EVERY MAN WANTS TO sleep with as many different people as possible.
Or, so claims Phillip Weiss in his bold and bewildering essay "The Affairs of Men," that appeared in last week's New York Magazine. According to Weiss, men of all ages are driven by a desire for sexual variety; in fact, Weiss comes clean, so to speak, and confesses that he is a luster--so much of one it "jolted [his] marriage." The agonizing longing for different partners has been his cross to bear all these years, and now, at age 52, he's ready to be strung up on that cross.
His thesis is that men's overwhelming desire to sleep around is taboo to talk about and even more taboo to write about: "When I decided to write about it, the novelist Frederic Tuten offered a warning about the sanctity in which Americans hold monogamy in marriage. 'You can go against it in life, but don’t speak against it. It makes you a monster. Who speaks against it? And this creates a dichotomy, between what we live and what we profess.'"
That's great rhetoric, but maybe both Tuten and Weiss have different experiences of literary and cinematic history than I do, because when I think about it, most great literature, beginning with trifles like The Epic of Gilgamesh and Homer's Odyssey have explored, even celebrated the man-dabble. More recently, many of the best (8 1/2, The Apartment, Crimes and Misdemeanors) and most popular (Fatal Attraction, 40 Days and 40 Nights, American Gigolo, Wedding Crashers) movies either chart or poke harmless fun at infidelity. Friends character Joey Tribiani is a walking monument to the charming and rarely-judged Lothario. In short, men's interest in sexual forays are not closeted. They are so well known, they are now parody.
Nor, does speaking against monogamy make one a monster. Take Wilt Chamberlain, for example, now famous for bedding more than 20,000 women. His need for "strange," (to quote both Weiss and Kris Kristofferson) actually boosted his reputation. So much so that most people under 35 probably know him more for his scoring in the bedroom than on the court.
By no means is TWR advocating infidelity, we are simply correcting Weiss's rhetorical assumption that to speak in favor of the sexual buffet (as Ben Franklin did) is new and transgressive.
More interesting than this claim is his assertion that women don't share the male interest in sex and that they really don't have a fascination for a diversity of sexual partners. Visual culture often gets things wrong. Popular culture overdoes just about everything. Most mainstream news isn't really news. And, most memoirs and confessions are in general, enhanced. But, even in these flawed genres, it is common to see women who want a diversity of experiences, a range of emotions, and a portfolio of sexual experimentation. Sex in the City, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, even The Golden Girls.
What Weiss pays too little attention to is the underlying emotional infrastructure that mediates and moderates fidelity, marriage, and what we might call the monogamous unit. Weiss says throughout that men in America are not allowed multiple partners. That's simply not so. Married men are, typically not allowed multiple partners. Most married men in America have taken an oath to do a number of things, one of which is essentially not to sleep with other people. And, chances are that topic of conversation has come up now and again after unwise party flirting or some other harmless offense, so even that oath wasn't taken before bridesmaids, preachers, and a bouquet, it was probably done via casual conversation in a bed after too much sangria.
For a number of reasons, both medical and emotional, most of us are not wired for a long-term, adult, emotionally committed relationship in which our partners get free passes to do other people. We are, however, wired for attraction, and we are wired for curiosity, and we are wired for fantasy. What is interesting to me is why Weiss makes the assumption that to want is to have.
There is something fundamentally American about Weiss' article--a crankiness, like that of a boy in Toys R Us--that he can't have what he wants. He feels cheated. Indeed, there is an undercurrent of ownership, of conquering, of possession that runs through his article, which makes me think that his desire for adultery may be less about men needing to sleep around than it is about him needing to consume.
Or, so claims Phillip Weiss in his bold and bewildering essay "The Affairs of Men," that appeared in last week's New York Magazine. According to Weiss, men of all ages are driven by a desire for sexual variety; in fact, Weiss comes clean, so to speak, and confesses that he is a luster--so much of one it "jolted [his] marriage." The agonizing longing for different partners has been his cross to bear all these years, and now, at age 52, he's ready to be strung up on that cross.
His thesis is that men's overwhelming desire to sleep around is taboo to talk about and even more taboo to write about: "When I decided to write about it, the novelist Frederic Tuten offered a warning about the sanctity in which Americans hold monogamy in marriage. 'You can go against it in life, but don’t speak against it. It makes you a monster. Who speaks against it? And this creates a dichotomy, between what we live and what we profess.'"
That's great rhetoric, but maybe both Tuten and Weiss have different experiences of literary and cinematic history than I do, because when I think about it, most great literature, beginning with trifles like The Epic of Gilgamesh and Homer's Odyssey have explored, even celebrated the man-dabble. More recently, many of the best (8 1/2, The Apartment, Crimes and Misdemeanors) and most popular (Fatal Attraction, 40 Days and 40 Nights, American Gigolo, Wedding Crashers) movies either chart or poke harmless fun at infidelity. Friends character Joey Tribiani is a walking monument to the charming and rarely-judged Lothario. In short, men's interest in sexual forays are not closeted. They are so well known, they are now parody.
Nor, does speaking against monogamy make one a monster. Take Wilt Chamberlain, for example, now famous for bedding more than 20,000 women. His need for "strange," (to quote both Weiss and Kris Kristofferson) actually boosted his reputation. So much so that most people under 35 probably know him more for his scoring in the bedroom than on the court.
By no means is TWR advocating infidelity, we are simply correcting Weiss's rhetorical assumption that to speak in favor of the sexual buffet (as Ben Franklin did) is new and transgressive.
More interesting than this claim is his assertion that women don't share the male interest in sex and that they really don't have a fascination for a diversity of sexual partners. Visual culture often gets things wrong. Popular culture overdoes just about everything. Most mainstream news isn't really news. And, most memoirs and confessions are in general, enhanced. But, even in these flawed genres, it is common to see women who want a diversity of experiences, a range of emotions, and a portfolio of sexual experimentation. Sex in the City, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, even The Golden Girls.
What Weiss pays too little attention to is the underlying emotional infrastructure that mediates and moderates fidelity, marriage, and what we might call the monogamous unit. Weiss says throughout that men in America are not allowed multiple partners. That's simply not so. Married men are, typically not allowed multiple partners. Most married men in America have taken an oath to do a number of things, one of which is essentially not to sleep with other people. And, chances are that topic of conversation has come up now and again after unwise party flirting or some other harmless offense, so even that oath wasn't taken before bridesmaids, preachers, and a bouquet, it was probably done via casual conversation in a bed after too much sangria.
For a number of reasons, both medical and emotional, most of us are not wired for a long-term, adult, emotionally committed relationship in which our partners get free passes to do other people. We are, however, wired for attraction, and we are wired for curiosity, and we are wired for fantasy. What is interesting to me is why Weiss makes the assumption that to want is to have.
There is something fundamentally American about Weiss' article--a crankiness, like that of a boy in Toys R Us--that he can't have what he wants. He feels cheated. Indeed, there is an undercurrent of ownership, of conquering, of possession that runs through his article, which makes me think that his desire for adultery may be less about men needing to sleep around than it is about him needing to consume.
