Cheating: The Plain Truth

Posted: Wednesday 1 June 2011 12:02pm

Of all the vicarious condemnation Arnold Schwarzenegger has received for siring a now not-so-secret son with his housekeeper, the most vocal is not that The Governator was unfaithful to his wife, mother of his four children. Nor that it was with a trusted family retainer. That it happened over a long period in the Schwarzenegger-Shriver marital bed. That he kept the secret of the child’s paternity from his wife and family for more than 13 years (the boy was born within two days of Arnold and Maria’s youngest son). It is that his object of desire was, not to put too fine a point on it, a very homely woman. Put Mildred Baena next to his beautiful, elegant, famous wife Maria, a Kennedy scion, and many have asked: what was Arnie thinking? In turn, Younger You asked that question of respected sex and relationship expert Bettina Arndt. In an excerpt from her latest book, What Men Want – In Bed she explains:

There’s always been a steady stream of famous men caught with their pants down. Hugh Grant stopping for a quickie from a street hooker in his car. Bill Clinton unable to resist Monica Lewinsky’s thong panties. Tiger Woods not doing much resisting at all. As for Shane Warne …

The legendary womaniser President John F. Kennedy is said to have remarked: “You know, I get a migraine headache if I don’t get a strange piece of ass every day”.  Apparently Kennedy was wearing a back brace on the day he died because he had torn a groin muscle frolicking in the pool with one of his lovers.

It was the back brace that stopped him ducking down and avoiding Lee Harvey Oswald’s last fatal shot.

“A man is basically as faithful as his options”, joked comedian Chris Rock, and the options for famous men stretch around the block.

With every fresh sex scandal, the experts line up to pontificate on why these successful men, men who have everything, take such risks for the sake of sex.

Men who make it are risk takers, they suggest, narcissists who assume they don’t have to play by ordinary rules. Successful men are used to winning, used to getting away with it. Many of the theories make sense, but the real truth is that many of these are pretty normal men with luscious options jumping into their laps.

We shouldn’t forget there are many who resist – politicians, sportsmen, public figures – who manage to stay on the straight and narrow. But inevitably some will succumb.

In the regular guilt fests that follow a public unmasking of sexual betrayal, amid the cries of shame and preaching that follows, one part of the story is usually omitted.

It is assumed the married man is getting plenty of sex at home – that these married celebrities have no reason not to be satisfied, particularly as their wives are often gorgeous women.

As my previous book The Sex Diaries so vividly showed, that is a nonsense. However comely the wife, there’s absolutely no guarantee of a regular, harmonious sex life.

The testosterone-driven gap between men and women means sexual harmony isn’t so easy to achieve. Men who stray from their marriages aren’t always sexually voracious gluttons seeking a little extra on the side. Some are men who are looking for what marriage doesn’t always offer – they may just want to feel wanted.

What Men Want – In Bed, by Bettina Arndt (Melbourne University Press, RRP $34.99).

And check out Bettina’s website: www.bettinaarndt.com.au

by Jenni Gilbert

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