The American sociologist who teaches at the University of Winchester in England says monogamy has ostracised men from doing what they most want to do.
He writes in his new book The Monogamy Gap: Men, Love, and the Reality of Cheating, that cheating is the norm, not the exception to it, and it’s high time that people start embracing ‘sexually open relationships that coexist without hierarchy or hegemony.
In the study, Mr Anderson surveyed 120 undergraduate men – both gay and straight. He found that 78 per cent of those with partners cheated, ‘even though they said that they loved and intended to stay with their partner.’
In an interview with the Huffington Post, he says men want to be emotionally monogamous, though their ‘body craves sex with other people somatically.’
For the purpose of raising a family, he says, it’s the emotional – and not the sexual factor – that counts.
He says: ‘Our physical desires don’t die; they just change from our partner to other people…When the sex dies, the relationship has just begun.’
To Mr Anderson, it’s better for men to cheat and repent for it, since telling their partner that they want sex outside the relationship is a tried-and-true relationship-ender.
‘When men cheat for recreational sex – not affairs – they DO love their partners,’ he tells the Huffington Post. ‘If they didn’t, they would break up with them.’
