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female
age
,
anonymous
writes: its funny that.....when men come on line asking for advice about cheating on their girlfriends, you never see many men being judgemental and condeming them.However, when you see a woman who betrays her husband, all the men are so quick to respond and the woman gets ridiculed..should it not be the same for both?? Do these double standards still apply today?? i do think so!!Why do some men feel that a man can get away with certain things and if a woman does it, she needs to be told what a deceitful and terrible person she is??[Moderator (Male) Note] Good Question! Reply to this Question
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male
reader, Yos  +, writes (15 October 2008):
 Men and women have different definitions of 'cheating', and different standards about it.
Men find sexual infidelity the most threatening and damaging. If a man's wife is sexually unfaithful, even if 'it meant nothing' and was a random one-off one night stand, it is very hard for him to get over it. But a degree of 'emotional infidelity' with no sexual contact is not nearly as bad, such as developing a crush on someone but not acting on it other than hanging out with them.
Meanwhile, women find emotional infidelity the most threatening. They find it much easier (in general) to forgive a fling, as long as it wasn't threatening commitment. But if there is a threat of losing commitment and emotional support, then it is much more serious!
I have encountered this directly. I spent too much time with a girl (not my girlfriend), but since there was no sexual contact at all, I thought the situation was ok. Which it was from a male point of view. But my girlfriend defined the behaviour as 'being unfaithful' and didn't consider the lack of sex lessened my crime. Sadly this incident was a major contributing factor to our relationship ending.
The reasons for these differences are largely biological, not cultural, or based on prejudice. So, whilst arguing about exactly what is acceptable or not can be healthy, trying to remove the double standard is futile. Men and women are just different in this, so there will always be different rules for each sex.
A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (13 May 2008): Well, I like to think I criticize both genders for cheating in real life and on here. In real life I have already lost a couple of male friends because they cheated on girls all the time and I never condoned them doing it. I think there's just an inaccurate perception that men cheat more than women because of the coupling patterns. 10 women all want to date 1 highly attractive man, and of course he cheats on them all. So the end result is that 10 women are left complaining "men are dogs" because 1 man is a dog. And meanwhile the 10 women keep ignoring the other 9 men out there for each male dog who would have disproved the cheating stereotype. And I also think that women who cheat on their men seem to actually get actually dumped for it a lot more often than cheating men get dumped when caught. Whose fault is that? And I notice that a man's opinion of a girl will be really affected by cheating rumors. Often he won't want to date her in the first place when he hears that she's a player. But women hear of a man being a player and they still want him. (Hell, many women seem to want him more BECAUSE OF THAT whether they admit it or not.) Whose fault is that?
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (13 May 2008): that is the way it is for the most part. Not with my advice however. I always put myself in the other person's shoes before I leave my answer. I wish more people would do that.
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A
male
reader, oldfool  +, writes (13 May 2008):
 I agree with the question. I've noticed that when women admit to an affair many men posters express great hostility. And when men are unfaithful (or even just go to strip clubs), many women posters are extremely hostile.
I guess it's because people can empathise with their own sex. If a woman says she had sex with a man other than her husband, male readers immediately put themselves in the husband's position -- as though it were happening to them. Similarly for women towards men.
On the one hand this is probably a good thing. At least you get a good cross-section of how men (and your man in particular) are going to view your problem! And if you're a man, you'll get an inkling why she reacted so strongly.
On the other hand, such views rather detract from the neutrality of the advice. If you feel bad about cheating on your boyfriend (or girlfriend), you don't need someone of the opposite sex to come on and condemn you out of hand. It will only make you feel worse, at least until someone of your own sex comes on and starts seeing your side of the story.
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A
female
reader, happytochat +, writes (13 May 2008):
In my opinion, I think men get put down more and judged more harshly for cheating then woman. But yes there is often a double standard in society about many things, which isnt fair.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (13 May 2008): Lets be fair! The same applies from women to women. I have seen women bash men and comfort women when they've had an affair.
I think it has to do with understanding our own. Men understand men and women understand women. Our problem (both sexes), is the refusal of one sex to disclose information understandable to the other that we could understand them better. Men as well as women, it seems, fear revealing to much about themselves to the opposite sex. So we have books (some evil) who try to portray what the other sex is. What we have, I think, is two distinct individuals classic differences, but so much alike in other ways. This distinct part keeps us seperated because we don't understand it.
There are reasons for affairs. I think it is also natural for men to understand a relationship where they to feel an affair may help them. I think women do the same, they understand other women and there own relationships with men, and the need that isn't being met causes them to stray.
The above may not be clear, sorry.
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (13 May 2008): Yes we do have an unbalaced view. If women were to dump men that cheated on them, and stop persuing men that were womanisers they would get more support from the male community.
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