Dr Laura is Full of Crap

On a recent appearance on the Today show about the Eliot Spitzer brouhaha, pop-psychologist Dr Laura Schlessinger, made the comment that she believed that wives were largely to blame when a husband engaged in extramarital sex.

“When the wife does not focus in on the needs and the feelings, sexually, personally, to make him feel like a man, to make him feel like a success, to make him feel like her hero, he’s very susceptible to the charm of some other woman making him feel what he needs,” she said. "I hold women responsible for tossing out perfectly good men by not treating them with the love and kindness and respect and attention they need.”

“I would challenge the wife to find out what kind of wife she’s being,” Schlessinger elaborated. “Is she being supportive and approving and loving? Is she being sexually intimate and affectionate? Is she making him feel like he’s her man? If she’s not doing that, then she’s contributing to his wrong choice.”

To that I say, Bull-fucking-shit!

There are many reasons why a man has extramarital sex, most of them having little or nothing to do with the wife's/partner's behavior. Most of the time it has nothing whatsoever to do with her, and Schlessinger is playing a cruel game of blaming the victim.

The main reason why men engage in extramarital sex is the "fault" of their essential natures -- neither men nor women, for that matter, are naturally monogamous, and some people, usually men, have a harder time living monogamously than others. Powerful men, in particular, have a stronger tendency to be non-monogamous than those in the general population, as history has clearly shown.

Straying men often have good marriages with perfectly good sex lives with wives they love, yet they stray, nonetheless. As one who doesn't have a monogamous bone in his body, the reason is quite simple to me -- non-monogamous people, men and women, above all, crave VARIETY in their sex lives. And while variety in the type of sex acts engaged in is part of that, variety of partners is the stronger attraction.

Thus, a wife can be a perfectly good lover, willing to please her husband in any way he desires, yet he will still stray, simply for the reason of having someone else for a change. There is nothing the wife can do to change this basic fact -- all the sexy lingerie, hot tubs, sex advice books in the world won't change that need for variety.

Men usually don't do this because of a perceived lack in their wives or because they don't love her any longer. It really doesn't have anything to do with love at all; it's all about sex.

If there is any blame to apportion in such cases, it would lie with our society's belief that the only ethical form of marriage is a monogamous one. As long as those who aspire to public office or other types of high profile occupations must be in monogamous relationships or at least give the appearance of one, regardless of their actual inclinations, these kinds of scandals will continue to occur.

If society would accept the reality that some people are more monogamous than others and that different types of relationships should be recognized to acknowledge this fact, it would be easier for those who truly want monogamy to find a like-minded partner and avoid someone who has to "talk the talk" of monogamy, even if they are unable or unwilling to "walk the walk" and vice versa.

Thoughts?