The reasons that married men have affairs are well documented: apathy, boredom, revenge, lust, excitement, etc. But what a lot of people don't ask is why on earth a woman would want to knowingly get herself involved up with a coupled-up man.
Take the intelligent, sexy, independently successful Julia Gayet. Whilst she has not been strung up by the mainstream French media in the same way that she would have been in Britain, Gayet maintains that she has been dragged into an alleged scandal unfairly and is therefore suing the French edition of Closer magazine.
But did she give up any right to privacy when she allegedly embarked on an affair with the French president, and what rights does a mistress have anyway? Not many, is the answer. Is that fair? Quite possibly; after all she knows what she's getting herself into. Being a mistress can be hard, so why would a woman do it?
For all the moralising in the media about infidelity when stories such as Gayet-gate emerge, the truth is that adultery is often in tune with the "hook up" culture to which modern women are accustomed. Our manufactured outrage and new-found moralism obscures the fact that to a lot of women, an affair seems like quite a sensible proposition.
Look at the cultural crap-storm has bred this perfect atmosphere for adultery. We - men as well as women - have more freedom, opportunity, and technology to enable us to have affairs than ever before. Ever since the loosened sexual morality of the Sixties, when sex was more openly taking place outside marriage, we've been chipping away at the conventions of marriage. Have stable relationships ever been as fragile as they are now?
Add the fact that college campuses have become meat markets, that internet exposure means we're becoming sexually more mature much earlier in life (yet we're getting married and having babies later than ever) and what are we left with? Huge numbers of sexually active young women who are not socially ready to "settle down".
To put it simply: who needs to the bother of a live-in lover? We have careers, social lives and sexual needs. Love is built on years of struggle, on compromise and discussion and dead-ends from which you claw your way out. I don't have time for all that.
Being someone's mistress, on the other hand, offers a relationship that’s physically gratifying and fulfils a number of emotional needs, minus the messy reality of sharing a life with someone. Giving up the privileges of marriage but maintaining all the charm of convinient non-commitment? That's a deal a lot of young women are willing to strike.
“Convenient” is an ugly word, isn't it? But I reckon many women don't need a man “full time”. What's more, they don't appear to want one. I'll leave you with the comments I gleaned from speaking to some of my twenty-something peers about why they went for married men.
“There was never a question of him leaving his wife, it was very much 'in the moment'. He respects my schedule,” one friend said.
“It suits me," said another. "He doesn't borrow my toothbrush or expect me to stay in watching TV because he can't be bothered to go out one weekend. With an affair you know exactly what you're going to get from a guy and give back in return, and he can't demand any more. Men act different around their mistresses to around their wives. I don't want to be a wife.”
“These relationships generally fizzle out when I get bored of the guy," added a third friend. "And that usually happens when they start bring their family in to it. That's not my mess to clean up.”
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