Sexual Intelligence Blog

Myths About Infidelity

Every single week for the last 42 years I have spoken with one or more clients who have cheated or been cheated on.

Survey data regarding cheating keeps changing as social definitions of cheating evolve. And the invention of cars, telephones, and the internet—not to mention mixed-gender schools and workplaces—have multiplied people’s opportunities for a broader range of physical and emotional relationships.

I do believe I’ve heard every possible reason for infidelity, and…

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The Primary Sexual Concerns of Most People

  With all the current media attention to drag queens, pronouns, polyamory, and a few felons with penises demanding to be jailed in women’s cellblocks, it’s easy to forget that these aren’t the central concerns of most people.

While issues like these can be fascinating (and legitimately important to a very small number of people), most people’s sexual concerns are far more pedestrian.
It’s easy to forget that the central sexual concerns of most people do NOT involve orientation or identity.

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Two Kinds of Sex—Enjoyment and Identity

People have sex for many different reasons. The more obvious reasons are pleasure and closeness (and for a few people, conceiving). The covert reasons (which a person may or may not be aware of) include feeling attractive; feeling powerful; feeling normal; wanting something in return; and getting revenge on a third party.

This is all pretty standard stuff.

But for many people these days, sex seems to be about something else entirely—not so much about sex as an activity, but as an idea. An identity. A statement of self, of tribe, of belonging. Maybe as a focus of civil rights activism.

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