The Monogamy Gap: Men, Love, and the Reality of Cheating (Sexuality, Identity, and Society) [Hardcover]

Eric Anderson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 7, 2012 | Series: Sexuality, Identity, and Society

Whether straight or gay, most men start their relationships desiring monogamy. This is rooted in the pervasive notion that monogamy exists as a sign of true love. Yet despite this deeply held cultural ideal, cheating remains rampant. In this accessible book, Eric Anderson investigates why 78% of men he interviewed have cheated despite their desire not to.

Combining 120 interviews with research from the fields of sociology, biology, and psychology, Anderson identifies cheating as a product of wanting emotional passion for one's partner, along with a steadily growing desire for emotionally-detached recreational sex with others. Anderson coins the term "the monogamy gap" to describe this phenomenon.

Anderson suggests that monogamy is an irrational ideal because it fails to fulfil a lifetime of sexual desires. Cheating therefore becomes the rational response to an irrational situation.

The Monogamy Gap draws on a range of concepts, theories, and disciplines to highlight the biological compulsion of our sexual urges, the social construction of the monogamous ideal, and the devastating chasm that lies between them. Whether single or married, monogamous or open, straight or gay, readers will find The Monogamy Gap to be an enlightening, intellectually compelling, and provocative book.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Sociologist Eric Anderson asks troubling, controversial questions, and his answers might well unsettle and challenge readers. To Anderson, monogamy is a bankrupt illusion foisted on young men and women, which falsely promises that once they find true love, they will no longer experience ubiquitous sexual boredom and the desire to cheat. Leading the reader on an unpredictable journey, Anderson explores a number of related issues, such as why one should be 'happy' when a boyfriend/girlfriend is having 'hot sex' with another person; why gay boys masturbate more; and why straight men are becoming desensitized to gay sex. Anderson closes with his solution to negotiating sexual and romantic urges: a sexually promiscuous, emotionally monogamous relationship."
- Ritch C. Savin-Williams, Chair and Professor of Human Development, and Director, Sex and Gender Lab, Cornell University

"You may or may not agree with Eric Anderson's thesis, but The Monogamy Gap is a hard book to ignore. Sometimes somber, sometimes sassy, always engaging, Anderson is not afraid to challenge conventional wisdom about the ills of contemporary relationships. Monogamy, not infidelity, he argues, is the problem. Mixing scientific reports, imaginative sociological theorizing, and original interviews with gay and straight men, The Monogamy Gap is the most compassionate account to date of men's struggle to reconcile their lives with cultural expectations for sexual fidelity."
- Judith Treas, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Irvine

''The Monogamy Gap is a fascinating addition to the literature on monogamous and non-monogamous relationships. Weaving together sociological and psychological theory and research with the accounts of men, the book proposes insightful, original, and provocative understandings of cheating behavior. As always, Eric Anderson writes in a way that is both engaging and well-informed, making this book a delight to read. The Monogamy Gap is a must-have for every serious scholar of relationships, as well as for all those who are fascinated by the societal shifts that we are currently undergoing in relation to love, sex, and gender."
- Meg Barker, Lecturer in Psychology, The Open University; co-author of Understanding Non-Monogamies; and editor of Psychology & Sexuality

About the Author

Professor Eric Anderson is an American sociologist at the University of Winchester. He is known for his research on sex, gender, and sport. Anderson is also the author of eight books, many of which document the development of pro-gay attitudes in young, heterosexual men. His work examines how this changing culture enables heterosexual men to show love and affection more openly toward their male peers, and how openly gay male athletes are thriving in sport.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (February 7, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0199777926
• ISBN-13: 978-0199777921
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 0.9 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,088,918 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Not your grandmother's review of monogamy February 27, 2012

By Nicole Atkins

Format:Hardcover

The "monogamy gap" refers to the internal conflict people experience when they naturally desire one thing but are forced to act in a contradictory manner. Using an intricate interweaving of sociology and psychology, Dr. Anderson discusses the nature and limitations of the monogamous normativity that reigns supreme in modern society. He uses engaging interviews conducted in a large-scale research study to illustrate the point and is not afraid to challenge the often archaic and unchanging views of larger society, despite the clear boundaries these views instill upon people. Discussed are issues such as the natural desire to want sex, the truth about cheating, and the uncomfortable aftermath that occurs when one abides by the puritan doctrines set forth upon them, despite the nagging propensity to engage in sexual or bonding relationships with others.

It is refreshing to see the honest and direct candor the author uses to describe the dissonance people experience when their desires tell them one thing, but society demands something else. The interviews may make you uncomfortable, and the theories set forth may defy your current understanding of human behavior, but in the end you will thank Dr. Anderson for his provocation; for in the end, the truth shall set you free.

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Monogamy Gap, opening our eyes to sex and society. February 22, 2012

By Max Morris

Format:Hardcover

Reading The Monogamy Gap was an engaging, intellectually stimulating, and eye-opening experience for me as a young man interested in social attitudes towards sex and relationships. In an accessible style, the author uncovers the complex truth to modern beliefs about monogamy and cheating. The Monogamy 'Myth', as his book could have been titled, reveals the disparity between our public desire to appear monogamous, and our private desire to have enjoyable and fulfilling sex-lives in an increasingly sexualized world. Radical, provocative, and well-researched, I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in improving their relationships or learning about current trends in society.

23 of 41 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Brave New World February 23, 2012

By Gianmarco Manzione

Format:Hardcover

It is interesting to note that the two glowing reviews written of this book here thus far were posted by people who have not ever posted a customer review of anything on Amazon before now; this typically is an indication that these reviews are biased appraisals by personal acquaintances of the author. Here is an honest look at Mr. Anderson's argument by someone who has never met the man.

Mr. Anderson tends to speak of sexual monogamy and emotional monogamy as mutually exclusive. As a heterosexual married man myself, I find that sexual intimacy with my wife is itself a fundamental expression of my emotional attraction to her, and not merely the consequence of a physical craving. Mr. Anderson argues that the reason cuckolded partners tend to end unfaithful relationships is that they are culturally conditioned to do so. But again, in my own experience as someone who has been cheated on, I find that to be a simple-minded characterization of the dynamic that ignites in relationships in which one partner has been found to be unfaithful. My own response was a deeply emotional one in which I felt humiliated, emasculated and hurt--not because my culture taught me to feel this way as a victim of infidelity, but because these emotional responses were the primal reverberations of a universal humanity that transcends cultural boundaries.

Mr. Anderson's book reads like a chapter out of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, a book in which Huxley depicts women as mindlessly promiscuous and congenitally incapable of mingling emotion with sex. To them, the idea that a woman might sleep with the same man for more than a few days before moving on to the next partner is entirely foreign and suspicious. There is no emotion in the society Huxley explores in that book; there is only the relentless pursuit of pleasure and an unseemly revulsion at the slightest evidence of unhappiness or emotional vulnerability in others. I don't think I would have trouble convincing anyone that promiscuity has already become the norm (Mr. Anderson shows that infidelity occurs within more than 70% of relationships). But what we find in The Monogamy Gap is yet another step--perhaps the final step?--in the direction of the society Huxley envisioned many decades ago, one in which promiscuity is universally viewed as the norm and legitimized to such an extent that those who are monogamous are viewed as outcasts.

I prefer to live in a society in which people aspire to become their ideal selves rather than surrender to the ideal self's base counterpart. Is monogamy difficult and challenging? Absolutely. So is raising a child, getting up and going to work every morning to pay the bills, or toiling at 3 a.m. to achieve what dreams you may have to succeed beyond the confines of the 9 to 5 cubicle wilderness. The difficulty of these things, the unlikelihood that they ever will be easier to endure or attain than they are, is not a sufficient justification for abdicating your responsibility to others or to yourself. When Nietzsche advocated that you "become who you are," I wonder if he had the sort of individual Mr. Anderson would have us become in mind? I think my answer to what question is pretty clear.