Comments on: Help Me Harpies!: Pretty Is As Pretty Does

By: Blind Irish Pirate

Blind Irish Pirate — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 07:35:36 +0000

@beckysharper – Thanks for explaining. I was way confused, clearly I didn’t read it straight. I also appreciated your talk about morality – completely agree.

By: bellacoker

bellacoker — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 00:38:48 +0000

Tiger’s mistresses’ actions make complete sense to me, this is probably the most exciting thing that has ever happened to many of them and it reinforces what they have been told their worth is, being pretty and fuckable.

Tiger, on the other hand, is completely in the wrong because he negotiated a relationship with wife, and then when he was no longer happy with that relationship, he did not feel like he should address that unhappiness, or attempt to renegotiate the terms or give her a chance to build the relationship she wants with someone else, he unilaterally changed the terms, probably because he stopped seeing her as a person. And that is not acceptable. IMO.

By: J.D.Regent

J.D.Regent — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 21:27:01 +0000

To me there is nothing surprising about someone choosing different kinds of people to have meaningless affairs with than the kind of person you chose to make a life and family with. It makes sense, if it lacks a certain ethical and aesthetic sophistication. You get bored and want some strange. What always makes me sad is people who cheat with someone exactly like their spouses. I just feel like, they could have found what they were looking for right there in their own house but just stopped communicating or whatever happened. Slightly off topic, I realize.

By: Ocean_breeze

Ocean_breeze — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 21:22:43 +0000

@ BeckySharper

Agreed. And I have seen plenty in which a spouse plays like they do have an open marriage in despiration to try to keep a known cheater. It’s hurtful to watch and twisted to be around.

By: BeckySharper

BeckySharper — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 20:33:05 +0000

@joytulip: Marriage =/= monogamy. For plenty of people, sure, but not all.

Definitely true. But if a married man came on to me and said “Oh, my wife and I have an open marriage, she’d be totally fine with it” I would want him to answer a lot of hard questions before I’d believe it. True open marriages–where the parties have mutually agreed not to be monogamous–are pretty rare.

By: Av0gadro

Av0gadro — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 20:28:11 +0000

“It was always wild and crazy. As far away from boring, married people sex as you can imagine…”

Dammit, I have to remind my husband to stop being imaginative and experimental in bed. Clearly, our married sex life isn’t boring enough.

But seriously, I think this is another part of the problem. No matter how great the sex actually is, I think some people start to assume that married sex is boring, therefore extramarital sex must be better. That doesn’t mean the betrayed wife wasn’t fantastic in bed, just a socially approved ‘grass is always greener’ mentality. The idea that you’re giving up great or frequent sex when you marry is so much are part of our psyche that even if your sex life is great, it’s easy to imagine it would be better if you weren’t in a monogamous marriage.

By: joytulip

joytulip — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 18:55:42 +0000

Re: Who cares that they knew Tiger was married?

Marriage =/= monogamy. For plenty of people, sure, but not all. Judging from Bullock & Nordegren’s reactions, theirs probably were, so yeah, betrayal. And the mistresses probably should’ve known better, but there are couples who have an “understanding” and married cheaters who claim they do.

By: mischiefmanager

mischiefmanager — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:52:33 +0000

I think the friend is missing something key here: Tiger and people like him travel in circles in which women are required to be conventionally pretty even to enter. So you would expect all the women involved to meet that threshhold, such that it’s not a relevant factor. The only relevant factor is his motivation. But really, Dorkie is right. This guy deserves none of our attention and energy. Let’s move on-say, to skeezy quarterbacks in Pittsburgh.
*fantasizes about punching Rothlisberger in the face-or elsewhere*

By: baraqiel

baraqiel — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 15:37:16 +0000

This sort of thing is also distressing because it’s a way of policing the beauty standard. Dan Savage will get a letter, every so often, from a guy who says, “I’m in a great relationship with a beautiful lady who I love, BUT I’m only attracted to women who [don't conform to the beauty standard in x way]” and then they end up cheating on these women with the women they’re actually attracted to. I don’t know what James’ deal is, I don’t know what’s up with Tiger Woods and his apparent sexual hang-ups regarding class or whatever, but obviously these men are using different selection criteria for women they marry and women they have sex with — in these cases there are some virgin/whore overtones but that isn’t always the case. Policing who people are allowed to be into hurts everyone. The issue is not who these men are attracted to, the issue is their disrespect for the women they’re involved with. Your friend is basically saying that disrespecting ugly people is okay.

Moreover! I think the friend’s justification is very telling: “I mean, usually guys go after girls prettier than their wives.” This assumes that when guys cheat, it’s because of sexual dissatisfaction and only sexual dissatisfaction. They couldn’t have any sort of emotional motivation whatsoever — just sexual.

Grumble.

By: Joe

Joe — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 15:37:15 +0000

Beyond the ‘who should we blame’ thing here though is an interesting concept of the powerful feeling they are exempt from the rules. And powerful could be defined many ways. I never buy though the ‘and I have a normal life too’ story of the rich and famous, theres no way to me that they could have a normal life, and therefore, feel (some of them) that normal rules apply to THEM. Just me thinking aloud, Im not joe-splaining.