Interesting - that is the exact phrasing I used in marriage counseling.
Heh. You can’t really leave out the STD and pregnancy thing though, can you? I mean, that’s a bit like saying if my aunt were a man she would be my uncle. Sure - if you ignore the presence or absence of penis, they’re exactly the same thing, except they’re really not, and it is sort of farcical to suggest they are.
If my guy wants to get off by looking at dirty magazines, or watching dirty films, provided that I’m getting my needs met, more power to him. But if he’s out diddling with some other real, live woman, there’s the chance of an STD or a pregnancy he could be bringing home to me. There’s the time, money and energy he’s expending getting her hot to trot, that he should be spending on me, etc. Some mythical beauty who disappears the minute he closes the magazine is no threat. Some real live person with feelings and wants and potentially a big pot with a bunny in it is a whole other matter.
I think the OP is musing on the asymmetry of experience here. Most guys can readily experience sexual satisfaction apart from their mates without the slightest effect on their feelings for them. But most of us are also quite uncomfortable with the prospect of our mates writhing in erotic delight under the ministrations of some other dude. But it takes a type of mental gymnastics that is entirely intellectual and remarkably un-visceral to map those two realities to each other.
As strange and unfair as that may be.
Evolution by natural selection is cruel.
Evolution has hard wired our brains to pass on our genes before anything else. Children, unlike the offspring of many species, require an extraordinarally long period of parental care. For women to pass on their genes, they require a stable partner who can secure calories and protein for her and the children. The survival of the limited number of children she can bear and nurture during her lifetime is the critical factor determining whether her genes survive her.
If their male partner is off sireing children by other women, she and her brood may then find themselves in a positon of having to share their food cache with another women and her children. The other woman will then begin to compete in whichever way possible to completely exclude her from the equation and she is in danger of finding herself abandoned and facing starvation.
Natural selection will not favor the development of a woman’s brain which is indiffenent to male infidelity. It will severally penalize it.
The contradiction is that the male maximizes the probability of passing on his genes by maximizing the number of offspring he sires, as opposed to their survival rate. A faithful man who nurtures his wife’s three children is at an evolutionary disadvantage of a philandering man who sires 20 children even if only half of them survive childhood.
Don’t forget, that for most of human history, getting enough calories to survive was the central issue facing people on a daily basis. It is under these circumstances that we evolved during prehistory.
I am teaching a course in Psychology and just recently discussed this subject.
Studies show that there is a gender difference in jealousy across cultures.
Men experience greater distress in response to sexual infidelity than women do, while women experience greater distress in response to emotional infidelity than men do. This study found the same results in the US, Germany, Netherlands and in Korea. (Source: From Buunk et al. 1996)
“Evolutionary psychology suggests men’s insistence on sexual fidelity ensures knowledge of paternity and, therefore, their willingness to commit to an investment in their children’s upbringing. Women’s insistence on emotional commitment promotes family harmony and continuity, which, in turn, provide a stable environment in which to bring up children.” - The World of Psychology by Wood, Wood & Boyd
So basically, men do not have a problem screwing around, as long as their spouse does not do the same thing! Women are generally less concerned about the actual infidelity of men screwing around, as long as there is no emotional attachment.