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"It&amp;amp;#8217;s just like the old saying goes: Boy and Girl, sittin&amp;amp;#8217; in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes an agreement in which Boy can cheat without repercussions. Not quite the childhood taunt you remember? Me either. But according to a new study, monogamy might be ruining relationships. Sociologist Eric Anderson studied 120 men and found that while a whopping 78 percent of them admitted to cheating, maybe we should be okay with this--most of the men reported that despite the cheating, they loved and wanted to stay with their partners. Evidently, dudes want to be emotionally monogamous, but they just can&amp;amp;#8217;t stop their bodies from craving sex with other people once the honeymoon period is over. You might be thinking, &amp;amp;#8220;Hey, what about my feelings when he has sex with someone else?&amp;amp;#8221; Anderson says that the pain you might feel isn&amp;amp;#8217;t a natural outcome of casual sex outside a relationship, it&amp;amp;#8217;s a socialized victimhood. If you and your guy were honest with each other, and you knew that sex with someone else would make him happy, you&amp;amp;#8217;d be into it and want him to go ahead and have sex with his cute new co-worker, right? Um, no. I don&amp;amp;#8217;t know about you, this study made me feel like crap. I contemplated eating ice cream for comfort, giving up on dating altogether, and/or calling my ex-boyfriend and apologizing for my huge overreaction when he cheated on me. It&amp;amp;#8217;s not HIS fault that society conditioned me to feel bad about it. However, I opted not to do any of those things. OK, I did eat ice cream, but only because ice cream is delicious. Look, I&amp;amp;#8217;m still reeling from how much it hurt me when I found out my ex was cheating, and I don&amp;amp;#8217;t think it&amp;amp;#8217;s just because of social ramifications. It&amp;amp;#8217;s because my ex chose the thrill of a brief affair over respecting me and our relationship. I think the guys in this study and my ex have something in common: they&amp;amp;#8217;re selfish (the guys even admit that they&amp;amp;#8217;re OK with sex on the side for them, but not their girlfriends. Nice!). To be fair, women cheat too, and it&amp;amp;#8217;s normal to be attracted to other people in long-term relationship. Monogamy IS hard and for some people, it&amp;amp;#8217;s not the right solution. If an open relationship works for a couple, they should go for it. But to me, resisting your impulses is part of why monogamy is great--you&amp;amp;#8217;re showing that strength of your love for each other is more powerful than your hormonal urges. There is a slight ray of hope, if you&amp;amp;#8217;re into monogamy. The study was conducted among undergraduate men, not older guys. It&amp;amp;#8217;s possible that their opinions might change with age, decreased sex drive, or when they stop spending Friday nights doing Jagerbombs with the sorority next door. Is cheating ever OK? Could you handle an open relationship? And is it just me, or do you think my ex-boyfriend is kind of a jerk? Photo: Thinkstock"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/sex-love-life/blogs/smitten/2012/01/is-your-sex-life-dwindling-sav>