‘‘At least with cheating there is an attempt at monogamy’’: Cheating and monogamism among undergraduate heterosexual men

Abstract

In this qualitative research, I first use hegemony theory to describe the cultural forces that position monogamy as the only privileged form of committed sexual relationship coupling available to undergraduate heterosexual men. I then interview 40 heterosexual male students for their experience with monogamy and cheating, finding that the hegemonic mechanisms of subordination and stratification that stigmatize nonmonogamy consequently result in an absence of consideration of the problems associated with monogamy. I use cognitive dissonance theory to explain participants' desires for simultaneously wanting monogamy and nonmonogamy, calling this dissonance 'the monogamy gap.' Data suggest that participants who cheat do so not because of lost love, but instead cheating represents an attempt to rectify conflicting desires for monogamy and recreational sex.

Around Consensual Nonmonogamies: Assessing Attitudes Toward Nonexclusive Relationships

“…Studies indicate that discerning immorality is one of the strongest causes of the devil effect (e.g., Martijn, Spears, Van der Pligt, & Jakobs, 1992); other undesirable traits (e.g., low intelligence) have a much lower impact on the overall evaluation of a person. Therefore, overall negative assessments of people engaged in consensual nonmonogamy is not surprising because such situations violate many Western cultural norms about romantic relationships that encompass judgments about what is and is not moral (Anderson, 2010). The social intuitionist model of moral judgment (Haidt, 2001;Haidt, Koller, & Dias, 1993) is founded on the assumption that judgment happens first and rationalization follows after, if at all.…”

Wanting ‘the whole loaf’: zero-sum thinking about love is associated with prejudice against consensual non-monogamists

“…Monogamy is a dominant cultural ideology (Anderson, 2010;Conley et al, 2013), being that it is mandated by legal institutions and other injunctive social norms. For example, monogamy is central to Western traditional marriage, and nonmonogamy is proscribed by laws and legal decisions that criminalize behaviours such as adultery and bigamy (Emens, 2003).…”

Re-examining the effectiveness of monogamy as an STI-preventive strategy

“…First, although most people understand the benefits of monogamy, their perceptions of "being monogamous" are often inconsistent with the CDC's definition of mutual monogamy (which itself suffers from ambiguities-discussed below) (Conley et al, 2013a). Men in one study identified themselves as monogamous as long as they were not having intercourse with more than one person-despite engaging in other risky sexual activities with multiple partners (Anderson, 2010). Participants in another study made comments such as "I'm monogamous with whomever I'm with"-suggesting that some individuals define monogamy as a transient arrangement between two people, which could be followed by a potentially limitless number of other momentary "monogamous" relationships across a lifetime (Stevens, 1994).…”