Is it natural for men to cheat/stray

Would you say it is natural for men to cheat on their wives due to nature?

Would a monogamous relationship then be considered, unnatural?

Paul Joseph, a 2014 Wooster graduate, and Laura Sirot, an assistant professor of biology at Wooster, together with researchers at the Cleveland Clinic's Center for Reproductive Medicine, collaborated on the project, which considered the "Coolidge Effect," a phenomenon seen in mammalian species whereby the quality and quantity of a male's sperm would decrease with repeated exposure to images of the same woman but subsequently increase upon exposure to images of a new woman The research indicates that men, like males in other animal species, invest more (i.e. produce greater ejaculate volume with a greater number of motile sperm) when a little variety is introduced.

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Study by Wooster Scientists Shows Promise for Enhancing Male Fertility | The College of Wooster

Guys are always looking for an excuse for their bad behavior.

Women are actually more likely to cheat than men. Women also cheat earlier in a relationship.

Good grief! It's "natural" that if you take something I want to pound you into the dirt. It's "natural" to hop on any available female and hump the hell out of her if I'm feeling horny. It's "natural" to take a dump wherever I feel the urge.

We have long evolved our behavior beyond what is "natural". Now, it's just used as an excuse for bad behavior.

Bucky said:

Would you say it is natural for men to cheat on their wives due to nature?

Would a monogamous relationship then be considered, unnatural?



Study by Wooster Scientists Shows Promise for Enhancing Male Fertility | The College of Wooster

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No, I don't think it's necessarily natural. Both sexes are always looking at each other. What's going on is that men in particular are hard-wired for survival of the species and mating. A sexually attractive women signals the primal "fertility" to the man. I think straying is more likely a commitment issue.

Yes, it is natural. But plenty of things, like rape and killing competitors, are also natural. Lots of things we do that improve life are unnatural, such as living in homes, using agriculture, taking medicine, and pretty much most of what we do every day. We call it civilization.

Bucky said:

Would you say it is natural for men to cheat on their wives due to nature?

Would a monogamous relationship then be considered, unnatural?

Study by Wooster Scientists Shows Promise for Enhancing Male Fertility | The College of Wooster

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We may be asking the wrong questions.

Science, biology, already tells us that less than 5% of the over several thousand species of mammals (including humans) are known to be lifelong monogamous, meaning we have less "natural" reason to separate man from woman on this issue alone. Besides, sociology and psychology already tells us that women cheat just as often as men. There are too many studies out there that confirm this even if men and women cheat for different reasons. For men it probably comes down to a physical satisfaction issue, for women it probably comes down to an emotional satisfaction issue. That said it would be foolish to suggest this is always the case either way.

Our bigger questions are the implications of "natural" sexual impulses vs. social and economic reasons for being monogamous.

At the risk of oversimplifying the issue, the whole idea of monogamous relationships in the first place was for the purpose of property, ownership and investment, family line signification, and general social order. The reasons for our decisions over our human history for monogamy overall trump any real adoption of "natural" implications.

You could say with ease that monogamous relationships are unnatural, but then again as humans we tend to do make many decisions (and do many things because of) that are not necessarily all about adherence to our natural tendencies. If anything, the OP study you reference confirms a link between virility and adherence to natural tendencies as we assume them to be. But for the purposes of considering treatment options, and not necessarily about changing social order and norms.

Genetically, probably so ....morally, no.

Cheating on someone who trusts you indicates a lack of character.

If you've ever seen the terrible pain of someone who has been cheated on, male or female, you will never be unfaithful.

Ray410 said:

Cheating on someone who trusts you indicates a lack of character.

If you've ever seen the terrible pain of someone who has been cheated on, male or female, you will never be unfaithful.

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Well Ray, you can look at the numbers on how many men/women cheat on their spouse and they are quite high.

Does that indicate that the majority of people lack character?

Bucky said:

Well Ray, you can look at the numbers on how many men/women cheat on their spouse and they are quite high.

Does that indicate that the majority of people lack character?

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If you're in a committed relationship and have relations with someone other than your spouse w/o their knowledge and blessing... yeah. Don't know if that's a majority of people or not. I don't understand why people don't fix their relationship or end it before moving on.

Bucky said:

Would you say it is natural for men to cheat on their wives due to nature?

Would a monogamous relationship then be considered, unnatural?



Study by Wooster Scientists Shows Promise for Enhancing Male Fertility | The College of Wooster

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Not any more so than for women, I'd suppose. :shrug:

I think it's more accurate to say that people with certain traits are prone to cheat. They are often the same people who tend to be inclined towards promiscuous behavior, and issues with commitment, in general.

Bucky said:

Well Ray, you can look at the numbers on how many men/women cheat on their spouse and they are quite high.

Does that indicate that the majority of people lack character?

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Maybe, but I don't believe those numbers are nearly as high as pop culture represents them to be. Certainly not high enough to use as a guide for accepted behavior.

Winchester said:

If you're in a committed relationship and have relations with someone other than your spouse w/o their knowledge and blessing... yeah. Don't know if that's a majority of people or not. I don't understand why people don't fix their relationship or end it before moving on.

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I cheated on my ex-wife with her younger sister. Obviously I wasn't proud of my actions but things like that happen in a relationship. Never once did I not love my wife.

I ended up getting divorced, not because of that specific incident but I moved on and I have an amicable relationship with my mothers child.

I wouldn't say cheating on your significant other should be accepted moral behavior, but I hardly think it deserves the vitriol society labels it. Staying in a committed relationship long-term is rare IMO. I commend those that can.

Many people, both men and women have sexual urges, and are sexually attracted to many people and want to act on those urges. Society at large has deemed that not acceptable in many ways. However, this does not make it "unnatural".

BrewerBob said:

Yes, it is natural. But plenty of things, like rape and killing competitors, are also natural. Lots of things we do that improve life are unnatural, such as living in homes, using agriculture, taking medicine, and pretty much most of what we do every day. We call it civilization.

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^This. "Is it natural" and "is it something we should do" are completely different questions. Concluding that because something is natural it is good is a fallacy that is so often used to try to justify all kinds of views especially on monogamy, homosexuality, or that we're "supposed" to be living a certain way. :roll:

"Natural" is the key word here and I think the correct answer is yes. Why do men look, why are we voyeurs? I cheated on the love of my life because it was sex right there staring me in the face. Once it was over I never gave it any thought. I don't consider it wrong, it was one time and it is no big deal. If she cheated on me so be it. The sex drive is very powerful as evidence by animal and human behavior. Sex is "natural".

It's natural for humans to cheat in general. Not just men. This isn't a gender issue.

The urge to do so is natural. The act of doing so is a moral question, not one of nature.

Bucky said:

Would you say it is natural for men to cheat on their wives due to nature?

Would a monogamous relationship then be considered, unnatural?

Study by Wooster Scientists Shows Promise for Enhancing Male Fertility | The College of Wooster

Click to expand...

It is natural for both some men and some women to feel pulled to have sex with multiple people. Statistically, there are fairly equal numbers of people of both sexes who cheat and tend to do poorly with monogamy. In fact, women tend to cheat earlier in relationships than men do. Humans are not cats, and it's nonsense to say men are somehow the only ones who like diverse sexual partners when you look at human anthropology and sexual strategy, especially for women (which includes sex for bonding, sexual fluidity, frequent non-genetic paternal figures, etc).

Is it natural? Probably, but I think that's largely irrelevant. We do lots of things that are unnatural if we think the benefit outweighs the cost. And there is nothing inherently misguided about doing things that are unnatural. Further, human behaviour exists on a bell curve. Some people probably are best suited to monogamy.

Of far greater importance is that people learn how to just be decent people: only make promises they can keep, and actually sit down and think about their own cost/benefit analysis rather than just doing whatever a given society thinks they should.

If you like monogamy, great. Do monogamy.

If you don't like monogamy, great. Do something else. Polyamory, open relationships, bachelorhood... there are lots of options available to you for ethical non-monogamy depending on what aspect of monogamy you find undesirable.

If one agreed to monogamy and then failed to keep their agreement, it's nonsense to try to absolve themselves of responsibility by blaming "nature." The real problem is that they made a promise which, at some point in time, they decided not to keep. And then, instead of telling their partner you no longer wanted to keep that promise, they lied to them instead. That's on them. Either they had an ethical lapse, or they didn't think things through before they decided to agree to it. Either way, that's on them.

Nature may make monogamy a struggle that isn't worth the cost to some people, and there is nothing wrong with that.

But nature does not make people unable to be honest with their partners. That's just crappy behaviour.

A society that both values intimate honesty and recognizes the diversity of people would be the optimal solution.

Bucky said:

I cheated on my ex-wife with her younger sister. Obviously I wasn't proud of my actions but things like that happen in a relationship. Never once did I not love my wife.

I ended up getting divorced, not because of that specific incident but I moved on and I have an amicable relationship with my mothers child.

I wouldn't say cheating on your significant other should be accepted moral behavior, but I hardly think it deserves the vitriol society labels it. Staying in a committed relationship long-term is rare IMO. I commend those that can.

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Thanks for talking about this. Rather brave to say stuff like this in a place that can be a bit of a shark tank like DP. I think it is important for people to assess why it happened, and thus assess what they can do in the future to prevent it (which may include moving away from the monogamy pool all together). And I'd agree that saying that nearly half of people (which is the percentage who admit to cheating at some point) are just terrible human beings is obviously misguided. There simply aren't that many bad people in the world.

But I think it is also appropriate to be careful of the line between understanding our behaviour and trying to justify it as being not our fault "because nature." It may be one's nature to be non-monogamous, but dishonesty is a choice. Cheating always represents a failure of either ethics or forethought in the cheater. We all fail at these things sometimes and one failure doesn't make someone an evil person. But it's a failure nonetheless.

In order to come to accurate and useful conclusions about how we can behave better in the future, it's equally important for us to continue to place some onus on ourselves to behave better. Which includes recognizing our own nature (which is unique -- not all humans are the same), and also placing responsibility on ourselves to live our nature in a way that doesn't hurt people.

Bucky said:

Would you say it is natural for men to cheat on their wives due to nature?

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Well, wanting to mate with people who might not be your spouse is, I would say, natural. It's also natural for your wife to want to kick your ass when you cross from fantasy to reality and break your marriage vows.

Bucky said:

Would you say it is natural for men to cheat on their wives due to nature?

Would a monogamous relationship then be considered, unnatural?



Study by Wooster Scientists Shows Promise for Enhancing Male Fertility | The College of Wooster

Click to expand...

I believe it is natural and wired into the brain to want to be with others temporarily to (try them out). It's a piece of our evolutionary chain and hooked to our survival both personally and species.

Marriage is a man made institution attached to a religious belief.

Fidelity is a choice.

It is our belief which makes it right or wrong.

I cannot speak for men, but only myself.

It is not natural for me, as I am very loyal to the one I love. .

_Sal said:

It is our belief which makes it right or wrong.

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Yeah, but where do the beliefs come from? For example, is jealousy something that we learn or does it come naturally? How about trust? Are there people who would find it perfectly natural to be lied to and made dupes and not think a thing of it, or would they just be natural idiots?