Hkizzle Posted July 25, 2009 Posted July 25, 2009 Just want your thoughts on the title of this thread. I'm not condoning cheating, or going to judge people that have cheated. Just trying to start an interesting discussion. I read a couple of interesting books recently. One was "The Red Queen: Sex and the evolution of human nature" which explains why humans act the way they do in relationships and in their sexual behavior. The other is "Lust in translation", where an investigative reporter went around the world and documented rates of cheating and how different societies viewed it. Biologically humans act the way they do in relationships because the way we act increased the chances of reproductive success. So any behaviors that enchances the rate at which we have offspring will be past on to our kids. Any behavior which does not increase reproductive success is not past on. Biologically men cheat because men want sexual variety, in order to spread their seed. So contrary to popular belief which is that men cheat if there's a problem with the relationship and the woman did something wrong to cause this, many men cheat because they are biologically driven to stray. Women cheat because they're driven to find the best genes or man possible, since she has to carry the child for 9 months. However the man with the best genes (alpha male) is less likely to be a good partner. So many women are driven to find a steady partner, and then potentially have sex with another man, and then get the steady partner to father the child. This also explains why so many women seem to be irresitably attracted to bad boys, but say they want nice guys or end up marrying nice guys for security reasons then get bored. Ok so all that is biological, without morality or social conditioning we'll be no better than cavemen. But the thing is even with the rules seems like cheating is really big. Seems like the rate of cheating varies in different countries but is around 25% for women and 50% for men. So has the rules really changed anything or just created guilt and many of us are unable to stay faithful?
crissie Posted July 26, 2009 Posted July 26, 2009 The age old debate... No I do not believe you (we) are created to cheat...Yes we were made with survival instincts, but this instinct to spread our genes across the species is as dead as the instinct to eat a huge meal once a month and starve the rest of the month (waiting for the hunters to get the next kill) I believe that no one "needs" to cheat but the choice to...These people are the same ones who really don't pay attention to any rules society establishes. I have seen people in open relationships where sexual variety was ok, there were rules to be followed, one being no more then 2 sexual encounters with same person...I've seen post on this site where they allowed partners freedom with others as long as they were part of sexual fun. People Cheat in these situations too. A lot of people cheat because they can get away with it (or think they can). I firmly believe it has nothing to do with a drug type addiction working chemically in your brain that you must battle. I have often wondered this ..Romantic Love (which we have in the US) is a very new thing, most societies did not have this type of relationships, so maybe the problem isn't that people need sexual variety but that we have labeled all these relationships as something that is blissful / forever / all enduring and then the government supplies the co-dependency by monetary benefits...Maybe we need to stop teaching our children that Prince charming comes along and makes life all better. Or stop teaching our sons that he is not whole and a good provider until he has met a women who will bore him a child... In essence giving them a false sense of wholeness from another person instead of from themselves....We all know people change and love sometimes can not endure it... -We trap people in this country to feel they have to hurry up and settle down and then stick with their decision until death do them part...IMHO
smarterthanbefore Posted July 26, 2009 Posted July 26, 2009 I do not believe humans are made to cheat. My reasons is that we are given the gift of Self-control, common sense and a conscience that tells us right and wrong. We just chose to only use those gifts when it suits us, in other words, when we want to be selfish, we ignore the self control we have and the common sense goes out the window. If we were ment to cheat, i don't think cheating would hurt so much. I don't think we would get jealous, or feel pain when our partner share thier body with another. Sure, a lion has many females in his den, but he is suppose to, you don't see the lionesses ripping each other to shreds or crying about it. Us humans were not made that way. When feel immense pain, lions do not. That's because they do not possess reasoning to understand jealousy and hurt, and we do. I believe this whole we are ment to cheat thing is just another way to justify having your cake and eating it to. Just my opinion. The fact that we have reasoning, self-control and common sense is what separates the human man from the other animals. We have consequences to our actions on a physical and emotional level that other animals do not. You cannot compare us to the other animals in the animal kingdom, because even monkeys do not possess the same depth of emotion humans do. I personally take it as an insult to say that I should sleep around because that is what the monkeys and the dogs do. We are the number one in the animal kingdom for a reason, because we possess rational thought, and the other animals don't. That is why cheating hurts so bad and break up families. Having sex with someone else while you claim to love your spouse is not rational, and most of us cannot emoitionally accept this behaviour. How can you say you truly love me, and do the one thing that would rip my heart out. Don't make sense.
Thaddeus Posted July 26, 2009 Posted July 26, 2009 Biologically and evolutionarily, human beings are wired to cheat. We're no different than 99.9% of the other animals on the planet in that regard. Why we cheat From the article:Perhaps for humans, monogamy does not come naturally, and biology predisposes us to seek multiple sex partners.Also see ScientificMatch: Chemistry From the article:It seems that men are wired to cheat, or not to cheat, regardless of chemistry. [Garver-Apgar, 2006]That doesn't make it right - there is such a thing as morality. But it is to say that monogamy (or, as my 8 year-old nephew calls it, "monotony" ) is not an evolutionarily natural state.
Author Hkizzle Posted July 26, 2009 Author Posted July 26, 2009 I do not believe humans are made to cheat. My reasons is that we are given the gift of Self-control, common sense and a conscience that tells us right and wrong. We just chose to only use those gifts when it suits us, in other words, when we want to be selfish, we ignore the self control we have and the common sense goes out the window. . I don't think the first two posters that replied got what I meant in terms of biological drives. Just about all our biological drives and behaviors exist because they helped us to survive and reproduce more during cavemen days. But a drive that enhanced reproduction or survival back then might not be morally right or acceptable in the modern world. Also, biological drive and higher reasoning are different things and they can come into conflict. In other words there are two types of desires, a logical one and a subconscious drive. Take hunger and dieting for example. If you go on a diet, you consciously don't want to eat a lot in order to lose weight, but your body doesn't care if you want to lose weight, you'll still feel hunger. Same thing with cheating. It's biologically driven, so we have to suppress it with morality and what we are taught to be right. If morality is not taught to us from an early age we would be like savages. In fact, the fact that cheating even exists shows that it's biologically driven. When does society tell people to go cheat? Yet people often do it anyway when they are taught it's wrong. Negative drives like greed, anger, lust are all biologically driven and conflict with morally acceptable behavior.
anne1707 Posted July 26, 2009 Posted July 26, 2009 I also think there is probably a lot of truth in the OP's argument for why men and women cheat. At the end of the day, we are still animals with an overwhelming instinct for survival and to reproduce. The issue gets clouded by bringing in the constraints of modern life, especially morality. In terms of the existence of man, organised religion, marriage, longer life expectancy are all still very new to us. We were cavemen, hunter-gatherers or however you may choose to decribe it for a lot longer than we have been bankers, doctors, teachers, etc.
sally4sara Posted July 26, 2009 Posted July 26, 2009 Biologically and evolutionarily, human beings are wired to cheat. We're no different than 99.9% of the other animals on the planet in that regard. Why we cheat From the article:Also see ScientificMatch: Chemistry From the article:That doesn't make it right - there is such a thing as morality. But it is to say that monogamy (or, as my 8 year-old nephew calls it, "monotony" ) is not an evolutionarily natural state. I am waaayyyy different than 99.9% of other animal in that I am able to comprehend cause and effect as well as a highly developed self awareness. We love in a way other animals do not. We can comprehend the feelings of others and see the benefit in caring about those feelings. So while I may feel the urge to cheat, I can stop and remind myself that my survival does not rely on doing so and it will negatively effect people I care about.
lora22 Posted July 26, 2009 Posted July 26, 2009 I am waaayyyy different than 99.9% of other animal in that I am able to comprehend cause and effect as well as a highly developed self awareness. We love in a way other animals do not. We can comprehend the feelings of others and see the benefit in caring about those feelings. So while I may feel the urge to cheat, I can stop and remind myself that my survival does not rely on doing so and it will negatively effect people I care about. Nice...that about sums up how I feel about it also.
Lizzie60 Posted July 26, 2009 Posted July 26, 2009 I don't quite see it like that.. I think that we are just NOT wired to be with only one person all our life.. it's different... We can be with one person at a time, and not cheat, but not for 15+ years IMO. I honestly think that we can be faithful for a short period of time.. For me it's not quite the same thing... although I agree that men and women DO cheat for different reasons.. Oh and I should add.. that women are able to be faithful for a much longer period of time .. even most of their life, if they chose to sacrifice their own happiness.. men can't... IMO
c-riouz Posted July 26, 2009 Posted July 26, 2009 I'm just gonna post something I already posted in another thread, because the analogy fits so well against the tiring, age-old argument of cheating being all "biological" ... Suppose you feel the overwhelming need to evacuate your bowels. Of course, this is strictly a physical phenomenon, driven by nerve endings in the colon and associated muscular responses. No higher reasoning, reflective or conscious thinking or emotion is required is in this process. Do you just void on the spot in the checkout aisle at WalMart? Or, perhaps, try to CONTROL YOURSELF and make it to a restroom? :rolleyes:
Stockalone Posted July 27, 2009 Posted July 27, 2009 We are biologically geared to cheat.... Granted, we certainly have the potential to cheat, just like we are capable of bashing somebody's head in. But I don't think that we are biologcally geared to do either one. So has the rules really changed anything or just created guilt and many of us are unable to stay faithful? People can be faithful if they want to be faithful. People who cheat simply don't want to be faithful. Even if an biological urge to crave variety exists and is evolutionary ingrained in us, acting on it and cheating still remains a choice. And not all people experience those urges (wanting to cheat, spread our genes, murder, or whatever else there is) or in the same way. We don't have to act on all our emotions. Procreation is a base instinct and yet, mankind invented condoms and the pill. And we have people who don't even want kids. Base instincts or not, we aren't ruled by them. It's all about choices. People who want variety can have as much variety as they want. All they have to do is stay single (or find a partner who shares the same views), nobody is forcing them into monogamy and commited relationships. But the thing is even with the rules seems like cheating is really big. People only follow rules if they agree with the rules or if the price for breaking the rules is too high. If cheating had more severe consequenes, people would cheat less.
Javelin Posted July 27, 2009 Posted July 27, 2009 I'll just say this, when choice is involved, then the biology theory goes right out the window. Researchers like to compare humans to some animals, but a majority of animals are not 100% free-thinkers like we are. That said, an animal will naturally act on instinct, while we'll act on a sexual desire provoked by emotion. Humans are at a point in the cycle of life were we don't need to procreate for evolution anymore.
AlektraClementine Posted July 27, 2009 Posted July 27, 2009 I'm just gonna post something I already posted in another thread, because the analogy fits so well against the tiring, age-old argument of cheating being all "biological" ... Suppose you feel the overwhelming need to evacuate your bowels. Of course, this is strictly a physical phenomenon, driven by nerve endings in the colon and associated muscular responses. No higher reasoning, reflective or conscious thinking or emotion is required is in this process. Do you just void on the spot in the checkout aisle at WalMart? Or, perhaps, try to CONTROL YOURSELF and make it to a restroom? :rolleyes: Haha. Love it. You're not gonna hear a man make the argument..."listen people, I'm biologically wired to take a crap. I know I should use my own bathroom, but it's in my "wiring" so if I gotta go, i gotta go". Or how about this. I'm a woman. Shaving my legs, nether regions, even further back nether-regions, under-arms is a pain in the butt. I'm physically prone to growing hair in all these parts. Why can't men just understand this and deal with me the way I'm physically made??? If all men want to justify cheating, then all women should go on a shaving strike. I know I know, poor analogy. But, seriously...if you don't want to buckle up your britches and commit to one woman, it's really very simple. JUST DON'T! No one is forcing any of you cheaters to do so. And really, is "spreading the seed" all that necessary anymore? Don't we have like a gazillion people on the planet? I think we're all set there. 1
Author Hkizzle Posted July 27, 2009 Author Posted July 27, 2009 Again I think just about many posters either didn't read my second explanation properly, or didn't understand it. I already said cheating is wrong and we control it through reasoning and morality. In the OP, I didn't say, "We are doomed to cheat and there is no choice", I simply said "we are biologically geared to cheat". The point is exactly that our biological urges are outdated and hence need to be controlled. If you look at every major religion, and laws in all developed countries, and socially accepted norms, they do just that, try and control people from being animals. The desire to even want to cheat comes from a biological urge. It's not a higher thought process. You can however use a higher thought process to supress the biological urge. In the same way you do it when you go on a diet. What's is interesting though is that despite the fact that we all know it's wrong to cheat, and there are so many influences on people NOT to cheat. About 25% of women and 50% of men do cheat.
LucreziaBorgia Posted July 27, 2009 Posted July 27, 2009 The way I see it, monogamy is a human choice that goes directly against the animal drive to procreate and spread genes as far and as wide as possible. Works for some, not others. Depends on their brain chemistry, really.
AlektraClementine Posted July 27, 2009 Posted July 27, 2009 What's is interesting though is that despite the fact that we all know it's wrong to cheat, and there are so many influences on people NOT to cheat. About 25% of women and 50% of men do cheat. Oh I wouldn't say it's all that "interesting". Of all the biological needs we try to suppress through moralization and evolution, nothing feels quite like an orgasm.
Author Hkizzle Posted July 27, 2009 Author Posted July 27, 2009 Oh I wouldn't say it's all that "interesting". Of all the biological needs we try to suppress through moralization and evolution, nothing feels quite like an orgasm. Yeah that's true except when there's guilt involved. See I live in Asia, over here a lot of men cheat, because a lot of men pay for sex and they don't even feel any guilt about it. A much larger percentage of people in the US have real issues after they cheat. The guilt they deal with is much greater and a lot of people feel crap afterwards.
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