Earlier this month TIME Magazine came out with an article about “cougar sex” and why women in their “middle years” age 27 – 45 reported having more sex than any other age group. The story started out addressing one of my pet-frustrations justifying infidelity among men.
Men who cheat on their spouses have always enjoyed an expedient explanation: Evolution made me do it. Many articles (here is one, and here is another), especially in recent years, have explored the theory that men sleep around because evolution has programmed them to seek fertile (and, conveniently, younger) wombs.
The article then segues into a study about female sexuality using evolution to explain higher sexual gusto among women in between the ages of 27 through 45. The article was interesting but like other “science of sex” type explanations for sexual behaviors, I was disappointed in its lack of social contextualization.
I’m sure the author only had limited word space but starting the article in the context of infidelity increased my expectation that the story would drive home the argument that women cheat too and here are the scientific reasons why.
The article’s analysis of the study is still interesting but I’m not sure what to make of how the author presented the study’s theory.
Our female ancestors would have grown accustomed to watching many of their children — perhaps as many as half — die of various diseases, starvation, warfare and so on before being able to have kids of their own. This trauma left a psychological imprint to bear as many children as possible. Becoming pregnant is much easier for women and girls in their teens and early 20s — so much easier that they need not spend much time having sex. (Read about cougar cruises.)
However, after the mid-20s, the lizard-brain impulse to have more kids faces a stark reality: it’s harder and harder to get pregnant as a woman’s remaining eggs age. And so women in their middle years respond by seeking more and more sex.
I’m probably disappointed because I wanted more discussion on the sociology of sex and infidelity within this article. Here are some pressing questions and discussion points on my mind about the topic. Please chime in on your thoughts.
- Men who cheat don’t always cheat with young women.
- Today’s woman has more autonomy, power, and travel opportunities. How does that affect the cheating trend?
- Unfortunately, women cheat too but there’s still more stigma attached to a woman cheating than a man.
- In the monkey world, the alpha male goes around spreading his seed. This theory is sometimes used to explain male infidelity. But little is discussed about the female monkeys getting cozy with all the available beta monkeys. Also, monkeys pick bugs out of each others’ hair and eat them. I’ll leave it at that.
- Depending on who you talk to, isn’t infidelity about more than sex? Isn’t sex just the end product of cheating or a symptom of some larger personal issue?
Yuka Polovina 