Survey Reveals That Most Men Who Cheat Do So With a Less Attractive Woman
12 years ago

I’ve been to enough bars/parties/other places where alcohol and vagina were present with drunk friends whose girlfriends didn’t join us to know that this isn’t exactly breaking news. Also I think that picture of former ESPN analyst Steve Phillips and his mistress illustrate the title perfectly. From Business Week:

While stress and cultural factors may drive use, looks apparently do not, at least for the men. “If you sat down with 20 people who’d had an affair and said, rate the person you had an affair with ‘better looking’ or ‘worse looking’ than your partner, almost 90 percent’ll say worse,” Biderman says. “You can build a profile right now of an unattractive woman, overweight, whatever, she’ll still have a dozen men interested in meeting her.” Either way, the pool of potential cheaters—and customers—is huge.

The fact that 90% of men cheat down is not in the least bit surprising. I’d say that that number is right on point. For every man that says he’d only cheat on his wife if Kate Upton were DTF there are nine who would go balls deep in Doris Burke after fifteen beers and a few too many tequila shots. Why? All in the name of getting a little strange. Hell I’m man enough to admit that the few times I was a less than awesome boyfriend only one or two of the girls I was with were an actual upgrade. To be fair though I was also literally too drunk to recall what a two syllabled word like “upgrade” meant.

As the full article points out, cheating isn’t an overtly malicious act for men, but basically a genetic impulse. Don’t get me wrong though, that doesn’t justify it, it just explains it. From everything I’ve ever seen it’s all about drunkenness and/or availability. (*cough*) Steve Phillips (*cough*) Seriously what were you thinking!?! (*cough*)

A guy is certainly less likely to control his impulses when blacked out. The only times I’ve ever been unfaithful, or arrested, were when I was inadvisably hammered. I think it’s important to point out that correlation, although I doubt most women would care.

So how can a lady prevent her man from cheating when her being hotter than the potential mistresses is a non factor? Keep him sexed up as much as possible… or don’t date in college. That said anyone who cheats postgrad, like say on his wife, is probably an asshole. Not a cool asshole like Don Draper either, statistically speaking you’ve got at best a one in ten chance of being that cool. I don’t like those odds.