitterness’</h2>
<p>After her potent exploration of family logistics, Legge returns to her own life. At first, she attempts to forgive. Was the damage done by the affair itself, or did the affair simply shine a light on a limping and brittle love? Either way, a visceral and evocative chapter charts the eventual breakdown of her marriage. </p>
<p>It’s messy, non-linear, jarring. Legge writes of muddling through, until the unexpected occurred: the infidelity of their son. Again, we return to the question of familial trauma, bonding and brain chemistry – was this an intergenerational story written in genetics, or forged within the daily lives of the family itself? </p>
<p>I’m not sure we know the answer, but either way, as Legge gently suggests, “Forgiveness is healthier than bitterness.”</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509937/original/file-20230214-22-iyadce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509937/original/file-20230214-22-iyadce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509937/original/file-20230214-22-iyadce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509937/original/file-20230214-22-iyadce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509937/original/file-20230214-22-iyadce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509937/original/file-20230214-22-iyadce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509937/original/file-20230214-22-iyadce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509937/original/file-20230214-22-iyadce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Kate Legge charts the eventual breakdown of her marriage in ‘a visceral and evocative’ chapter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rodnae Productions/Pexels</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>The second half of the book is a series of vignettes that chart Legge’s new life, and her search for meaning and solace in the everyday. In some ways, it builds on the work on infidelity, tracing the ways our lives are shaped by family and memories and love and truth. </p>
<p>It continues the close and deep investigation into the commonplace, the unremarkable and the daily art of living. Legge explores the importance of green space, especially in Covid lockdowns, where communities flocked to parks as sanity saviours. She delves into a new love and his pet, the wolf-like white German Shepherd who frames their tripartite relationship. She remembers her Uncle Geordie, a family legend whose life was cracked by ASIO’s maladapt handling of an international scandal. </p>
<p>As readers, we can share her fears of climate change and the world we are leaving behind. The chapters dip and weave, often entirely enchantingly. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sex-skin-hunger-and-problematic-men-jessie-coles-memoir-investigates-desire-after-trauma-193440">Sex, 'skin hunger' and problematic men: Jessie Cole's memoir investigates desire after trauma</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p>As a reader, I found the first section of Infidelity and Other Affairs hard to put down – it was as gripping as a detective novel, while tearing at the soul just enough. The second half was less compelling – it was beautifully written, full of tender but important observations, but without the powerful driving question that framed the section on infidelity. </p>
<p>Infidelity and Other Affairs is ultimately a book about families and how they shape us – and potentially break us. Perhaps Legge’s biggest contribution here is the centring of a woman’s voice: as a journalist, a writer, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a lover. The finest chapters are profoundly domestic, and we are richer for this focus. </p>
<p>Legge has a gift of illuminating the ordinary, forcing us to take a closer look at the banal, everyday beauty that surrounds us.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197428/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa Featherstone receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC). </span></em></p>Kate Legge’s husband was chronically unfaithful. So was his father, who was forced to leave the family home after revealing his mother’s affair. Legge reflects on generational love and infidelity.Lisa Featherstone, Professor in Gender History and the History of Sexuality, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1838432022-05-25T14:08:07Z2022-05-25T14:08:07ZSally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends – how we’ve become tougher on adultery<p>At the heart of Sally Rooney’s novel Conversations with Friends and the new BBC adaptation of it, is an affair between young writer Frances and an older, married actor, Nick. Before they sleep together for the first time, Frances tells Nick that she doesn’t want to be “a homewrecker”. Nick responds that his marriage has “<a href="https://twitter.com/cwfbbc/status/1528415138377785347?s=20&t=sXcWZkHuVlXEGOEeGqxiWw">survived several affairs already</a>”. It becomes clear as the story progresses that Nick has no intention of leaving his wife, Melissa, despite both of their infidelities.</p>
<p>The novel was described by The New Yorker as “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/31/a-new-kind-of-adultery-novel">a new kind of adultery novel</a>” and <a href="https://twitter.com/cwfbbc/status/1528415138377785347?s=20&t=QG8gqWdaz0xcUb-C37HqAA">BBC Three’s marketing of the series</a> has emphasised the “<a href="https://twitter.com/BBCSounds/status/1526593355790032901?s=20&t=QG8gqWdaz0xcUb-C37HqAA">very unconventional and modern</a>” relationship dynamics at its centre. The questions that the story asks about marriage, intimacy and fidelity are not new but reflect changing understandings of adultery over the last century.</p>
<p>You might assume that our perception of infidelity has become more liberal as conversations around non-monogamous relationships grow and people have become more positive about sex. However, the history of adultery in British society might just surprise you. </p>
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<img alt="Quarter life, a series by The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/quarter-life-117947?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">This article is part of Quarter Life</a></strong>, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.</em></p>
<p><em>You may be interested in:</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-turn-your-emotional-baggage-into-dating-success-72696?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">How to turn your emotional baggage into dating success</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/from-ghosting-to-backburner-relationships-the-reasons-people-behave-so-badly-on-dating-apps-179600?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">From ghosting to ‘backburner’ relationships: the reasons people behave so badly on dating apps</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/a-very-british-scandal-divorce-courts-have-been-shaming-women-since-the-1800s-174625?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">A Very British Scandal: divorce courts have been shaming women since the 1800s</a></em></p>
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<h2>When love entered the equation</h2>
<p>In the British context, before the 20th century, adultery was understood as both a breach of the wedding vows and as a challenge to the legal relationship between husband and wife. However, <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/contentassets/3edf687d0e664304bdbc47fcacadd171/olympicbritain.pdf#page=39">it was rare for adultery to lead to divorce</a>. Divorce was expensive and adultery often difficult to prove definitively, and so many marriages withstood it.</p>
<p>In the 20th century, attitudes towards adultery and infidelity shifted. Although people often think of the final decades of the 20th century as a “sexual revolution”, with society becoming more permissive, statistics suggest a hardening of public attitudes against adultery.</p>
<p>In 1983, when <a href="https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/ICPSR/studies/8391">the British Social Attitudes Survey</a> asked participants’ opinions about “a married person hav[ing] sexual relations with someone other than his or her partner”, 59% of respondents described this as “always wrong” with a further 26% deeming this “mostly wrong”. When the question was repeated 30 years later, in 2013, an even <a href="https://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/latest-report/british-social-attitudes-30/key-findings/personal-relationships.aspx">greater percentage</a> (65% of respondents) thought extra-marital sex was “always wrong”.</p>
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<p>These attitudes reflect broader shifts in understandings of marriage across the 20th century. Where marriage had once been seen as an economic partnership and an arrangement for raising children, over time compatibility, sexual fulfilment and romantic love became increasingly important components of marriages. </p>
<p>The period between the second world war and the 1970s has been described as a “golden age” of marriage. The social and cultural historian <a href="https://reviews.history.ac.uk/review/1539">Claire Langhamer has argued</a> that this period witnessed an “emotional revolution” as romantic love became the foundation of marriage.</p>
<p>As love became more important in marriage, the consequences of adultery became more damaging. Mid-century visions of romance-based marriage viewed commitment and fidelity as cornerstones of these relationships. What was at stake when partners had affairs was not just the religious or legal contract they had signed but the emotional relationship at the heart of marriage. This led many people to see adultery as unforgivable.</p>
<h2>What counts?</h2>
<p>On one level, the acceptance of infidelity in Conversations with Friends challenges these attitudes. Yet, monogamous marriage was not the only type of relationship possible in the 20th century. </p>
<p>Conversations with Friends speaks to growing awareness of non-monogamy and open relationships but the complex dynamics of sex, romance and marriage it explores are not completely new. </p>
<p>While social surveys show an overwhelming intolerance of adultery, definitions of “what counts” as adultery have long been blurry. It isn’t clear, for example, how people answering the social surveys might account for the “free love” advocates of the early 20th century or the rise of <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/carry-on-wife-swapping-1143465.html">“wife-swapping” parties</a> since the 1970s. These couples would not necessarily describe having sex with someone other than their spouse as “adultery” and often saw extra-marital sex as something that enhanced rather than damaged their marriages.</p>
<p>Similarly, commentators in the past often drew distinctions between different types of adultery. Women’s infidelity was often considered more serious than men’s. In part, this was related to the concern that a husband could end up raising another man’s child without knowing it. It also reflected gendered understandings about women’s nature. In 1923, the Conservative MP, Henry Maddocks, quoted Shakespeare in a debate over the status of men’s adultery in divorce law: “a good man, or the best men, are moulded out of faults, and are rather the better for being a little bad. You would not say that of a woman”.</p>
<p>People have also differentiated between single instances of sex and longstanding affairs, which many people consider more troubling. In 1968, Dodie Wells, the agony aunt for Petticoat magazine explained: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>One act of adultery has never seemed, to me anyway, a sufficient reason for giving up a marriage […] In the context of a good marriage it shouldn’t be allowed to assume disproportionate dimensions.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While the institution of marriage is often caricatured as being static and “traditional”, what it means to individuals continues to evolve in surprising ways. Love has changed the game, and the types of dynamics explored in Conversations with Friends represent a 21st-century version of longstanding questions. Throughout the 20th century, different couples (and individuals within couples) could have very different understandings of what was important to their relationships and what types of behaviour were acceptable. The meaning of adultery was not fixed and evolved as understandings of romantic love, sexuality, intimacy and marriage shifted. So yes, perceptions of adultery have become more hardened rather than more liberal and love is, arguably, partly to blame.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183843/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hannah Charnock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How perceptions of adultery in British society have changed might surprise you.Hannah Charnock, Lecturer in British History, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1616422021-06-29T12:05:15Z2021-06-29T12:05:15Z‘Cheating’s OK for me, but not for thee’ – inside the messy psychology of sexual double standards<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408231/original/file-20210624-15-fmgty7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=467%2C355%2C5052%2C3798&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The mating game often involves convoluted rationalizations.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/concept-of-divorce-quarrel-between-man-and-royalty-free-illustration/1319939719?adppopup=true">tomozina/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sexual double standards – in which women and men are judged differently for the same sexual behavior – will probably sound familiar to most people. </p>
<p>The classic one centers on multiple sexual partners: Men who are promiscuous <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/men0000076">are lauded</a> as “studs,” “lotharios” or “ladies’ men,” while women who have a lot of sex <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/david-m-buss/the-evolution-of-desire/9780465097760/">get called</a> “sluts” or “whores.” Men who cheat on their wives aren’t exactly praised, but they’ll often get a pass. Women who do the same, on the other hand, <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/david-m-buss/the-evolution-of-desire/9780465097760/">risk sullying their social reputations</a>.</p>
<p>There’s a different sexual double standard, however, and it’s one that exists between two partners. </p>
<p>In my new book, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/When-Men-Behave-Badly-Harassment/dp/0316419354">When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment, and Assault</a>,” I spend some time exploring the underlying psychology of infidelity. Thanks to the way men get a pass for their promiscuity, you might assume men are more likely to rationalize their own cheating than women. </p>
<p>But in what I call the “me-versus-thee double standard,” it turns out that each side is just as likely to play mental gymnastics when it comes to justifying their bad behavior.</p>
<h2>Hypocrisy at its finest</h2>
<p>What’s behind the classic sexual double standard, in which men get more of a pass for having multiple sexual partners?</p>
<p>Part of the answer lies with men’s evolved mating psychology. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.1.85">Relative to women, they have a stronger desire for sexual variety</a>, which shows up in their sex drive, the number of partners they seek out, their tendency to fantasize about different women and their patronage of prostitutes.</p>
<p>So throughout human history, you’ll see men in power lay down parameters that give themselves more latitude for promiscuity. </p>
<p>Roman emperors, for example, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/8438454/Romes-most-controversial-emperors.html">created harems of females</a> guarded by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/eunuch">eunuchs</a>, while Joseph Smith, when he founded the Mormon religion, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2014/11/13/363814184/mormon-church-publishes-essay-on-founder-joseph-smiths-polygamy">formalized polygamy</a>, arguing that God wouldn’t have made women so enticing if he wanted to limit a man to one woman. </p>
<p>However, Smith was keen to note that the same rules didn’t apply to women. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/revelation-12-july-1843-dc-132/8">In his handwritten documents</a>, Smith relays how the Lord told him: “And if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him… But if one or either of the ten virgins, after she is espoused, shall be with another man, she has committed adultery, and shall be destroyed… according to my commandment.”</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, women often find this sexual hypocrisy baffling and logically inconsistent. </p>
<p>Yet versions of this sexual double standard persist, even in the most sexually egalitarian countries on Earth, <a href="https://www.hbes.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/conference_29.pdf">such as Norway</a>. And <a href="https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/handle/2152/63379/ASAO-DISSERTATION-2017.pdf?sequence=1">recent studies of more than three dozen cultures</a> found that it’s women, not men, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-women-still-get-judged-so-harshly-for-having-casual-sex-160583">who receive the brunt of the criticism for having casual sex and cheating on their partners</a>. </p>
<h2>‘What counts as sex’ isn’t so stable</h2>
<p>The sexual double standard just outlined has to do with what’s acceptable for men versus what’s OK for women. </p>
<p>The other has to do with what’s acceptable for oneself versus one’s partner.</p>
<p>In 2008, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00224490802398332">three social scientists posed the same question to men and women</a>: “What counts as sex?” </p>
<p>Only 41% of the men in existing relationships said that oral contact with someone else’s genitals would count as sex. But 65% of the men said that if their partner had oral contact, it would count as sex. </p>
<p>You might think that this reveals the usual sexual double standard, in which women are evaluated more harshly than men for the same conduct. </p>
<p>However only around one-third of women – 36% – said that if they had oral contact with someone else, it would count as sex, which is about the same as what men said. Meanwhile, 62% of women said that if their partner had oral contact with someone else, it would count as sex. </p>
<p>These findings reveal a previously unexplored sexual double standard – not between men and women as groups, but rather between standards people hold for themselves versus their partners: the “me-versus-thee” double standard.</p>
<p>If people hold sexual double standards about what counts as sex – not sex if I have contact with others, but definitely sex if you do – it’s easy to see how this quirky rationalization can lead to conflict in relationships: </p>
<p><em>It’s OK for me to kiss someone else; it doesn’t really mean anything, and besides, it’s not really sex. But you’d better not.</em> </p>
<p><em>It’s OK for me to receive a bit of oral pleasure when you’re out of town because it’s not really sex. But if you do, it’s infidelity with a capital “I.”</em></p>
<h2>Going after the competition</h2>
<p>It turns out that just as women are equal participants in the me-versus-thee double standard, they also help perpetuate the traditional male-versus-female double standard.</p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/63379">my research team conducted a series of studies</a> and found that women are somewhat more likely than men to condemn cheating and casual sex. However, women in many cultures are significantly harsher on other women than men are on other men. They’re also more likely to spread gossip that other women can’t stay loyal to one partner. And although women don’t admire promiscuous or adulterous men, they express less moral condemnation toward men who cheat or sleep around than they do toward women who do the same. </p>
<p>It all comes back to the fact that women’s sexual psychology, like that of men’s, evolved in the brutal and amoral furnace of <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/david-m-buss/the-evolution-of-desire/9780465097760/">sexual and reproductive competition</a>. Women’s fundamental competitors have always been other women, and sullying the sexual reputations of their rivals is a key strategy in the serious game of procreative success.</p>
<p>When it comes to sexual double standards, perhaps we’re all moral hypocrites.</p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161642/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David M. Buss does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Both men and women play a role in perpetuating attitudes toward sex that are hypocritical and logically inconsistent.David M. Buss, Professor of Psychology, The University of Texas at AustinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1267862019-11-14T15:29:58Z2019-11-14T15:29:58ZHow Zulu radio dramas subverted apartheid’s grand design<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301548/original/file-20191113-77310-2xouqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul Weinberg/Cambridge University Press</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Johannesburg, during the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/apr/11/story-cities-19-johannesburg-south-africa-apartheid-purge-sophiatown">Sophiatown era of the 1950s</a>, gangsters would routinely order a writer or journalist like <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/biography-can-themba-aisha-ahmed">Can Themba</a> or <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/william-bloke-modisane">Bloke Modisane</a>, to recite Shakespeare to them on street corners. </p>
<p>For a time, Shakespeare became part of the rhetoric of the streets. One of the favourite requests was for the revolutionary funeral oration by Mark Anthony, in <a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/shakespeares-plays/julius-caesar/">Julius Caesar</a>: “Friends, Romans, Countrymen…” </p>
<p>This may be because the writer and broadcaster <a href="http://www.durban.gov.za/City_Government/street_renaming/Biographies/Pages/KE-Masinga.aspx">King Edward Masinga</a> had earlier translated and put on air Zulu language versions of Julius Caesar and many other Shakespeare plays. Cable radio, very popular in the hostels and in the townships of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Witwatersrand">Witwatersrand</a>, was the main means of transmission for early programmes.</p>
<p>Masinga’s version of the famous oration at Caesar’s funeral that began, “Zihlobo, Bakwethu, maRomani …” is all that remains in the South African Broadcasting Corporation archives of this rich aural treasure of Shakespeare in isiZulu. Modisane, who wrote in exile for BBC radio drama, would later take the same speech and setting as the crisis moment of his superb play, <a href="https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/c0e9c957c4354c7d9929222f1a94cd5f">The Quarter Million Boys</a>.</p>
<p>These dramas were part of a bouquet offered to South Africa’s large population of isiZulu speakers during apartheid through a radio service that was designed for <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/media/1997/9709/s970915d.htm">very different purposes</a>. But the original design did not deter the producers of the programmes: they subverted the apartheid agenda and delivered riveting drama that from its first moments produced culturally rich and intriguing reflections of black life.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301308/original/file-20191112-178525-1p3ou1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301308/original/file-20191112-178525-1p3ou1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301308/original/file-20191112-178525-1p3ou1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301308/original/file-20191112-178525-1p3ou1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301308/original/file-20191112-178525-1p3ou1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=637&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301308/original/file-20191112-178525-1p3ou1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=637&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301308/original/file-20191112-178525-1p3ou1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=637&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">King Edward Masinga broadcasts on Durban’s SABC Bantu programme in 1956.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Drum photographer/ BAHA/ AMO/ Courtesy Cambridge University Press</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Something went wrong</h2>
<p>There is a cliché that lingers about African language radio in the apartheid era and after. Baldly stated, it is that during apartheid the South African Broadcasting Corporation had total control of the airwaves, and that the pliant African language stations which the broadcaster set up through Radio Bantu in 1960, dripped out only endless streams of propaganda to passive black listeners. Designed to control minds, and hold back the liberation struggle and the sounds of freedom coming from the north even before 1960, as it indeed was, it seemed the perfect tool of the master. </p>
<p>And yet. Something went wrong. </p>
<p>For sure, the apartheid state was producing an earlier version of today’s <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/0/fake-news-exactly-has-really-had-influence/">fake news</a>. Radio announcers had little control over the public broadcaster’s standard news bulletins, although a few brave broadcasters tried. At times a reader would preface the newscast with, “These are not my words”, or recite, with a flourish, the praise poems of one of the former Zulu kings, before launching into the doctored news script of the day. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/thokozani-mandlenkosi-ernest-nene">Thokozani Nene</a>, one of the iconic figures of Radio Zulu and later Ukhozi FM did just that, until the order came that he was to desist. </p>
<h2>The communal power of radio drama</h2>
<p>Popular culture, largely in the form of Zulu radio drama, was one of the hidden weapons of sonic resistance that entranced and intrigued black radio listeners <a href="https://open.uct.ac.za/bitstream/item/19975/thesis_hum_2015_mhlambi_thokozani_ndumiso.pdf?sequence=1">even before</a> the inception of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233183697_'You_are_Listening_to_Radio_Lebowa_of_the_South_African_Broadcasting_Corporation'_Vernacular_Radio_Bantustan_Identity_and_Listenership_1960-1994">Radio Bantu</a>. </p>
<p>Nearly six decades later, radio drama, usually in serial form, still has a strong following on <a href="http://www.ukhozifm.co.za/sabc/home/ukhozifm">Ukhozi FM</a>, one of the descendant stations of Radio Bantu. </p>
<p>How did the dramas become so important? The sound waves carrying the Zulu dramas, which spread quickly as a genre to other African language stations, became a platform for an ambitious, versatile and talented group of men and women who were script writers, performers and producers, all working in isiZulu, and making serial dramas, as well as shorter stand-alone radio plays or musicals. These ran not weekly but daily from Monday to Friday, often twice, even three times a day. <a href="https://www.academia.edu/33982826/Violence_the_occult_and_the_everyday_a_Radio_Zulu_drama_of_the_1980s_Liz_Gunner_Pages_124-139_Published_online_Social_Dynamics_06_Dec_2014_http_dx.doi.org_10.1080_02533952.2014.984456">They flourished</a>. </p>
<p>In 1986, the famous six-month long serial drama, Yiz’ Uvalo (In Spite of Fear), even had an episode played on Christmas Day. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301319/original/file-20191112-178516-1ilbagq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301319/original/file-20191112-178516-1ilbagq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301319/original/file-20191112-178516-1ilbagq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301319/original/file-20191112-178516-1ilbagq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301319/original/file-20191112-178516-1ilbagq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301319/original/file-20191112-178516-1ilbagq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301319/original/file-20191112-178516-1ilbagq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301319/original/file-20191112-178516-1ilbagq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A family group relaxes after work with the radio in Vaalwater, Northern Province.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reinhardt Hartzenberg/ AMO/ Courtesy Wits University Press</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The radio plays set themselves deep in listeners’ memories and traditions, and became a way to tap into emotions linked to the fascination, strain and pleasure of plots that circled, usually, around the family. </p>
<p>Themes of love, divided loyalties and ethical dilemmas played out in intricate detail. The 1974 serial Ubongilinda Mzikayifani (You Must Wait for me Mzikayifani) was written and produced by Bhekisisa Kunene in the cramped Radio Zulu studios in downtown Johannesburg. Family secrets, rival suitors and a young woman’s strength of character were mixed with a twist of the occult and sprinkled with the poetic language of courtship. The setting was rural, but there was the added attraction of an eloquent male lead who was also a famous football commentator on Radio Zulu. </p>
<p>A few years later, a very different serial drama followed a more adventurous young woman as she picked her way between the advice of female family members and the attractions of off-beat men and noisy taverns. Abangane Ababi (Bad Friends) was written by Abigail Zondi. Power in the domestic space and fidelity in a fast changing society were among the themes brilliantly explored through the 1990s and into the new millennium. </p>
<p>The classic double drama, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/radio-soundings/radio-drama-in-the-time-of-violence/DAD96C0EF6F4AB5FF491DE9A93FED833">Yiz’ Uvalo/ Umanqob’ Isibindi</a> (In Spite of Fear/ The Victor is Courage) by M.V. Bhengu had a special power. Tense and full of eerie sonic features, it ran for six months from 1986 during the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-chief-defied-apartheid-and-upheld-democracy-for-the-good-of-his-people-121771">low-level civil war in KwaZulu-Natal</a>. As warlords ruled some urban and peri-urban areas in Durban and the Natal Midlands, its focus on fear, desperation, family and the occult resonated with powerful public events which threatened to overturn people’s lives. A man, Sigidi, back in rural Ndwedwe after working in Johannesburg, finds it impossible to provide for his family and turns to the occult for help, with terrible consequences. </p>
<p>What was being made through this theatre of the air, broadcast to an urban and rural listening community including migrant hostel-dwellers, was a public intimacy that sustained daily life and <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8a84/c2cae126edc5ebcc12d2c4f7c76466d086cf.pdf">fed the imagination</a>. The dramas were a means of accessing the self in a turbulent and changing world.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301337/original/file-20191112-178502-1s2o6zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301337/original/file-20191112-178502-1s2o6zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301337/original/file-20191112-178502-1s2o6zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301337/original/file-20191112-178502-1s2o6zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301337/original/file-20191112-178502-1s2o6zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301337/original/file-20191112-178502-1s2o6zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301337/original/file-20191112-178502-1s2o6zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301337/original/file-20191112-178502-1s2o6zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul Weinberg/Cambridge University Press</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Radio created role models</h2>
<p>Listeners also modelled themselves on the radio personalities who had parts in the dramas, sometimes wrote them or produced them, and in some cases had their own programmes. They became cultural icons. </p>
<p>So King Edward Masinga, Guybon Mpanza, Thokozani Nene, Alexius Buthelezi, Winnie Mahlangu and Linda Ntuli, to name a few, each had a place over the decades on South Africa’s sonic stage. </p>
<p>Perhaps the broadcast voices produced a meta counter-voice to the dominant group. This was a resistant modernity, mediated by radio, producing worlds that were culturally dynamic and deeply invigorating. Looking back at it now, we can see it as part of an important black archive, not lost, but not entirely re-discovered.</p>
<p><em>Gunner is the author of Radio Soundings - South Africa and the Black Modern. <a href="http://witspress.co.za">Wits University Press</a> (2019). The <a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/radio-soundings/">book</a> is also published by The International African Institute and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/">Cambridge University Press</a> (2019).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126786/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liz Gunner received funding from the National Research Foundation for her research project on Radio and the Making of Community in South Africa. She is visiting research professor in the Department of Languages, Cultural Studies and Applied Linguistics (LanCSAL), School of Languages, University of Johannesburg.</span></em></p>Even though they were a product of apartheid’s propaganda broadcasting machine, Zulu language radio dramas proved subversively powerful by reflecting communal black life and creating new stars.Prof Liz Gunner, Visiting Research Professor in the School of Languages, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/923872018-03-06T16:10:58Z2018-03-06T16:10:58ZWant to know if your partner’s cheating on you? Just listen to their voice<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208898/original/file-20180305-65529-16afkq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Picture Morgan Freeman, Donald Trump or Margaret Thatcher. Most likely you can hear their voices in your mind, and the characteristic inflections that they put on certain words, as well as their tone and pitch. Even without listening to the words, when you hear someone speak you can pick up important information about them from characteristics such as how loud or deep their voice is.</p>
<p>At the most basic level, voices convey biological characteristics such as whether someone is <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/279/1728/601">male or female</a>, their <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347204003987?via%3Dihub">body size</a> and <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/277/1699/3509">physical strength</a>, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327027hc0803_2">age and sexual maturity</a>. For example, Donald Trump’s voice can signal to you that he is a man, and that he has passed middle age. But did you know that voices can also signal a person’s attractiveness, fertility and even the likelihood of them being unfaithful?</p>
<p>A popular theory with evolutionary psychologists, known as <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12110-003-1008-y">“cads versus dads</a>”, suggests that more masculine, dominant men are not as paternal and generally invest less in their children and grandchildren than less masculine men. Yet research shows women generally prefer <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347204003987?via%3Dihub">deeper voiced, more masculine-sounding men</a>, especially when these women are <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0018506X05001704">near ovulation</a>.</p>
<p>This may be because partnering with deeper-voiced men could lead to genetically healthier children. Deeper voices have been linked to having more <a href="http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/3/6/682">surviving children and grandchildren</a>, <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/283/1829/20152830">higher testosterone and</a> lower stress hormones, and longer-term survival in men. </p>
<p>On the other hand, deeper-voiced men are also rated by women as more likely to <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/147470491100900109">cheat on a partner</a> and as <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090513816300368?via%3Dihub#f0005">less trustworthy</a> in general. Women who judge men with lower-pitched voices as more likely to cheat also <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886913012324?via%3Dihub">prefer those men for short-term</a> rather than long-term partners. Meanwhile, when women <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2008.1542">are breastfeeding</a> and so currently taking care of a child, they are more likely to prefer men with higher-pitched voices than at other times.</p>
<p>This suggests women use something in men’s voices to try to assess how likely to cheat they are, as well as their general trustworthiness. This in turn can affect their attractiveness as a partner, depending on whether the women are drawn towards the paternal care of a potential long-term mate or just good genes.</p>
<h2>Spotting a cheater</h2>
<p>But can our voices really indicate whether we are likely to cheat? A <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1474704917711513">recent study</a> from researchers in the US suggests that they can. Participants were played recordings of people speaking and given no other background information about them, and successfully rated cheaters as “more likely to cheat” than non-cheaters. Interestingly, women were better at this task than men.</p>
<p>The recordings were taken from people with voices of similar pitch and attractiveness, who were of similar size and shape, and had similar sexual histories (aside from cheating). This means that none of these factors affected the results. So we currently don’t know what cues the participants used to judge whether the voices came from cheaters.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208903/original/file-20180305-65525-rsquh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208903/original/file-20180305-65525-rsquh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208903/original/file-20180305-65525-rsquh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208903/original/file-20180305-65525-rsquh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208903/original/file-20180305-65525-rsquh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208903/original/file-20180305-65525-rsquh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208903/original/file-20180305-65525-rsquh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Not all cheaters are this obvious.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/disloyal-woman-looking-another-man-her-735436885?src=9s2hbtsZ6HlSxSFQ7ZTipw-1-9">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>It is not only women who can pick up on men’s vocal cues of good genes and likelihood to cheat, and use it to their benefit. A woman’s voice changes during her menstrual cycle when she is not using contraceptive pills. Perhaps unsurprisingly, men find women’s voices most attractive when the women are <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090513808000263?via%3Dihub">near ovulation</a> (most fertile), than at other times of the month. This information is important to pick up on, as women do not display very explicit signals that they are fertile (unlike baboon females whose bottoms turn red, or female deer who release scents to advertise their fertility).</p>
<p>Voices can also signal whether someone is <a href="http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138(14)00078-6/fulltext">interested in you</a>. In one clever study, participants were asked to judge the voices of individuals who spoke in a different language to attractive or unattractive potential partners or competitors. </p>
<p>The researchers found that, when talking to attractive people, men’s voices tend to reach a deeper pitch, and both men and women increase how varied their pitch is so their voices sound more dynamic than monotonous. Practically speaking, picking up on these types of cues could allow someone to decide whether a person they are talking to might be attracted to them or not.</p>
<p>In these ways, the non-verbal characteristics of voices can play a significant role in signalling health, fertility, attraction and potential infidelity, to name a few. Picking up on these cues, alongside the many other cues we receive when talking to someone, can help us make more informed and well-rounded choices about who to spend time with and who to avoid. But the next time you find yourself listening to and judging someone’s voice for these subtle cues, remember that they are judging yours, too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92387/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Your voice can affect how attractive, fertile and faithful people think you are.Viktoria Mileva, Postdoctoral Fellow in Psychology, University of StirlingJuan David Leongómez, Assistant Professor of Evolutionary Psychology, El Bosque UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/923542018-03-04T19:22:31Z2018-03-04T19:22:31ZIt’s not just sex: why people have affairs, and how to deal with them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208622/original/file-20180302-65536-1txjwom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There are many reasons people have affairs.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alex Iby/Unsplash</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Barnaby Joyce’s affair with his former staffer Vikki Campion, and his subsequent downfall from the position of deputy prime minister and head of the National Party, made headlines for weeks. It’s not surprising. From politicians to actors and entertainers, stories of high profile individuals caught “cheating” on their partner often make front-page news.</p>
<p>We believe a romantic partner is there to provide us with love, comfort and security. So people are quick to make judgements and lay blame on perpetrators of what they see as a significant violation of relationship norms and betrayal of trust. Infidelity highlights the potential fragility of our closest and most important of relationships.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-all-want-the-same-things-in-a-partner-but-why-88557">We all want the same things in a partner, but why?</a>
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<p>But despite the blunt belief infidelity is the result of immoral and over-sexed individuals wanting their cake and eating it too, the reality is far more nuanced. For instance, infidelity is rarely just about sex. In fact, when it comes to purely sexual infidelity, the average occurrence <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Foundations-for-Couples-Therapy-Research-for-the-Real-World/Fitzgerald/p/book/9781138909632">across studies</a> is around 20% of all couples. However, this rate increases to around a third of couples when you include emotional infidelity.</p>
<p>An affair is generally a sign things aren’t right with someone’s relationship. Without the necessary skills to heal the issues, a partner may engage in an affair as an ill-equipped way of attempting to have their needs fulfilled – whether these be for intimacy, to feel valued, to experience more sex, and so on. So, the straying partner views an alternative relationship as a better way to meet these needs than their existing relationship. </p>
<h2>Who has affairs, and why?</h2>
<p>Studies into why people cheat are many and varied. Some find <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/per.520/full">people who lack</a> traits such as agreeableness and conscientiousness are more likely to be sexually promiscuous, as are those higher in neurotic and narcissistic traits. Other studies find infidelity is more likely to occur among people who hold <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224540903536162">less restrictive views</a> about sex, such as that you don’t have to limit yourself to one sexual partner.</p>
<p>Other important factors relate to people’s commitment to their partner and relationship satisfaction. Those low on these measures appear more likely to have an affair. Recent work suggests one of the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352250X16300227">biggest predictors</a> of having an affair is having strayed before.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-you-might-want-to-rethink-monogamy-88217">Why you might want to rethink monogamy</a>
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<p>A survey of <a href="https://www.relate.org.uk/policy-campaigns/publications/lets-talk-about-sex">5,000 people in the UK</a> found striking parallels between men and women’s reasons for infidelity, and neither prioritised sex. The top five reasons for women related to lack of emotional intimacy (84%), lack of communication between partners (75%), tiredness (32%), a bad history with sex or abuse (26%), and a lack of interest in sex with the current partner (23%).</p>
<p>For men the reasons were a lack of communication between partners (68%), stress (63%), sexual dysfunction with one’s current partner (44%), lack of emotional intimacy (38%) and fatigue or being chronically tired (31%). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208624/original/file-20180302-65533-1vrh8e1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208624/original/file-20180302-65533-1vrh8e1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208624/original/file-20180302-65533-1vrh8e1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208624/original/file-20180302-65533-1vrh8e1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208624/original/file-20180302-65533-1vrh8e1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208624/original/file-20180302-65533-1vrh8e1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208624/original/file-20180302-65533-1vrh8e1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Both men and women cheat.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<p>So if we have difficulty genuinely communicating with our partner, or they don’t make us feel valued, we may be more likely to stray. People need to invest time and energy into their relationships. Experiencing chronic tiredness over many years means one’s capacity to put in the necessary work to keep a relationship strong is also compromised.</p>
<p>While some couples report additional reasons, which can include a greater desire for sex, the majority speak to issues that reside either within the couple or outside the relationship. The latter can be stressors that challenge the couple’s ability to make the relationship work. </p>
<p>If you’re experiencing relationship difficulties, getting help from a therapist may well short-circuit the risk factors that can lead to infidelity.</p>
<h2>Disclosure and therapy</h2>
<p>Some people choose to keep their affair secret because they may want it to continue, feel too much guilt or believe they’re protecting their partner’s feelings. But the secret only perpetuates the betrayal. If one is serious about mending their existing relationship, then disclosure is necessary, along with seeking professional guidance to support the couple through the turbulent period towards recovery.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-evolution-of-jealousy-tells-us-about-online-infidelity-90264">What the evolution of jealousy tells us about online infidelity</a>
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<p>Most <a href="https://www.relate.org.uk/policy-campaigns/our-campaigns/way-we-are-now-2016">relationship therapists suggest</a> issues around infidelity can be improved through therapy. But they also report <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1997-05658-009">infidelity as one of the most difficult </a> issues to work with when it comes to rebuilding a relationship.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208625/original/file-20180302-65547-11gp4n2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208625/original/file-20180302-65547-11gp4n2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208625/original/file-20180302-65547-11gp4n2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208625/original/file-20180302-65547-11gp4n2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208625/original/file-20180302-65547-11gp4n2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208625/original/file-20180302-65547-11gp4n2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208625/original/file-20180302-65547-11gp4n2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Both partners can experience mental health issues following the revelation of an affair.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jonas Weckschmied/Unsplash</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>There are various evidence-based approaches to dealing with infidelity, but most acknowledge the act can be experienced as a form of trauma by the betrayed person, who has had their <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Foundations-for-Couples-Therapy-Research-for-the-Real-World/Fitzgerald/p/book/9781138909632">fundamental assumptions</a> about their partner violated. These include trust and the belief that the partner is there to provide love and security rather than inflict hurt.</p>
<p>But it’s not only the betrayed person who can experience mental health issues. <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1093/clipsy.bpi014/full">Research</a> has found that, when the affair is revealed, both partners can experience mental health issues including anxiety, depression and thoughts of suicide. There can also be an increase in emotional and physical violence within the couple.</p>
<p>So a couple should seek professional help to deal with the aftermaths of an affair, not only to possibly heal their relationship but also for their own psychological well-being.</p>
<p>There are many approaches to counselling couples after an affair, but generally, it’s about addressing the issues that precipitated and perpetuated the infidelity. One of the most <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Foundations-for-Couples-Therapy-Research-for-the-Real-World/Fitzgerald/p/book/9781138909632">well researched methods</a> of helping a couple mend these issues involves addressing the initial impact of the affair, developing a shared understanding of the context of the affair, forgiveness, and moving on.</p>
<h2>Choosing to stay or go</h2>
<p>Overall, therapy seems to work for about <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Foundations-for-Couples-Therapy-Research-for-the-Real-World/Fitzgerald/p/book/9781138909632">two-thirds of couples</a> who have experienced infidelity. If a couple decides to stay together, they must identify areas of improvement and commit to working on them. </p>
<p>It’s also vital to re-establish trust. The therapist can help the couple acknowledge the areas of the relationship in which trust has already been rebuilt. Then the betrayed partner can be progressively exposed to situations that provide further reassurance they can trust their partner without having to constantly check on them.</p>
<p>But if therapy works for two thirds of couples, it leaves another one third who experience no improvement. What then? If the relationship is characterised by many unresolved conflicts, hostility, and a lack of concern for one another, it may be best to end it. Ultimately, relationships serve the function of meeting our attachment needs of love, comfort and security. </p>
<p>Being in a relationship that doesn’t meet these needs is considered problematic and dysfunctional by anyone’s definition.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208626/original/file-20180302-65533-1vev2e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208626/original/file-20180302-65533-1vev2e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208626/original/file-20180302-65533-1vev2e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208626/original/file-20180302-65533-1vev2e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208626/original/file-20180302-65533-1vev2e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208626/original/file-20180302-65533-1vev2e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208626/original/file-20180302-65533-1vev2e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">In some cases it may be the right decision to end the relationship.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<p>But ending a relationship is never easy due to the <a href="https://www.elsevier.com/books/adult-attachment/gillath/978-0-12-420020-3">attachment we develop</a> with our romantic partner. Even though in some relationships, our attachment needs are less likely to be fulfilled, it doesn’t stop us wanting to believe our partner will (one day) meet our needs. </p>
<p>The impending end of a relationship fills us with what is termed “separation distress”. Not only do we grieve the loss of the relationship (no matter how good or bad), but we grieve over whether we will find another who will fulfil our needs. </p>
<p>The period of separation distress varies from person to person. Some may believe it’s worth celebrating the end of a toxic relationship, but they will still experience distress in one form or another. If the couple decides to end the relationship and are still in therapy, the therapist can help them work through their decision in a way that minimises feelings of hurt. </p>
<p>So infidelity is less about sex and more about matters of the heart and a misguided quest to have one’s relationship needs met. The problem is that some people choose to seek their relationship needs in the arms of another rather than working on their existing relationship.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92354/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gery Karantzas receives funding from the Australian Research Council</span></em></p>An affair is generally a sign things aren’t right with someone’s relationship. It occurs when one person sees an alternative relationship as a better way to meet their needs than their existing one.Gery Karantzas, Associate professor in Social Psychology / Relationship Science, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/922902018-02-23T09:30:15Z2018-02-23T09:30:15ZIn Indonesia, a sexist term for ‘the other woman’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207471/original/file-20180222-152375-1t7pldf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C1%2C991%2C664&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The use of the term pelakor in isolation reveals people's tendency to blame only the woman in an affair, though it obviously takes two to tango.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many Indonesians have recently been bombarded with stories about the “<em>pelakor</em>” (<em>Perebut laki orang</em>), a term popularly used to refer to a woman who is perceived as responsible for ruining a couple’s marriage). </p>
<p>We are presented with these stories daily, whether on social media or on traditional news channels. Many internet citizens, or netizens, have expressed their hatred towards the <em>pelakor</em>. While neutral and/or thoughtful statements do exist, hateful attitudes are relatively easier to find, at least on Instagram, a graphic and text-based social media platform where news is frequently shared among netizens. This hateful rhetoric is largely aimed at the accused woman, as signalled by the repeated use of <em>pelakor</em>. </p>
<p>I would like to call attention to the problematic use of <em>pelakor</em> as a term in the discussion about infidelity. It is used to blame or shame a woman involved in an affair, with very little blame directed at the man. In this light, this term warrants a critical evaluation.</p>
<h2>An unfair rhetoric</h2>
<p>First and foremost, <em>pelakor</em> as a term is rhetorically unfair. This is because it positions the woman as a thief, an active agent, while positioning the man as an inactive agent (a stolen object, helpless and powerless). </p>
<p>Moreover, it is sociolinguistically partial towards the man. The term <em>pelakor</em> frequently appears without a corresponding term for the man in the relationship. In most of the posts that I have perused to get some data on the widespread use of the term <em>pelakor</em>, it is generally used alone, or the man is noticeably absent. </p>
<p>Rhetorically the term marginalises women. Moreover, the term also reveals a larger socio-cultural phenomenon. The popular use of the term pelakor in social media posts and in the news, with no comparable term for the man, shows that it is a sexist term. </p>
<p>The use of <em>pelakor</em> in isolation reveals our tendency to blame only the woman in an affair, though it obviously takes two to tango. We must not forget the fact that there are (at least) two parties involved in any instance of infidelity. </p>
<p>The inclination of many Indonesians to single out <em>pelakor</em> tells us something about our socio-cultural attitude to woman, which concurrently glorifies man. It appears to me that many Indonesians still reinforce a gender-biased discourse, particularly in the case of infidelity. </p>
<p>More often that not, we see how women are largely seen as the ones to the blame in many cases of infidelity. To my knowledge, if infidelity occurs, the blame will usually be put either on the betrayed wife (for example, by pointing out that she “fails” to take care of the husband) or on “the other woman”. Or, in many cases, both. In other words, our inclination to shout <em>pelakor</em>, without invoking the man, still exposes the violent treatment and partial perceptions of women. </p>
<h2>Putting back the man in the narrative of infidelity</h2>
<p>Used in isolation, the term <em>pelakor</em> erases the man’s role in this collaborative action. It not only undermines the man’s “awareness” (as if he can only be “trapped” by the woman because he can no longer use his brain to evaluate what is going on), but also his agency. </p>
<p>But the man having an affair is not a stolen object. He is equally responsible in the situation and should not be linguistically and rhetorically absent. </p>
<p>Thus, if some of us do still need to label others with this <em>pelakor</em> term, please use it together with “<em>letise</em>” (<em>Lelaki Tidak Setia</em> or the man who is not faithful), because both parties are involved in the affair. The accusation should not only be placed on one side. </p>
<p>Do use <em>pelakor</em> and <em>letise</em> together, if some still insist on giving labels. Or else, the term “the other woman (<em>WIL</em>, <em>Wanita Idaman Lain</em>)” should suffice and is much less judgemental. Pragmatically, <em>WIL</em> delivers the “participation” of the man in the narrative of infidelity.</p>
<p>On that note, I question the tendency to judge other people’s personal matters when we have very limited information about the cases and those involved. Perhaps the only reason this term <em>pelakor</em> exists is because some of us find an urgent need to judge others, and unfairly at that.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92290/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nelly Martin-Anatias tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham, atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi selain yang telah disebut di atas.</span></em></p>Recently, many Indonesians have been bombarded with stories about the “pelakor”, a term popularly used to refer to a woman who is perceived as responsible for ruining a couple’s marriage).Nelly Martin-Anatias, Visiting scholar, Auckland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/902642018-02-08T15:47:09Z2018-02-08T15:47:09ZWhat the evolution of jealousy tells us about online infidelity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205284/original/file-20180207-74479-11niv8q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Suspicious mind.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cheater-man-dating-on-line-smart-744371542?src=ntGg5bYPPvfTUsl7vm6l_g-1-12">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is estimated that by 2020, 2.95 billion people will be <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-users/">using social networks</a>. But while sites like Facebook revolve around the wholesome concepts of friends, likes and shares, they have also become a way for people to cheat on their partners. </p>
<p>The problem is so rife, it seems, that suspicious partners are breaking into their other half’s social accounts to find out if they are cheating. One survey <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2268169/Dial-I-infidelity-Checkingpartners-mobile-phone-common-way-affairs-exposed.html">of 2,400 UK adults</a> who had cheated or been cheated on found that infidelity in 23% of relationships was exposed when Facebook was checked for evidence. </p>
<p>Though online social media is a relatively new phenomenon, cheating and the jealousy that people feel over it is practically ancient. We all know that snooping through messages is a serious invasion of privacy – whether the other person is being deceitful or not – but this high statistic shows how strong an influence jealousy can have on human behaviour. </p>
<h2>Suspicion and jealousy</h2>
<p>But is jealousy such a bad thing? Psychology professor David Buss <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/buss-passion.html">compellingly argued</a> that jealousy is a crucial emotion which evolved to help protect against relationship termination. According to Buss, jealousy motivates behaviour to either ensure sexual exclusivity, or to protect offspring against the loss of vital requirements, such as food, and against inclement weather and predators. These would have been critical prerequisites for the survival of our children during our evolutionary past. </p>
<p>According to this theory, losing sexual exclusivity would have been costlier for men, as his partner’s engagement in sexual infidelity could result in his rearing another man’s child. So men have evolved to be <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1992.tb00038.x">more sexually jealous</a>. </p>
<p>By contrast, the theory states that securing vital resources would be more important for ancestral women in order to ensure the survival of her offspring. So a male partner’s emotional involvement with another woman would inevitably mean the diversion of resources away from her to her rival. This means that women have evolved to be <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/homo-consumericus/200906/men-and-women-experience-sexual-and-emotional-infidelity-differently">more emotionally jealous</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205291/original/file-20180207-74473-1i0noby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205291/original/file-20180207-74473-1i0noby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205291/original/file-20180207-74473-1i0noby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205291/original/file-20180207-74473-1i0noby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205291/original/file-20180207-74473-1i0noby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205291/original/file-20180207-74473-1i0noby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205291/original/file-20180207-74473-1i0noby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Digital betrayal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/sad-woman-texting-closeup-portrait-upset-349497446?src=La3KQZ_2wRGHA8cviZmd1w-1-72">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is precisely what Buss and colleagues <a href="http://courses.washington.edu/evpsych/SexDifferencesinJealousy.pdf">confirmed in 1992</a> when they asked participants in a study to imagine two scenarios. The first was that the participant’s partners were involved in a sexual liaison with someone else. The second scenario revealed that their partner was involved in an emotional liaison with another person. </p>
<p>Buss found that significantly higher numbers of men would opt for the sexual scenario as being more distressing (60% compared to 40% of women) while significantly higher numbers of women (83% compared to 17% men) said that the emotional scenario caused more distress. Similar differences in gender responses were also found when Buss measured physiological arousal to hypothetical scenarios which revealed either sexual or emotional infidelity. </p>
<h2>Green eyes</h2>
<p><a href="https://repository.cardiffmet.ac.uk/handle/10369/8979">Subsequent research</a> using different methods and participants from <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886914004802">different cultures</a>, have confirmed these gender differences when it comes to relationship jealousy. And through my own research, I have been applying what we know about this ancient emotion to the technological age.</p>
<p>As technology has given us unprecedented access into each others’ lives, some say relationships have <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-facebook-could-be-threatening-your-romantic-relationship-60391">changed fundamentally</a> – but does the same apply to how we feel jealousy?</p>
<p>To explore this, I have used fictional but realistic Facebook or Snapchat messages either sent by one’s own partner or received from a rival, in several studies. The messages reveal either strictly sexual or strictly emotional infidelity, and participants were asked to imagine how distressed they would be upon their discovery. </p>
<p>The first study, <a href="https://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cyber.2014.0351">published in 2015</a>, used an eye-tracker to record where and for how long visual attention was focused on the messages. We found that male participants were clearly biased towards viewing Facebook messages which revealed their partner was being sexually unfaithful. Female participants focused attention more on the messages which revealed emotional infidelity. </p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.springer.com/gp/about-springer/media/research-news/all-english-research-news/are-we-still-jealous--infidelity-in-the-age-of-social-media/13277668">subsequent research</a>, we presented participants with realistic, infidelity revealing, Snapchat messages (Snapchat has been shown to <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25667961">generate more jealousy</a> than Facebook). We then invited them to imagine how distressed they would be if they discovered either an outgoing message or a received message which revealed unequivocally sexual, or unequivocally emotional, contact. </p>
<p>As well as finding the traditional gender differences, we also found that women were more distressed by messages received from “the other woman” than they were by messages sent by their partner, and when compared to men discovering incoming messages. These findings <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2008-02180-004">support previous work</a> that collectively suggests women may be disproportionately and unjustifiably blamed for infidelity. </p>
<p>In other, unpublished research we found that the “identity” of the rival influences distress levels. For example, men appear less distressed by messages revealing infidelity between their partner and their own brother than they would if it was a stranger or a friend.</p>
<p>So what does all this mean? French critic John Baptiste Alphonse Karr once said “the more things change, the more they stay the same”. This would most definitely apply, it would appear, to jealousy. Changes associated with the technological age have done nothing to tame the ancient green-eyed monster within us all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90264/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Dunn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Jealousy works in the same old ways – even in the age of online infidelity.Michael Dunn, Senior Lecturer in Health Sciences, Cardiff Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/882172018-01-01T22:25:51Z2018-01-01T22:25:51ZWhy you might want to rethink monogamy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200279/original/file-20171220-4973-t9ehry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is a too-strict definition of monogamy undermining your relationship? Research shows that while most people expect exclusivity in a relationship, infidelity is still the leading cause of divorce.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Monogamy is difficult to maintain. Sure, it’s easy enough at times when your life is devoid of temptation. But unless you and your partner live in isolation in a cottage in the woods, there are no guarantees that an attractive “other” will not emerge — to lure you away and challenge the sanctity of your relationship. </p>
<p>“Oh no,” you think. “Not me. I adore my partner. Things are still so fresh. And I have so much to lose if I were to stray.” </p>
<p>Yes, of course. But research makes it clear that our best intentions are often worthless in the face of a compelling, and possibly unexpected, attraction to another person — someone intent on connecting with us. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/fam0000280">Those who report having had an extramarital relationship say it was with a close friend, co-worker or long-term acquaintance</a>; these tend not to be random strangers. </p>
<p>What’s more, an act of infidelity is often understood as the “dealbreaker” in relationships. And few people are abhorred more than those known to have “cheated.” Movies, songs and literature are replete with stories depicting the appalling retribution believed owed to those who stray. </p>
<p>Despite all this, studies show that most people have in fact <a href="https://link-springer-com.proxy.hil.unb.ca/article/10.1007%2Fs12144-011-9119-9">engaged in some type of infidelity in the past</a> or have experienced a partner’s infidelity.</p>
<p>The question arises then: Is it time to ditch, or rethink, monogamy as a standard?</p>
<h2>Optimistic expectations</h2>
<p><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1530-2415.2012.01286.x">Research shows that most people both expect romantic and sexual exclusivity</a> to be in place very early in their relationships and that they <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2000.00048.x">denounce infidelity</a>.</p>
<p>Interviews with newlyweds in the United States indicate that many people expect they and their partner will remain monogamous, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2012.651966">despite admitting to having experienced a range of extramarital thoughts and behaviours already</a>, such as flirting with another or feeling aroused in the presence of another. </p>
<p>All industrialized countries, even those purporting to have more tolerant beliefs around the importance of exclusivity, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(06)69479-8">report that monogamy is the dominant pattern in their societies</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200051/original/file-20171219-4968-1y4ni3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200051/original/file-20171219-4968-1y4ni3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200051/original/file-20171219-4968-1y4ni3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200051/original/file-20171219-4968-1y4ni3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200051/original/file-20171219-4968-1y4ni3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200051/original/file-20171219-4968-1y4ni3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200051/original/file-20171219-4968-1y4ni3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Are jealousy and suspicion undermining your monogamous relationship?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite strong universal disapproval of infidelity, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407515574463">despite optimistic expectations</a>, studies show that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X12439692">infidelity remains, year after year, the primary cause of relationship break-ups and divorce</a>. </p>
<p>Now, if you factor in the distress, distrust and discord that infidelity causes to those relationships it does not destroy, you begin to understand the weight of its consequences.</p>
<h2>Fantasizing about a celebrity lover?</h2>
<p>Is monogamy reasonable? Can we ever reconcile the improbability of spending a lifetime (also known as many years) with a partner without ever being drawn to another? </p>
<p>Can we admit that our partners might not meet all of our needs at all times? That we could experience attraction to another without a complete surrender of our rights to a loving and respectful relationship or a wish to abandon our lives to race off with the other person? </p>
<p>These questions are more poignant in light of research indicating that <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2014.863723">intimate relationships are becoming less rewarding over time</a> even as our expectations of what they should deliver steadily increase.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200064/original/file-20171219-4957-1ps3u7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200064/original/file-20171219-4957-1ps3u7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200064/original/file-20171219-4957-1ps3u7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200064/original/file-20171219-4957-1ps3u7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200064/original/file-20171219-4957-1ps3u7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200064/original/file-20171219-4957-1ps3u7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200064/original/file-20171219-4957-1ps3u7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Singer Adam Levine is one of the most fantasized about celebrities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In most Western countries, belief in the importance of monogamy is strong, yet relatively few individuals actually discuss with their partner what monogamy must entail. </p>
<p>Is online flirting with an ex you will never see again “cheating?” Is fantasizing about a celebrity lover being untrue to your One True Love? </p>
<h2>Jealousy and suspicion are the tools</h2>
<p>A series of studies by psychologist Ashley Thompson makes clear that we are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2015.1062840">notably inconsistent</a> in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/jrr.2016.1">the monogamy standards</a> that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01973533.2017.1350578">we hold for ourselves versus those we hold for our partners</a>. For example, we are far more lenient and tolerant in explaining our own versus our partner’s behaviour.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200053/original/file-20171219-4965-8p3m2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200053/original/file-20171219-4965-8p3m2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200053/original/file-20171219-4965-8p3m2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200053/original/file-20171219-4965-8p3m2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200053/original/file-20171219-4965-8p3m2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200053/original/file-20171219-4965-8p3m2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200053/original/file-20171219-4965-8p3m2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Proponents of polyamory march at the 2017 Toronto Pride Parade.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Those who endorse alternative approaches — such as “consensual non-monogamy” which allows for romantic or sexual relationships beyond the primary relationship, with the partner’s consent — argue that monogamous relationships are far less stable because people use <a href="http://web.a.ebscohost.com.proxy.hil.unb.ca/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&sid=14e57d37-335f-4d4c-8388-dad14da65119%40sessionmgr4007">jealousy, monitoring and suspicion as tools to hold their partners to this difficult standard</a>. </p>
<p>Individuals in supposedly monogamous relationships are also <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jsm.12987">less likely to practise safe sex when they cheat</a> (putting their primary partner’s health at risk) than are those in consensually non-monogamous relationships. And questions arise about whether you are really practising “monogamy” if you’re exclusive but in relationship after relationship after relationship — that is, for those who change primary partners after just a few years.</p>
<h2>Rewriting the fairytale</h2>
<p>To discuss dealbreakers in one’s relationship, it is essential for a couple to define what constitutes a betrayal, violation of trust or act of dishonesty.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200063/original/file-20171219-4965-z1uhjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200063/original/file-20171219-4965-z1uhjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200063/original/file-20171219-4965-z1uhjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200063/original/file-20171219-4965-z1uhjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200063/original/file-20171219-4965-z1uhjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200063/original/file-20171219-4965-z1uhjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200063/original/file-20171219-4965-z1uhjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Negotiating guidelines with your partner can help you both be on the same page, about what types and expressions of connection with others are acceptable.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If a couple can plan ahead of time for the possibility than one or both partners might have an intimate moment with another person at some point, this can reinforce the flexibility, tolerance and forgiveness required to adjust if that happens. </p>
<p>It all depends on the circumstances, of course, but accepting that another person might offer something that we or our partners need can leave couples better-positioned to move forward and adjust or negotiate if necessary, without an entire and irreversible relationship disintegration.</p>
<p>This is key: If we can admit to ourselves that a fleeting attraction, or more meaningful connection, with another partner might not irreparably harm our primary relationship — and indeed might supplement it — then our relationships might survive longer and better. </p>
<p>A new viewpoint requires a willingness to supplant the fairytale — a belief (often cherished) that one person can forever meet all your emotional, romantic and sexual needs.</p>
<h2>Lunch is ok, touch is out</h2>
<p>This is unlikely to be easy for most of us. The idea of a partner being distracted by another can induce panic in the most stalwart and confident. But insisting upon a fairly unreasonable standard (lifelong exclusivity or else!) can in fact harbour the possibility of secrecy and betrayal. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200061/original/file-20171219-4965-v7f1ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200061/original/file-20171219-4965-v7f1ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200061/original/file-20171219-4965-v7f1ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200061/original/file-20171219-4965-v7f1ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200061/original/file-20171219-4965-v7f1ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200061/original/file-20171219-4965-v7f1ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200061/original/file-20171219-4965-v7f1ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Negotiate with your partner and make guidelines such as ‘Lunch is ok, touching is not.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The emphasis in relationships needs always to be on openness, caring and mutual consent. </p>
<p>This is not to say that you or your partner will ultimately connect intimately with another person in any way despite adopting a new viewpoint about exclusivity. It also does not mean you have to agree that “anything goes,” that your relationship becomes an open relationship in the broadest sense of that term, or that anyone at all can enter your private sphere. </p>
<p>It is wise to negotiate some guidelines with your partner — about who or what type of person might be invited to look in on that sphere, for a moment or longer, and what might be acceptable ways to connect with another person (e.g. lunch is okay, touch is out), should the need or want arise. </p>
<p>If you also discuss how best to talk about it, this approach can go far in keeping your relationship truthful, transparent and trusting — making the need for a dealbreaker that much less relevant altogether.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88217/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lucia O'Sullivan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Seeking monogamy without jealousy? Try ditching the fear of your partner’s intimate connections with others and write your own relationship rules, suggests a relationship researcher.Lucia O'Sullivan, Professor of Psychology, University of New BrunswickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/874412017-11-28T23:26:31Z2017-11-28T23:26:31ZIs it adultery if my spouse doesn’t know who I am anymore?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196398/original/file-20171126-21853-1gjbma0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Those caring for spouses with dementia are often isolated, lonely and emotionally overwhelmed. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Zoomer magazine’s September 2017 issue, there was an <a href="https://www.pressreader.com/canada/zoomer-magazine/20170904/281552290980041">enlightening article</a> written by <a href="http://siloamunitedchurch.org/meet-our-staff/">Rev. Dr. Sheila Macgregor</a> addressing contemporary issues that have emerged as a result of what’s become known as the longevity revolution.</p>
<p>Advancements in health care and technology have resulted in longer lifespans. Milestone events now include encore careers, second and even third marriages, and birthday celebrations for 100-year-olds. In fact, in 2016, <a href="http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/as-sa/98-200-x/2016004/98-200-x2016004-eng.cfm">there were more than 8,000 100-year-olds alive in Canada,</a> according to the most recent Census data.</p>
<p>While there is much to be celebrated, it’s also a good time to pause and re-examine old traditions in light of new realities. That was part of Rev. Macgregor’s powerful message. Macgregor draws upon the work of <a href="http://jewishsacredaging.com/about-us-2/rabbi-richard-f-address-d-min/">Rabbi Richard Address</a>, the director of <a href="http://jewishsacredaging.com/">Jewish Sacred Aging</a>, a forum that enables the Jewish community to discuss modern-day issues relating to the aging Baby Boomer generation.</p>
<p>For instance, Address asks, is it still adultery if you enter into a new relationship when your spouse doesn’t know who you are anymore? </p>
<p>That’s an important question in an age in which 564,000 Canadians are <a href="http://www.alzheimer.ca/en/simcoecounty/Get-involved/Advocacy/National/Latest-info-stats">living with dementia</a>. Worldwide, that number approximates <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs362/en/">47 million people</a>. But the figures don’t include family members who are directly affected by the disease. </p>
<p>Rabbi Address’s question necessitates that we examine the day-to-day realities of those caring for spouses with dementia and Alzheimer’s.</p>
<h2>Spouses care for most people with dementia</h2>
<p>Research from the United States indicates that approximately <a href="https://www.alz.org/documents_custom/public-health/2009-2010-combined-caregiving.pdf">70 per cent of people suffering from Alzheimer’s</a> are cared for by their spouses. And while many report <a href="http://www.apa.org/pi/about/publications/caregivers/faq/positive-aspects.aspx">benefits</a> associated with the experience, such as greater meaning and purpose in life, and a closer bond and attachment with the cared for individual, this population also faces negative psycho-social consequences that include loneliness and isolation. </p>
<p>And as Dr. <a href="http://www.johncacioppo.com/">John Cacioppo</a>, one of the world’s most eminent authorities on the topic, explains, humans do not fare well when they live solitary lives. In fact, <a href="https://theconversation.com/loneliness-could-kill-you-87217">loneliness can kill you</a>.</p>
<p>The demands and responsibilities imposed by the caregiver role leave little time, if any at all, for social interaction. And the constant care and concern for one’s beloved can occupy prime real estate in the mind of the caregiver. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/75-006-x/2013001/article/11858-eng.htm">negative cognitive and physical consequences</a> are plentiful and include illness, injury, depression, anxiety, financial difficulties and disruptions in employment. Moreover, as cognitive and physical abilities diminish, the demands on the caregiver increase.</p>
<p>Imagine for a moment that while a caregiver is attending to the needs of her loved one during a hospital visit, doctor’s office, or pharmacy run, she meets another person who is experiencing similar challenges. </p>
<p>The two start to develop a relationship. When time permits, they share brief phone calls, text messages and an occasional meal. Their friendship provides refuge in a chaotic, isolating and lonely world. Their encounters, no matter how short, are reminiscent of a time when her husband recognized her, conversations were reciprocal and they enjoyed leisurely pursuits and pastimes together.</p>
<h2>Mitigate loneliness</h2>
<p>Extramarital affairs that begin during a partner’s debilitating illness or terminal disease are referred to as <a href="https://www.caring.com/blogs/fyi-daily/are-well-spouse-affairs-different-from-others">“well spouse affairs.”</a> </p>
<p>Relational expert <a href="http://www.michaelbatshaw.com/index.html">Dr. Michael Batshaw</a> believes that such affairs can mitigate the loneliness and isolation associated with caregiving, and thus prevent caregiver burnout. </p>
<p>Batshaw explains that people who normally would not engage in infidelity may do so while a caregiver, because often what prevents us from being unfaithful is the hope that our relationship will change and improve. Under these circumstances, however, the caregivers know their relationships will never get better, and realize that their needs can no longer be fulfilled by their spouse. </p>
<p>But such affairs are not without their costs.</p>
<p>Infidelity by its very nature is replete with guilt, as is caregiving. Taking time off to exercise or see friends often ignites feelings of guilt for being away from a loved one. Add infidelity to the mix, and you’re likely to spend much of your time engaged in hellish emotional turmoil.</p>
<p>Although you want to be the devoted and faithful spouse, motivated by obligation, love or societal norms, you are also physically and emotionally exhausted, feeling lonely and isolated and want out.</p>
<p>Would a spouse really want his beloved to live such an existence? And what exactly does “until death do us part” mean? Is it when we physically take our last breath, or when we no longer exist as we have for decades in our marriages, recognize our partners or actively participate in our relationships?</p>
<p>These questions are incredibly personal and, for some, deeply religious. However, it’s incumbent upon us to move beyond the ethical considerations of the issue and focus on the human struggles associated with the realities of living longer lives.</p>
<p>I suspect that’s why Rabbi Address recommends that couples discuss this issue long before debilitating diseases strike. Such conversations are difficult, but they may in fact be the final act of love and kindness that you can bestow upon your loved one.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87441/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gillian Leithman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With people living longer lives and dementia on the rise, it’s time to consider whether it’s verboten for spouses acting as full-time caregivers to seek love and comfort outside their marriages.Gillian Leithman, Assistant Professor, Department of Management, Aging, Retirement, and Knowledge Management Researcher, Concordia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/784632017-06-26T03:10:15Z2017-06-26T03:10:15ZWhy we desire partners who have had relationship experience<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172217/original/file-20170605-31047-k0dufu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'The Wedding Ring Effect' is the idea that simply by wearing a wedding ring a man is somehow imbued with a host of desirable characteristics.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/why-were-more-likely-to-date-someone-who-has-an-ex-67367">Mate copying</a> (sometimes called mate-choice copying) is where an individual is preferred as a future romantic partner simply because they have relationship experience. </p>
<p>Mate copying is a form of non-independent mate selection arising from social learning. Someone gathers mate-relevant information about a potential partner by observing their romantic interactions with someone else. The “copying” part refers to developing a preference for a partner simply because someone of the same gender as yourself has had a preference for them in the past.</p>
<p>The basic idea is that people who have already been in a relationship have been “road-tested”. The logic goes they have proven they have at least some romantically desirable attributes because of their experience. This might seem odd, but there is plenty of good <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090513810000231">scientific evidence</a> that mate copying exists.</p>
<p>Although the phenomenon <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0009115">applies broadly</a>, we know that it is particularly prevalent <a href="https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/36244/">among young women</a>.</p>
<p>So, what is the value in mate copying? While it may not be obvious, the phenomenon does hold some utility. For one, mate-seekers (men or women) can readily identify a “good” (or at least passable) mate. In a sense, the person with experience is a “safer bet”.</p>
<p>Another advantage is that this information is cheap. Rather than going through a costly trial-and-error process to identify a suitable romantic partner (expending time and money on dates), the mate copier gets similar information from observing others. </p>
<p>A man holding hands with and embracing a woman is presumably considered by her to be at least an adequate relationship partner. The guy in the corner of the room alone staring at his iPhone may or may not be.</p>
<p><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12110-003-1006-0?LI=true">“The Wedding Ring Effect”</a>, as it is sometimes called by the popular media, is the idea that simply by wearing a wedding ring a man is somehow imbued with a host of desirable characteristics. </p>
<p>With an understanding of how and why mate copying works, this may seem like an entirely logical extension. It is, however, an egregious misconception. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2462347?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">Seminal studies</a> and a multitude of <a href="http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.5735/086.048.0202">subsequent empirical work</a> have thoroughly established that mate copying exists among non-humans, and there is a bunch of converging evidence suggesting that the phenomenon occurs among humans. However, having a heightened preference for someone that has been romantically “pre-approved” is very different from chasing someone who is married.</p>
<p>Studies have shown that romantically unavailable men are considered to be both more <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1660608/">attractive</a>, and more <a href="http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/77762/">desirable as long-term mates</a>. But there are also solid reasons not to pursue (or even desire) a married man. </p>
<p>For one, married men are probably going to be harder to romantically “obtain” than someone who is single. A married man is going to at least be reluctant to violate marital commitments, and prying him from his partner is likely going to be met with strong resistance. </p>
<p>Additionally, there are all sorts of social proscriptions against pursuing a married man. Doing so may well result in social derogation and/or exclusion.</p>
<p>In one of the most realistic studies of mate copying, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12110-003-1006-0">Swedish researchers</a> had women engage in real-life interactions with men who were wearing a wedding ring and men who weren’t. After the women had met and talked with each man (separately), each woman was asked a series of questions about the men she had just met. For example, she was asked her first impression of each man, their attractiveness and so on.</p>
<p>There were no major differences between the two men in terms of how they were perceived by the women, but the men without wedding rings were on average considered more attractive, both physically and generally.</p>
<p>Women suggested that they would rather have dinner with, have sex with, start a relationship with, and invite home the men <em>not</em> wearing a wedding ring. This may not come as much of a surprise, but it does suggest that while being in a relationship may make a man appealing in some sense, being married doesn’t.</p>
<p>Following on from this idea, <a href="http://docplayer.net/22088144-The-wedding-ring-effect-revisited-steve-manna.html">research</a> conducted in the US found that female participants evaluating a photo of a man found him to be slightly more romantically attractive and generally likeable if he was romantically available than if he was living with a romantic partner.</p>
<p>The much more important variable here was whether or not he had a history of commitment. Men who had previously been in relationships for three years were considered far more romantically attractive and generally likeable than men whose longest relationship had lasted only a few months. </p>
<p>Some research I conducted recently found a curious pattern of results. Namely, men with relationship experience were considered more desirable than those without experience if the men were described only (no visual representation). As soon as they were pictured alongside a partner, this effect completely reversed. </p>
<p>Taken together, these studies suggest that the idea of a man in a relationship is appealing in theory – but when it becomes a reality the appeal vanishes, or is at least mitigated.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78463/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ryan Anderson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mate copying is the name given to the phenomenon whereby an individual is preferred as a future romantic partner simply because they have relationship experience.Ryan Anderson, PhD Candidate, School of Arts and Social Sciences, James Cook UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/678422016-12-01T01:05:53Z2016-12-01T01:05:53ZUnfaithfully yours: what happens when virtual reality affairs get real?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147878/original/image-20161129-10949-2dycck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Virtual encounters are getting ever more realistic.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>July 2015 might well be known as the month online infidelity went public. This date coincided with one of the biggest and most revealing hacks in history when the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/28/what-happened-after-ashley-madison-was-hacked">Ashley Madison</a> database was compromised and made available online. </p>
<p>Ashley Madison, a dating website targeted at people already married or in relationships, had more than <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/ashley-madison-hack-6-charts-that-show-who-uses-the-infidelity-website-10465498.html">36 million subscribers</a>, 86% of whom were men. </p>
<p>Just over one year later, and immersive technologies like <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/virtual-reality-5439">virtual reality</a> (VR) and <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/augmented-reality-2801">augmented reality</a> (AR) are on course to become mainstream. But what happens when online infidelity and virtual reality collide?</p>
<h2>Online liaisons</h2>
<p>Internet infidelity is not new in itself, with Second Life being one example where it was rife. There is even a BBC documentary about it, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/tvandradioblog/2008/jan/31/lastnightstvwonderlandvirt">Wonderland: Virtual Adultery and Cyberspace Love</a>, and online adulterers have appeared on The Jeremy Kyle Show.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iezi9W8if10?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Woman has cyber-affair on Second Life. | The Jeremy Kyle Show.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/virtual-reality-sex-is-coming-soon-to-a-headset-near-you-57563">Immersive technology and pornography</a> are also having an impact. But beyond this could lie a minefield of explosive consequences. </p>
<p>One reason is that immersive technology itself relies on the idea of “presence”, which could best be described as feeling as if you are really in the virtual world and forgetting that you are actually in the physical world. </p>
<p>Research shows that not only is the virtual reality experience much more intense than screen-based ones, but the effects of <a href="http://www.recode.net/2016/8/4/12371450/jeremy-bailenson-stanford-university-virtual-reality-too-embarrassed-to-ask-podcast-transcript">immersive interaction last long after</a> the person has removed their headset.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/P0W_483BR0I?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Jeremy Bailenson from Stanford University summarises some key findings of VR research, including its lasting effects.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What happens in cyberspace does not necessarily stay in cyberspace. The emotions and feelings of intimate contact felt in VR will be carried over into the real world. So if a partner is being “unfaithful” online, the emotional consequences and impact on their existing relationship are clear.</p>
<p>Add to this the prospect for physical contact in immersive VR via sensory devices such as teledildonics – sexual aids that can be controlled remotely by another person – and you have potential relationship dynamite.</p>
<p>Yet another twist in the VR sexual plot is whether the sexual partner is an avatar or an agent (a computer-generated simulation). In their book, <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062041692/infinite-reality">Infinite Reality</a>, authors Jim Blascovich and Jeremy Bailenson note that people will react equally to avatars or agents based upon their belief that they represent a real person. </p>
<p>However, once it’s known to be only a simulation, they may treat it somewhat differently, almost as if it’s part of the furniture. This might be equated to having an affair with a real person in VR or merely viewing the encounter almost as if one is using an animated sex toy.</p>
<h2>Pandora’s box</h2>
<p>Research shows that emotion and feelings <a href="http://mashable.com/2014/06/26/virtual-reality-memory/#UY6p7xq3gkqq">within a virtual environment are all too real</a>. Add to this the ability to achieve virtual physical perfection in terms of their avatar, and fantasy can quickly become reality.</p>
<p>Working late at the office might no longer be a euphemism for ducking off for an illicit liaison, because with VR one can be physically at the office or at home and still be somewhere else at the same time.</p>
<p>The 2015 movie <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/10/11167400/creative-control-movie-review-amazon-augmented-reality">Creative Control</a> gives an insight into what the future of VR could look like and how it might affect relationships. The main character has a virtual affair which spills over into the real world with predictable consequences.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_VHWoX6fgEc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Creative Control official trailer 1 (2016) - Benjamin Dickinson, Nora Zehetner Movie HD.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Whether this is a visionary piece or simply science fiction is yet to be determined. However, the opportunities for VR sexual liaisons are already being exploited. </p>
<p>Ostensibly a pornography-based website, the recently launched <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/vr3000-and-virtual-reality-delivers-the-evolution-of-infidelity-300336490.html">VR3000</a> bills itself as the “safe” way to have an affair by simply doing it in cyberspace (VR3000 site <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=NSFW">NSFW</a>). </p>
<p>Are we about to redefine the rules of fidelity itself? What counts as cheating for one person <a href="https://www.truthaboutdeception.com/cheating-and-infidelity/what-counts-as-cheating.html">may not be for another</a>. However, <a href="http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/03/internet.aspx">studies</a> show that the impact of online infidelity is likely to be the same as that of physical affairs.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147877/original/image-20161129-10966-1ejlyia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147877/original/image-20161129-10966-1ejlyia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147877/original/image-20161129-10966-1ejlyia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147877/original/image-20161129-10966-1ejlyia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147877/original/image-20161129-10966-1ejlyia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147877/original/image-20161129-10966-1ejlyia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147877/original/image-20161129-10966-1ejlyia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147877/original/image-20161129-10966-1ejlyia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Virtual encounters could soon feel like the real thing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Archie Lukas</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With the increasing ease of access using VR equipment, the ways to cheat on a partner are also likely to proliferate. With that must go a note of caution. </p>
<p>The first issue is the impact on the relationship itself. The second is the opportunity for deception and manipulation that online encounters will provide in virtual space.</p>
<p>After all, what you see in VR is <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-you-see-is-not-always-what-you-get-how-virtual-reality-can-manipulate-our-minds-63652">not always what you get</a>, and nothing could be more true in the world of sex. </p>
<p>Everything that takes place in VR can be monitored and recorded. It can also be altered and manipulated. You have no certain way of knowing either who is at the other end of the VR encounter, or how many other people might be in on it. </p>
<p>While it may appear to be fun and exciting, a VR affair may also be a Pandora’s box. Once opened, our relationships may never be the same again.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67842/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr David Evans Bailey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If you find your partner having a virtual relationship with someone else – or with a computer-generated individual – is that the same as adultery?Dr David Evans Bailey, PhD Researcher in Virtual Reality, Auckland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/603912016-06-14T13:37:17Z2016-06-14T13:37:17ZHow Facebook could be threatening your romantic relationship<p><a href="http://www2.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/amp-a0034857.pdf">Deciding whether technology</a> is “good” or “bad” can be like trying to decide the same thing about food. That is, it’s pretty obvious that it’s good in some ways and bad in others. But we need to be mindful of both as we tumble deeper into a digital age.</p>
<p>Some argue that technology has an immensely positive influence on our closest relationships. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-19/mark-zuckerberg-q-a-the-full-interview-on-connecting-the-world">claims</a> that “when people are connected, we can just do some great things. We have the opportunity to bring the people we care about closer to us. It really makes a big difference.”</p>
<p>This is true. But we shouldn’t be too quick to generalise. Technology can also have a toxic effect on intimate relationships, one of which is Facebook’s own potential to exacerbate romantic insecurity.</p>
<p>The key features of insecurity are mistrust in a partner’s loyalty and fidelity; a deep rooted fear that they will abandon us, and a hyper-vigilance or awareness of potential threats to the relationship. It’s our psychological response to the fact that, on some level, life’s cruellest paradox is that those we love the most could (and often do) hurt us most deeply.</p>
<p>Insecurity can be a pervasive and enduring trait in some people but it can also vary in response to triggers (real or imagined) that heighten it. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jeffry_Simpson/publication/232513264_Influence_of_attachment_style_on_romantic_relationships/links/54dcbe130cf282895a3b1cc3.pdf">It has been well established</a> as a driving force behind relationship conflict and disharmony because people are compelled to cope with it by seeking unreasonable levels of certainty, exerting excessive control, and punishing significant others for perceived wrongdoings.</p>
<p>It would be simplistic to suggest that technologies such as Facebook cause romantic insecurity. People were insecure long before social media came along. But it is important to explore how insecurity is intensified or shaped by a social media platform that facilitates an unprecedented degree of fusion between partners’ social networks.</p>
<p>Facebook - which started life comparing the appearance of Harvard students - gives couples access to multiple features of their partner’s social life. This includes a visible list of “friends” (raising questions such as “Why is he friends with <em>her</em>?”, “Why is she still in touch with her ex?”); documented public interactions with such “friends,” and pictures, comments, likes, and posts, each of which can be all too easily surveyed and scrutinised. This can serve as excellent fodder for the insecure mind that is hyper-vigilant to potential relationship threats.</p>
<p><a href="http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/67215842/un-friend-my-heart-facebook-promiscuity-heartbreak-neoliberal-age">A recent anthropological study</a> revealed that some young people are indeed finding that Facebook permits a level of access to partners’ social interactions that fans the flames of romantic insecurity to uncomfortable levels. </p>
<p>One participant told of her reaction to seeing that her boyfriend had written a message in Italian to a girl on Facebook. Suspicious that she was being cheated on, she used translation software to understand the words, spent two hours “Facebook stalking” the mystery girl to find out what she looked like and who her friends were, and then eventually realised that, in fact, her “rival” had a boyfriend of her own. At this point, the suspicious girlfriend decided to stop using Facebook.</p>
<p>The same study highlighted that young people felt confused and conflicted about whether they were actually insecure people in the first place, or whether Facebook had played a major role in generating their insecurity. </p>
<h2>Insecurity settings</h2>
<p>Many suggested that insecurities frequently arose over issues they simply would not (and should not) have known about, had they not had a platform for such pervasive scrutiny and surveillance of their partner’s social lives.</p>
<p>One contributor commented: “I couldn’t decide whether it was the fact that I checked Facebook that triggered my not trusting him, or I already didn’t trust him, and Facebook just perpetuated it.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126539/original/image-20160614-22404-1071ym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126539/original/image-20160614-22404-1071ym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126539/original/image-20160614-22404-1071ym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126539/original/image-20160614-22404-1071ym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126539/original/image-20160614-22404-1071ym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126539/original/image-20160614-22404-1071ym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126539/original/image-20160614-22404-1071ym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Too much information.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Emily_Christofides/publication/24277485_More_information_than_you_ever_wanted_does_Facebook_bring_out_the_green-eyed_monster_of_jealousy/links/0912f506edb2d330b4000000.pdf">Larger studies</a> have supported the idea that Facebook seems to bring out the green eyed monster, arguing that it exposes people to ambiguous information about their partner to which that they wouldn’t otherwise have had access. </p>
<p>One of the fundamental ways that technology has changed society is by facilitating our surveillance of one another. It has been argued that we are now firmly living in an <a href="http://nation.time.com/2013/08/01/the-surveillance-society/">age of surveillance</a>. But there must be a line, beyond which we pay a price for such a high degree of surveillance, such as <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/11/09/uk-surveillance-bill-threat-privacy">human rights infringements</a> and excessive invasion of privacy. </p>
<p>Facebook delivers a language of surveillance into the realms of young people’s relationships, changing how people relate. Some are finding that there is a line to be drawn here too, and that the psychological cost of excessive access to romantic surveillance includes a thriving sense of insecurity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60391/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sam Carr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Social media can make us mistrustful and paranoid.Sam Carr, Lecturer in Education, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/583962016-04-27T10:07:29Z2016-04-27T10:07:29ZFrom generations of infidelity and pain, Beyoncé makes ‘Lemonade’<p>Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. But apparently a woman scorned is also the foundation of a creative tour de force. </p>
<p>On HBO this past Saturday – in a time slot generally reserved for feature films – Beyoncé released “Lemonade,” a series of music videos compiled into a short film that’s both eclectically cinematic and starkly personal. The songs and accompanying visuals are laced with poetry; each offers historical and psychological codes for hurt, betrayal, depression and renewal.</p>
<p>The story begins with her suspicions of a cheating husband. By the next vignette, we know he’s been untrue. </p>
<p>As a professor of representations in media, I get to spend my days diving into popular culture, and picking apart why it inspires and entertains us. </p>
<p>In “Lemonade,” Beyoncé contrasts her life as a deity with the struggle of being a black daughter, wife and mother. At a time when race, gender, sexuality and politics are merging in her public life, they are also colliding inside of her home. In Beyoncé’s case, this collision leads to familial strife ending in hard-fought reconciliation.</p>
<p>Where Prince had “Purple Rain” and Michael Jackson had “Thriller,” Beyoncé, with “Lemonade,” now has her own authentic, self-reflective masterpiece. </p>
<h2>A gift from mother to daughter?</h2>
<p>In “Lemonade,” betrayal chips away at Beyoncé’s self-identity and, at points, sanity. Who is in the house when she’s not there? What secret is her husband hiding? Who is this bifurcated man – a good father during the day who, in the middle of the night, contributes to his family’s demise?</p>
<p>In one of the vignettes, she says she knows he’s been cheating because she sees him behaving in the same suspicious ways her father did <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/09/18/beyonce-matthew-knowles-love-child_n_5845276.html">when he cheated on Beyoncé’s mother</a>. </p>
<p>Although some might critique Beyoncé for airing her dirty laundry, others could argue she’s using “Lemonade” as a teaching tool for her daughter, Blue Ivy.</p>
<p>In one sense, Beyoncé is telling a story of recognition and rebirth to her daughter in the best way she knows how – through song. </p>
<p>In another, she’s surrounding her daughter with a support system that all women need as they navigate becoming women. In “Lemonade,” tennis icon Serena Williams, <a href="http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/uchclf1989&div=10&id=&page=">intersectional</a> feminists and actors <a href="http://www.bustle.com/articles/108133-the-hunger-gamess-amandla-stenberg-has-a-new-feminist-comic-niobe-she-is-life-and-we">Amandla Stenberg</a> and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/zendaya-feminism-flare_us_5638d383e4b079a43c049928">Zendaya</a>, and <a href="http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2016/04/25/beyonces-new-album-fueled-by-fire-from-young-somali-british-poet/">Somali-British poet Warsan Shire</a> make appearances; all have stories to tell of being broken, experiencing a rebirth and emerging stronger.</p>
<p>While women of all races can relate to stories of infidelity, “Lemonade” isn’t made for them. Instead, it is a mature lyrical epic of the journey black women take – the attempt to triumph in a world that frequently tells us we are not enough. </p>
<p>Within black families in America, <a href="https://www.scu.edu/ethics/focus-areas/more/resources/family-values/">a legacy of struggle is passed from one generation to the next</a>. A dominant trope is that the mothers in this community are the ones that make the sacrifices. They are the ones that must stay, persevere, and succeed – even when their fathers or husbands mistreat them or leave. </p>
<p>This is the story Beyoncé is telling. And by interweaving these confounding societal structures, it makes her husband’s betrayal all the more poignant. </p>
<p>As images of a contented black women flicker across the screen, <a href="http://mic.com/articles/141642/here-s-the-malcolm-x-speech-about-black-women-beyonce-sampled-in-lemonade#.d1mUNK5Vn">an excerpt from a Malcolm X speech</a> tells viewers:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Their smiles convey resilience in the face of nearly insurmountable odds. </p>
<h2>For black men, society cultivates insecurity</h2>
<p>While Jay Z’s suggested infidelity isn’t excused, the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown and Eric Garner appear in “Lemonade” to remind viewers that the black man, too, has been literally broken and beaten.</p>
<p>Their sons, killed for simply looking or acting suspiciously, now symbolize the <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/trayvon-martin-son-black-male-code-135710728.html">pervasive fear black male persons feel</a>. The toll this takes has been highlighted by social work scholars Christopher Salas-Wright and Trenette Clark, who have <a href="http://www.universityherald.com/articles/11494/20140922/discrimination-mental-health-african-americans-caribbean-blacks.htm">shown</a> how the disrespect and hostility of racial discrimination negatively impacts mental health of black men.</p>
<p>How could any man – even a man as wealthy and famous as Jay Z – retain his psychological security in a world that cultivates his insecurity? </p>
<p>Of course, it is from “Becky with the good hair” (the other woman, according to Beyoncé). What more does a man who has everything need? More validation of his masculinity, of course.</p>
<p>By the end of the piece, it does appear that Beyoncé has forgiven her husband and father, deciding to let love heal the familial wounds. </p>
<p>Her decision to forgive – but clearly not forget – is her choice. This is significant, too: Beyoncé’s black feminism celebrates the ability of black women to choose out of love, not necessity. </p>
<p>The story of Beyoncé healing her black family is one of those rare moments where an artist ascends to icon status. </p>
<p>And by telling her truth, Beyoncé takes what is bitter and gives it new life, setting herself, her mother and her daughter free.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/okGJ-Fto36Q?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for Beyonce’s ‘Lemonade.’</span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58396/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Naeemah Clark does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Prince had ‘Purple Rain.’ Michael Jackson had ‘Thriller.’ And now Beyoncé has her own self-reflective masterpiece.Naeemah Clark, Associate Professor of Communications, Elon UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/248022014-04-15T20:37:06Z2014-04-15T20:37:06ZWhat are the chances that your dad isn’t your father?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46444/original/bvqmnfk3-1397543002.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is that you, dad? SBS documentary questions oft-quoted figures on dads who are not the real father of their children.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>How confident are you that the man you call dad is really your biological father? If you believe some of the most commonly-quoted figures, you could be forgiven for not being very confident at all. But how accurate are those figures?</p>
<p>Questions of paternity are built over the deepest well of human insecurity, for children searching to know who they are, for fathers wanting to know whose kids they are raising and for mothers uncertain about the strength of the bonds holding their families together.</p>
<p>I consulted on an episode of SBS’s Tales of the Unexpected documentary series, “<a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/programs/tales-of-the-unexpected/gallery/10-myths-surprises-about-paternity-just-who-your-daddy">Who’s Your Daddy?</a>” (screening this Sunday April 20) which looks at the issue in some detail.</p>
<p>The program explores the question of paternity certainty, combining three moving tales – each involving a DNA paternity test – with a poll of sexual behaviour in Australia and the US and an exposition of why uncertain paternity presents such a sensitive issue.</p>
<h2>One of the three?</h2>
<p>How many children are the genetic offspring of someone other than the guy who thinks he is the father? </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46403/original/785h7yt4-1397532665.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46403/original/785h7yt4-1397532665.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46403/original/785h7yt4-1397532665.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46403/original/785h7yt4-1397532665.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46403/original/785h7yt4-1397532665.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46403/original/785h7yt4-1397532665.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=981&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46403/original/785h7yt4-1397532665.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=981&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46403/original/785h7yt4-1397532665.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=981&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Who’s Your Daddy?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If you have read, heard or watched anything on this question, you will have encountered many estimates, from <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1415296.Human_Sperm_Competition">9%</a> to more than <a href="http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/phil/blphil_ethbio_patfraud.htm">30%</a>. The idea that almost one in three people might be the result of what we biologists rather matter-of-factly call “extra-pair copulations” titillates and horrifies in equal measure. </p>
<p>These estimates surprise most people when they first hear them. So much so that the numbers tend to stick in our minds. But do these numbers bear any truth?</p>
<p>The problem with most data on paternity is the near impossibility of obtaining an unbiased sample. A paternity clinic, for example, is a bad place from which to estimate the rate of misattributed paternity. Many clients are there because at least one party isn’t convinced.</p>
<p>Likewise, any study recruiting families – however randomly – might have more success recruiting mothers who harbour no doubts about their children’s paternity.</p>
<h2>Questionable figures</h2>
<p>Swinburne University sociologist <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/michael-gilding-12162/profile_bio">Michael Gilding</a>, who also appears in the SBS program, has thoroughly researched the origins of the popular belief that 10% to 30% of paternities are misattributed.</p>
<p>He <a href="http://inside.org.au/the-fatherhood-myth/">traced the source</a> of the high estimate – 30% – to the transcript of a symposium held in 1972 in which British gynaecologist and obstetrician <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/books-obituaries/8049068/Elliot-Philipp.html">Dr Elliot Philipp</a> mentioned an estimate from a small sample of parents.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This brief conversation took on a life of its own, despite the fact that Dr Philipp never published the findings of his study. As a result, his precise tests and his population sample were never identified.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Of the many studies that have attempted to estimate the rate of misattributed paternity, the higher estimates have tended to grab headlines, whereas more modest estimates sink without trace.</p>
<h2>In whose interest?</h2>
<p>Prof Gilding implicates two groups for inflating the public perception of misattributed paternity rates: evolutionary psychologists and fathers’ rights groups. </p>
<p>Evolutionary psychologists, according to Gilding, are so invested in their ideas about the nuanced mating decisions women make that they overestimate how often women mate outside their long-term relationships. My impression is that this may be an accurate assessment of <a href="https://theconversation.com/cunnilingus-assisted-orgasm-may-not-be-such-a-big-mystery-15832">some headline-grabbing research</a> but not universally true of the field.</p>
<p>Fathers’ rights groups represent men negotiating the heartbreak of family break-up. Some such groups also host strident activists propelled by a conviction that the law and society have been utterly corrupted by <a href="http://human-stupidity.com/stupid-dogma/mens-rights-feminism/men-ruined-destroyed-by-feminist-legal-system-driven-to-self-immolation-murder">feminism</a>, <a href="http://www.avoiceformen.com/gynocentrism/timeline-of-gynocentric-culture/">gynocentrism</a> and <a href="http://exposingfeminism.wordpress.com/what-is-misandry/">misandry</a>.</p>
<p>The blogs and forums of this netherworld amplify any finding, however flimsy, implying that women are rampantly promiscuous or cynical swindlers looking to part men from their hard-earned cash or dupe them into caring for kids that don’t bear their DNA.</p>
<p>They call this “<a href="http://www.mensdefense.org/STM_Book/PaternityFraud.htm">paternity fraud</a>” and some claim it “<a href="http://www.returnofkings.com/18694/paternity-fraud-is-worse-than-rape">worse than rape</a>”.</p>
<p>You won’t find on their websites a critical analysis of the sampling methods or techniques used to estimate paternity misattribution rates, just titanium-reinforced convictions that <a href="http://www.australianmensrights.com/DNA_Paternity_Testing-Australia_NATA_Laboratories/DNA_Paternity_Testing_Laboratory_Companies_Australia.aspx">25%</a> to <a href="http://www.rense.com/general51/chsup.htm">30%</a> of children are being raised or supported by the “wrong” guy.</p>
<h2>Why does it matter?</h2>
<p>In the ever-dynamic game of sexual relations, the one factor that has always weighed decisively in the favour of womankind is the secure knowledge that she is the mother of her children. According to an old aphorism: “Maternity is a matter of fact, whereas paternity is a matter of opinion.” At least it used to be.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46404/original/g48s93p7-1397532875.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46404/original/g48s93p7-1397532875.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46404/original/g48s93p7-1397532875.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46404/original/g48s93p7-1397532875.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46404/original/g48s93p7-1397532875.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46404/original/g48s93p7-1397532875.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46404/original/g48s93p7-1397532875.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46404/original/g48s93p7-1397532875.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paternity testing now much easier and cheaper.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fast-moving developments in molecular biology make paternity testing faster, cheaper and more accurate than ever before. Analysis of foetal DNA in the mother’s blood enable paternity assignment as early as <a href="http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/science-scope/new-paternity-test-pinpoints-father-8-weeks-into-pregnancy/">eight weeks</a> into a pregnancy.</p>
<p>Interweaving strands of evolutionary research suggests that paternity confidence forms part of the glue bonding men to their children and to the women who bore them. Undermine that confidence and men invest less readily in the subsistence and safety of their families, and become more likely to abscond. </p>
<p>That is not to say that all men are calculating Darwinian cynics. Many men make magnificent fathers to children that do not bear their DNA. But men get immoderately touchy about paternity. Insecurity over paternity has tectonically shaped much that is <a href="https://theconversation.com/shutting-that-whole-thing-down-todd-akin-rape-pregnancy-and-abortion-8989">least admirable</a> about male behaviour and <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-the-name-of-the-father-the-links-between-religion-and-paternity-7516">twisted societies</a>. </p>
<p>But knowledge about paternity can be empowering. It can reassure an uncertain father. It can vindicate an impugned mother or assist her in a paternity suit. And it can help a child understand who they are and where they come from. </p>
<h2>What’s the answer?</h2>
<p>So how many children are sired by someone other than “Dad”?</p>
<p>Population-wide random-sample DNA testing remains financially and ethically unviable. But to understand some of the behaviours that might lead to paternity misattribution, the SBS documentary producers commissioned Roy Morgan Research to poll samples of Australian and American women.</p>
<p>They asked a number of questions including whether they had conceived a child at a time when they had multiple sexual partners? I was surprised that no more than 2% of women admitted to this.</p>
<p>That suggests a low rate of misattributed paternity; but note the data are presented per woman, not per child. The poll does suggest that mating with multiple men around the time of conception is neither rampant nor pathologically rare.</p>
<p>These results marry comfortably with DNA estimates of misattributed paternity from samples that cross a broad range of societies which suggest the rate is <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/06/the-paternity-myth-the-rarity-of-cuckoldry">between 1% and 3%</a>, and with Prof Gilding’s estimate of <a href="http://inside.org.au/the-fatherhood-myth/">between 0.7% and 2%</a>.</p>
<p>The number of children whose biological father isn’t their social dad is probably far smaller than you’ve been led to believe, although the 30% figure seems to be a zombie-statistic that refuses to die. </p>
<p>But even a 1% rate of misattributed paternity still adds up to millions of individual children, world-wide, each part of an interesting, sometimes tenuous and often heart-breaking story.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/24802/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rob Brooks receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He consulted, without remuneration, with the production company (Cordell Jigsaw Zapruder) on the design of the paternity poll and the content of the show, and appears in the program mentioned here. </span></em></p>How confident are you that the man you call dad is really your biological father? If you believe some of the most commonly-quoted figures, you could be forgiven for not being very confident at all. But…Rob Brooks, Scientia Professor of Evolutionary Ecology; Academic Lead of UNSW's Grand Challenges Program, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/204472013-11-19T14:46:32Z2013-11-19T14:46:32ZCheaters use cognitive tricks to feel good about themselves<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/35501/original/k54z4vp3-1384772417.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Will you ever be able to forgive yourself? Psychologists say yes.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">wlef70</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Most people believe that they are moral and good. They also believe cheating on a partner is wrong. So how do cheaters live with themselves after their infidelity? Understanding how they reconcile their indiscretions with their beliefs about themselves can help us figure out why “good people” cheat.</p>
<p>Dissonance theory predicts that when individuals’ thoughts and behaviours are inconsistent, something has to give. Have you ever wondered why anyone would be a smoker these days, given what we know about the link between “cancer sticks” and cancer? A smoker knows that smoking causes cancer, but might rationalise it by saying “I don’t smoke very much” or “My grandma smoked two packs a day and lived to be 90 years old!” By coming up with these rationalisations, people are able to preserve the impression that their behaviours and attitudes are consistent.</p>
<p>Similarly, cheaters might minimise the significance of their infidelity as a way to cope with knowing they did something wrong. The authors of a new study published in the <a href="http://spr.sagepub.com/content/30/7/835.abstract">Journal of Social and Personal Relationships</a> propose that cheaters feel bad about their indiscretions, but try to feel better by reframing their past infidelities as uncharacteristic or out-of-the-ordinary behaviour.</p>
<h2>The experiment</h2>
<p>To test this idea, the researchers randomly assigned people to be either “faithful” or “unfaithful” in four different lab experiments. Now, you are probably wondering how you make someone cheat on their partner (or not) in a psychology study. Even if researchers could create such groups in the lab, you may think that they probably should not do it anyway (you know, for ethical reasons). The researchers got around these problems by ingeniously banking on the fact that when you are in a relationship, you might still interact with other people you find attractive, and the degree to which you interact with attractive others could count as a mild form of infidelity.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/35499/original/bcgsw3tz-1384769344.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/35499/original/bcgsw3tz-1384769344.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/35499/original/bcgsw3tz-1384769344.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/35499/original/bcgsw3tz-1384769344.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/35499/original/bcgsw3tz-1384769344.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/35499/original/bcgsw3tz-1384769344.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/35499/original/bcgsw3tz-1384769344.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A good man? Former president Bill Clinton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">PA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Participants were instructed to think about a past romantic relationship and then to think about someone, other than their past partner, whom they were attracted to while they were in that relationship. For example, if Ted from “How I Met Your Mother” was a participant in this study, he would have been asked to think back on his (now terminated) relationship with Victoria, and reflect on how much he thought about Robin, interacted with her, and flirted with her while he was with Victoria by answering questions on an “infidelity scale”.</p>
<p>Here is the really clever part: Participants were given “false feedback” (or inaccurate information) to make them think that they were higher or lower than average regarding past infidelity compared to other participants. So, if Ted was assigned to the “unfaithful” condition in this study, he would have been made to believe that his past interactions with Robin were especially frequent and intimate – essentially, that he was relatively unfaithful to Victoria compared to other people who completed the infidelity scale.</p>
<p>The results showed that participants who were made to feel unfaithful had more negative emotions than those in the “faithful” condition. Those made to feel unfaithful were also more likely to report that they did not like themselves. In short, they experienced discomfort about their infidelity. They also tended to downplay their infidelity, reporting that it was not important and did not represent them (“It’s not who I typically am”).</p>
<p>In short, people know that infidelity is wrong, but some still do it. And when they do, they usually feel pretty bad about it. But through various forms of cognitive gymnastics, cheaters are able to discount their past indiscretions to feel better about themselves. Since the negative consequences, at least in terms of how they feel about themselves, are diminished, maybe they do not learn from their mistakes – and might be susceptible to cheating again in the future.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This is an edited version of an article that appeared on the <a href="http://www.scienceofrelationships.com/">Science of Relationships</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/20447/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Benjamin Le does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Most people believe that they are moral and good. They also believe cheating on a partner is wrong. So how do cheaters live with themselves after their infidelity? Understanding how they reconcile their…Benjamin Le, Associate Professor of Psychology & Department Chair, Haverford CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/19092011-06-27T04:19:17Z2011-06-27T04:19:17ZOne flew over the cuckold’s nest: a birds-eye view of female infidelity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/1885/original/zebpairsaltbushsmall.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Wild zebra finch pairs keep their eyes peeled for opportunities to cheat.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Simon Griffith</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Infidelity between sexual partners is ubiquitous – almost as prevalent as the tight and long-lasting social bonds that couples form. </p>
<p>But thanks to <a href="http://sn-web01.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/331272/title/Female_infidelity_may_violate_goose-gander_parity_principle">a recent German study of Australian zebra finches</a>, a cheating partner now has a new excuse: they can blame both their male and female ancestors. </p>
<p>It now seems that the genes driving promiscuous behaviour have a long history of being shaped by evolutionary selection in both males and females. </p>
<p>The costs of infidelity can be high, with both males and females likely to desert an unfaithful partner, or at least reduce their investment into the partnership and any resulting offspring. Despite the risks, both males and females regularly cheat on each other. </p>
<p>The evolutionary forces underlying such behaviour have been the focus of research over the past three decades. The potential reward for a male that cheats on his partner is the opportunity to sire additional offspring with another female, without having to invest any parental effort into those offspring. </p>
<p>Throughout the ages, it is well known that high-status males such as kings, politicians and more recently <a href="http://theconversation.com/get-laid-or-die-trying-how-rock-stars-get-their-kicks-in-1784">rock stars</a> have produced many offspring outside the marital bed (but of course such behaviour is more widespread). </p>
<p>The difference in the number of offspring sired by such men, compared to those who remain faithful to their partner, is a very powerful evolutionary force – first described by Darwin in 1871 as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection">“sexual selection”</a>.</p>
<p>Successful cheats will, on average, leave more descendants (and therefore genes) in following generations than those males who remain faithful. Cheats will probably also produce children with their own partner and be less likely to be cuckolded themselves. </p>
<p>A male that is attractive enough to succeed in gaining extra-pair copulations with other females is likely to be highly valued by his own partner and she is unlikely to cheat on him. </p>
<h2>Be still my cheating heart</h2>
<p>In contrast to the male side of the story, the benefits of infidelity are not as obvious for females. An unfaithful female is unlikely to increase the number of offspring that she produces, and she will still have to invest as heavily in offspring sired by an extra-pair male. </p>
<p>The costs of desertion by a partner who suspects he has been cuckolded are also probably higher to a female because she is likely to have to bear the full cost of rearing offspring on her own. </p>
<p>Females typically receive nothing from extra-pair males other than sperm, so it has been suggested that the main benefit to a female from an extra-pair coupling is to gain good genes from that male for some of her offspring. </p>
<p>But despite much work, there has been very little evidence that the extra-pair offspring are better than within-pair offspring. There are already some theories as to why females are as likely as males to engage in risky extra-pair behaviour (and they typically are because “it takes two to tango”).</p>
<p>Wolfgang Forstmeier and his colleagues in Germany have added an exciting new angle to the debate by showing that there is a genetic correlation between promiscuous behaviour in males and females. Their findings suggest that some of the same genes drive cheating behaviour in males and females. </p>
<p>Strong selection on the behaviour in one sex will see the behaviour being expressed in the other sex simply as a by-product of the fact that all of us carry genes from both our mother and father. </p>
<p>A gene that makes a male particularly successful is likely to be passed on to his daughters as well as his sons.</p>
<h2>Tweet to woo</h2>
<p>In the study, Dr Forstmeier and his team analysed thousands of hours of video footage of male Australian zebra finches (<em>Taeniopygia guttata</em>) courting females. The team were interested in whether the males’ advances were rejected or accepted by the female, often resulting in a successful copulation. </p>
<p>The team were able to demonstrate the key “genetic correlation” in the propensity to engage in extra-pair behaviour. </p>
<p>They did so by studying more than 1,500 individuals over five consecutive generations and tracking the behavioural similarities between male and female relatives in a large pedigree. </p>
<p>This excellent and highly detailed study tells us how evolution works in sexually reproducing animals. It shows us that the genetics underlying behavioural traits are often very complex, and our ability to study the Darwinian selection of such traits is difficult. </p>
<p>While males and females are very different in both structure and behaviour, many of the genes that determine male characters will also be carried by females (and vice versa). </p>
<p>This means that as genes move across generations and spend time in either male or female individuals, natural selection will often be trying to pull them in different directions. </p>
<p>In their study, Forstmeier and colleagues show that the genes that help to determine promiscuity in males and increase their success in producing descendants, are quite costly when carried by females. </p>
<p>As a result many females in the population are participating in behaviour that makes little sense for them but may ultimately improve the success of their male descendants.</p>
<p>This study provides a fundamental understanding about how evolution and genetics shape sexual behaviour in socially monogamous animals. The study is of great relevance to humans and any other animals that form long-term pair bonds for reproductive purposes.</p>
<p><strong>_Why do you think people cheat on their partners? Is “it’s only evolution, darling,” an acceptable excuse? Leave your views below. _</strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/1909/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Griffith receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Infidelity between sexual partners is ubiquitous – almost as prevalent as the tight and long-lasting social bonds that couples form. But thanks to a recent German study of Australian zebra finches, a cheating…Simon Griffith, Associate Professor of Avian Behavioural Ecology, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.