This program contains coarse language, mature themes,
and the strong opinions of Dan Savage.
Viewer discretion is advised.
We should talk about monogamy the way we talk about sobriety.
You're on the monogamy wagon and then you fell off, but you can climb back on.
Infidelity, cheating, straying—it's all really common.
All you have to do is turn on the television on any given day
to see the latest sex scandal de jour playing out.
If this ring finger is longer than your index finger,
there is evidence that you're more at risk to cheat. Let's see what you got here.
People are always trying to get to the bottom of this cheating phenomenon
as if it's really that hard to figure out.
Men and women cheat for the same reasons because they're bored or
horny. They need some variety. They're not getting their needs met at home
or they're just desperate to see someone else naked for a change.
It's a topic, not surprisingly, that I get asked a lot about on the road.
Is it cheating if my husband does dirty chat with his pregnant lesbian friend?
What should a couple do when one partner has lost all interest in sex?
I am married but cheating on my husband several times. I can't seem to stop.
As long as we are happy, my husband and I, should I stop?
We cheat because we're wired to cheat, just as
our closest primate relatives are wired to cheat,
just as everything was wired to cheat when our shared ancestors crawled out of the oceans.
We have discovered that we are not so different from many other animals.
Usually, the alpha male can have any female that he wants,
but when he's away, the others step in.
Men have concubines and hookers and mistresses.
Monogamy was for women. It was about assuaging men's fears of paternity rip-off schemes,
where they're raising somebody else's kids by accident.
Monogamy was really imposed on women. It was about the enslavement of women.
Why is the human's dick shaped the way it is?
Do you know what the human male penis looks like and how it functions in the vaginal canal?
As a plunger. It's designed as a suction to suck out what?
The lost car keys? No. The semen of other men that our bodies evolved to believe knowing it was there.
The male penis looks that way, functions that way, because we evolved in the circumstance of
women not being monogamous and men not being monogamous.
But if you do end up cheating it doesn't necessarily need to be the end of the relationship.
There are situations where cheating is the least worst option. I'm not saying it's OK.
I'm not saying it's the first option, but the least worst.
If there's something you need to do to stay sane and to stay married for your kids, do it.
I don't think that everyone who has cheated, and the high end studies are like 60% of men and 40% of women,
I don't believe that everyone who has cheated has to disclose, has to get it off their chest
because often times that takes the burden from your shoulders and just drops it on your spouse.
And you may find that he's totally willing to let you get up there and compare and contrast a little bit,
specifically if he's allowed to do the same.
You're married to somebody for fifty years
and that person cheated on you only once or twice. They were good at being monogamous,
not bad at it. They were good at it.
To get smarter about monogamy, I suggest you read 'Sex at Dawn,'
'The Myth of Monogamy,' and 'Marriage: A History.'
Yes, all three. They're all smart, informed takes on the topic.
Some people find being monogamous pretty easy. For some people, it's hard.
Everyone doesn't have to be one or the other, but everyone needs to be smarter and better informed about the topic.
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I'll get emails, and I'll get calls from liberal Christians
whispering in my ear, 'We're not all like that. Psst. We're not all like that.'