god forbade...must reading

   Here, a couple facts of life about cheaters and the most comprehensive summary of philanderers, up one side and down the other.

Cheating

    Most of us, when tempted, are willing to be a little dishonest, regardless of the risks.

    Even when we have no chance of getting caught, we still don’t become wild liars, our conscience imposes some limits.

Philandering

     Philandering is a predominately male activity. Philanderers take up infidelity as a hobby. They’re likely to have a rigid and concrete concept of gender, they worship masculinity. While they may be greatly attracted to women, they’re mostly interested in having the woman affirm their masculinity. They don’t really like women and they certainly don’t want an equal, intimate relationship with a member of the gender they insist is inferior, but far too powerful. They see women as dangerous, since women have the ability to assess a man’s worth, to measure him and find him wanting, to determine whether he is man enough.





    These men may or may not like sex, but they use it compulsively to affirm their masculinity and overcome both their homophobia and their fear of women. They can be cruel, abusive and, even, violent to women who try to get control of them and stop the philandering they consider crucial to their masculinity. Their life is centered around displays of masculinity, however they define it, trying to impress women with their physical strength, competitive victories, seductive skills, mastery of all situations, power, wealth and, if necessary, violence. Some of them are quite charming and have no trouble finding women eager to be abused by them.

    Philanderers may be the sons of philanderers, or they may have learned their ideas about marriage and gender from their ethnic group or, inadvertently, from their religion. Somewhere they got the idea their masculinity is their most valuable attribute and it requires them to protect themselves from coming under female control. These guys can consider themselves quite principled and honorable and they may follow the rules to the letter in their dealings with other men. But in their world, women have no rights.

    To men they may seem normal, but women experience them as narcissistic or, even, sociopathic. They think they are normal, they are doing what every other real man would do if he weren’t such a wimp. The notions of marital fidelity, of gender equality, of honesty and intimacy between husbands seem quite foreign from what they learned growing up. The gender equality of monogamy may not feel compatible to men steeped in patriarchal beliefs in men being gods and women being ribs. Monogamous sexuality is difficult for men who worship madonnas for their sexlessness and berate Eves for their seductiveness.

    Philanderers sexuality is fueled by anger and fear, and while they may be considered sex addicts, they are, really, gender compulsives, desperately doing whatever they think will make them look and feel most masculine. They put notches on their belts in hopes it will make their penises grow bigger. If they can get a woman to die for them, like opera composer Giacomo Puccini did in real life (and in most of his operas), they feel like a real man.

Frank Pittman

Psychology Today