Society conditions men to cheat

The argument

This position holds that men have been socialised to falsely view themselves as superior to women, and that evidence increasingly suggests this is the root cause of all infidelity. The claim is about conditioning rather than character: what looks like an individual failing is presented as the predictable output of norms a man absorbed long before any particular relationship began. Research is cited in support. In 2010, a research team at the University of California published a paper investigating how patriarchal norms gender sexual relations. They concluded that "gender role conformity indirectly depresses sexual satisfaction for women but not men because traditional gender-based sexual roles dictate sexual passivity for women but sexual agency for men." The asymmetry in that finding is what proponents draw on: if the same set of norms assigns agency to one party and passivity to the other, then the entitlement belongs to the role rather than to the person occupying it. Men are conditioned from birth to see sex with a woman as a right, and men cheat because they subconsciously believe it is acceptable. This is not the only evidence of its kind. In a 2010 study at the University of Connecticut, researchers discovered that men who were economically dependent on their female partner were much more likely to cheat. Their conclusions pointed to the emasculating effects of this economic relationship, with men straying to "feel more masculine". Proponents treat that finding as confirming the mechanism from the other direction: infidelity rose precisely where the conventional arrangement had been inverted, which suggests what is being defended is the role itself rather than any feature of the relationship. On this reading, cheating is a socialised response to a threatened status rather than an individual moral lapse.

Context

Modern societies are inherently patriarchal. That is, our norms have been constructed in a way that privileges men. This includes within relationships. The same values that maintain gender inequality also create damaging aspirations for men and women. These place a high value on the male being strong, powerful and sexually prolific. Men are therefore socialised into an understanding that womanising and sexual recklessness, where the female exists largely for his pleasure, are qualities they should cultivate.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Much evidence points to feelings of inferiority at the heart of infidelity. Low self-esteem and belief in their own attractiveness or external appeal, results in people philandering to feel that they are not worthless. In these cases, a person cheats to validate themselves.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P3] Cheating is often caused by a feeling of inferiority