WEBVTT - Do Men and Women Cheat For The Same Reasons: with Author Jo Piazza 0:00:04.040 --> 0:00:08.119 Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever, 0:00:08.800 --> 0:00:12.360 pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe, and each week my guests 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:15.640 and I have conversations that put a new spin on pretty. 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:23.400 This is pretty smart. Psychotherapist and author esterre Perel says 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:26.720 that cheating is the only taboo thing that is universally 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:32.240 practiced and universally condemned. She says, affairs actually have a 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:36.360 lot to teach us about relationships. Now, I'll be honest, 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:40.560 I have been cheated on by well several of my boyfriends. 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:45.000 But I've also cheated. I know what both sides of 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:47.600 it feel like, and I've learned a lot from both 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:52.320 experiences and all those social norms. In Hollywood, portrayals often 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:56.760 depict men as the sex more likely to cheat. Studies 0:00:56.800 --> 0:01:01.240 show that the infidelity gender gap is narrowing, especially among 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:04.760 younger people. According to data gathered in twenty twenty two, 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:08.479 twenty percent of married men and thirteen percent of married 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:12.320 women admitted to having sex with someone other than their spouse. 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:15.679 Those numbers kind of seemed low to me, but I 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:20.360 guess that's just what is reported, right. However, infidelity rates 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:24.360 among women are on the rise. They've increased by forty 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:28.080 percent in the last twenty years. So the stats beg 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:32.920 the question, are more women having affairs or are they 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:39.000 finally just talking about it. That's the question that journalist 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:41.960 and author Joe Piazza set out to answer in her 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:46.600 new podcast, She Wants More. Joe is the national and 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:50.720 international best selling author of many critically acclaimed novels and 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:55.440 nonfiction books, including How to Be Married. She's the creator, host, 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:58.440 and EP of The Committed podcast, which is all about 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:02.680 romantic relationships, and before she was an author, she was 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:06.000 an advice columnist in New York City. She says the 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:10.640 Carrie Bradshaw comparisons were tireless. She's been published in The 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:13.639 New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time, The list goes on, 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:16.799 but one of her most viral pieces was for l 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:19.840 in which she chronicled buying her own engagement ring at 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:23.160 thirty four. It's clear that Joe has been obsessed with 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:28.160 relationships for quite some time. Now she's venturing into a 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:32.840 new aspect of them cheating. In this new podcast, She 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:37.079 Wants More. With iHeartRadio, Joe interviews dozens of women who 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:40.760 open up about their affairs. She explores the double standard 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:44.680 of cheating, Unpacking the guilt, the shame, and expectations placed 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:49.960 on women, but also the rush, excitement, needs, and desires 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:55.160 of women. Joe explores the many motivations behind these affairs, 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:59.800 speaking with dozens of women about how these affairs have 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:05.000 bln strengthened, and in some cases broken their marriages. So 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:07.680 today we're digging in to the other side of monogamy 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:13.200 to understand why women cheat and is it different than men? 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:18.800 As it turns out, the answer, it's more complicated than 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:32.280 you'd think. So, Joe, you're the host of the popular 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:39.520 Committed podcast. What is it about romantic relationships that fascinates you? 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:41.400 You know, I never thought that I would be a 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:46.920 person to write and report on romantic relationships. I'm not 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:51.360 generally a terribly romantic person, but I got started doing 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:55.040 it seven years ago. I got engaged late. I was 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:58.920 thirty four years old when I met my husband. We 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:02.200 got married on my thirty fifth birthday to try to 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:03.960 make it really easy for him. It's like he just 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:06.080 he can't fuck it up. Our Anna Rochary my birthday 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:10.280 is the same day, and I had no idea what 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:12.600 I was doing, like how to be a wife. I'd 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:14.840 been single and been really happy being single for a 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:17.719 long time. And I was also a travel journalist, so 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:20.440 I used that job to travel around the world and 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:25.480 interview people about how marriage worked, just I mean completely 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:28.840 self servingly, and wrote the book How to Be Married 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:33.440 and just discovered some really fascinating things about how to 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:36.800 create not just a working marriage, but like a good marriage, 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:40.520 a happy marriage. And the Committed podcast was spawned off 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.600 of that because I loved the stories even more than 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:46.040 the advice. I just liked to hear how real people 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:49.839 did this thing. I felt like we didn't hear nearly 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:54.080 enough about how an actual marriage worked. We heard about 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:56.359 the wedding, we heard about the engagement, or then we 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:59.000 heard about the divorce, but not the nitty gritty of 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:02.360 a marriage. And and now I'm seven years into this 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:06.960 and three children in and I'm forty two, and a 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:10.320 lot of people in my social circle seem to either 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:14.159 be getting divorced or having affairs, and I thought maybe 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:16.000 it was time to start reporting on that. 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:21.200 It's interesting because you say that it was spawned from 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:24.480 your own social circle, which I think kind of the 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:28.480 best reporting usually is, because it's like, if it's happening 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:31.480 in your world, it's happening in other people's worlds. Did 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:35.120 you have any sort of judgment when you were walking 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:35.640 into this? 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:38.640 Oh my god, I had so much judgment walking into this. 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:41.760 I don't think anyone gets married and says, gee, I 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:44.960 can't wait to cheat on my husband. But what I 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:48.680 quickly realized is that there's too much judgment when it 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:53.160 comes to what women do, and all women deserve a 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:57.080 safe space to share their stories. And I walked out 0:05:57.080 --> 0:06:01.400 of it thinking, you know what you do. Everyone has 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:05.320 their own path. Everyone should get to define what marriage 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:09.520 means for them and their spouse, because, frankly, the whole 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:13.120 idea of marriage and monogamy is a construct that was 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:17.279 created thousands and thousands of years ago by men to 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:21.000 work for men, and I think it's important to question 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:24.679 these things. I think it's important to question does monogamy work, 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:27.680 does the contract of marriage work? What is good? What 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:30.000 is bad? And what can we take away from that 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:33.279 and from the preconceptions that we came into it with. 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:36.479 Well, in the pod, you talk about these four types 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:39.920 of affairs, So what are the four that you saw? 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:43.200 There's the love affair, and these are based actually on 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:47.080 the research of a woman named Susan Shapiro Barrish. She 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:49.960 wrote a book called A Passion for More, and she's 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:55.240 been interviewing women about infidelity for thirty years and she 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:59.160 has found that women are having more affairs now than 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:01.680 they were before, and that they're more willing to talk 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:04.039 about them, which we also found when we started reporting 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:08.080 the podcast. And so she categorized the different types of 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:11.120 affairs that a woman would have. The first one is 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:15.320 love and I think that one is so interesting because 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:19.000 there's all these assumptions that if a woman were to cheat, 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:22.440 it would be for love. That's the only reason a 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:25.760 woman would cheat, for the emotional reasons. And in my 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:29.960 interviewing and in Susan's interviewing, the love affairs there were 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:32.800 less of them than any of the other kind of affairs. 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:35.360 Women seemed to be cheating. I don't want to say 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:38.840 that women cheated like men, that women seem to cheat 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:41.840 for a wide array of reasons much like men do. 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:47.200 The other is the confidence boosting, the self esteem affair, 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:51.520 and we saw a lot of those, and frankly, you 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:56.160 know the reasons for the affairs. I don't love categorizing 0:07:56.200 --> 0:08:01.160 them into just one category because I think that it's 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:03.960 always a mixture. It's always a mixture of the different ones, 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:08.960 and confidence building was a really big one. And almost 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:11.720 all of the women that we talked to said that 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:14.920 they just wanted to be seen again by their partner 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:18.400 and they weren't experiencing that kind of spark or that 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:21.040 kind of return of affection that they had early in 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:24.280 their relationship, so they looked for it outside of their marriage, 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:27.200 and that the affairs then gave them confidence not just 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:30.640 in themselves but in the workplace. It gave them more 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:33.800 confidence in their actual marriage. It gave them more confidence 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:40.080 even as mothers, because they just felt worthy again, worthy 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:42.280 of love, worthy of affection. 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:47.640 I've heard Esther Pearrell talk about how many affairs and 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:52.160 this has no gender, but happened not because really of 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:55.760 the other person, but because the person that is stepping 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:59.079 outside of their relationship is looking for a new version 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:02.319 of themselves mm hmm. And that one kind of fits 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:03.679 under that assumption. 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:07.199 Yeah, absolutely, And I think that's so true. I don't 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:12.240 think that people necessarily cheat because of their partner most 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:16.400 of the time. I think I completely agree with Estaire 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:21.120 that people are looking for something for them, They're looking 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:24.199 for a different version of themselves, an earlier version of themselves, 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:27.320 a part of themselves. You know that is often taken 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:29.880 away when we have children. We have kids, we lose 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:32.680 so much autonomy over our own bodies, and sometimes we 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:33.680 just want that back. 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:37.640 M So it's actually much deeper, so. 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:40.120 Much deeper, so much deeper, and so much more complicated, 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:42.800 I think than we ever really think about. 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:46.960 Did you come away feeling with any of these women, 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:50.120 because we actually have several clips from the women you 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:52.760 interviewed and we're gonna oh thought about them. But did 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:57.200 you come away thinking that any of these women could 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:00.960 have like dug into some of this stuff in therapy 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:05.040 instead of in an affair, or did you find it 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:07.480 to be kind of this valid outlet. 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:10.560 A lot of women did dig into it in therapy. 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:13.040 Some of those women had a therapist who said you 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:16.840 should go for this, this is someone you should try. Yes, 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.200 And I mean I have friends of my own who've 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:23.400 had therapists who have said, yeah, why don't you try this? 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:25.280 I think this is exactly what you need. 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:27.559 That is fascinating. 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:31.560 And there's other women who told their husbands what they wanted. 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:34.360 They said, look, I want something different in the bedroom 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:36.760 I want to be dominated. I want you to spank me, 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:39.679 and their husband said that I'm not into that, and 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:42.680 then that's why they went and decided to go have 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:46.079 an affair. You know, it's not always a complete lack 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.920 of communication. Sometimes there is communication and it's just what 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:52.120 they want or need just isn't reciprocated. 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:55.440 That's really interesting. A long time ago, someone said to me, 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:56.840 you can't yuck someone's yum. 0:10:57.840 --> 0:10:59.960 No, you sure can't. I sure can't. 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:04.880 Okay, So I want to start with Nicki. So Nicki 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:08.439 is a woman who was deeply dissatisfied with her sexually 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:12.199 uninterested husband, so she actually made an Ashley Madison account. 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:15.640 She's flooded with messages and she decides to meet up 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:18.480 with a man and she finds the passionate sex that 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:20.959 she's been craving for so long. So let's play her clip. 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:25.160 Instant Spark, Instant Flame, the hottest sect I'd ever had 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:29.040 in my life. Hours and hours and hours of sex. 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:31.480 And I was so proud of myself in a way 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:34.320 that I didn't just fall over this man and just 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:36.120 fall in love and have all the heart eyes. And 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:38.600 I was very mature about it, and I thought it 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:43.240 was interesting to recognize that, oh, so this is how 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:46.040 men do it. I didn't feel attached to him at all. 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:49.000 And the one I thought about it like, why are 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:51.760 men the only ones that get to call the shops? 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:54.160 Why are they the ones you get to have all 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:55.839 their sexual pleasures to build? 0:11:56.320 --> 0:11:57.160 There's a lot there. 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:00.439 There's so much there, and I mean there's so much 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:01.800 in every episode. It's crazy. 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:07.560 They are they're juicy because there's this thing in therapy, 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:12.560 in science, even book editing, where the presenting problem is 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:14.920 never the real problem. Like in book editing they say, 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:17.679 what's the note behind the note? And that's how I 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:21.720 feel about that clip. It's like, in my mind, one 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:24.640 of the things there is that she she wants to 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:28.080 feel powerful, like there was this impalance and she wants 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:30.760 to feel like a man. She wanted to test how 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:33.000 she would feel. What did you feel from her? 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:36.840 You know? I felt like she was a woman who 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:41.440 hadn't been getting what she wanted sexually for a very 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:46.240 long time and didn't know how to ask for it 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:49.800 or even exactly what she wanted. She just knew something 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:54.280 was missing, and once she opened the floodgates, there was 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:58.800 no turning back. I mean, she just went for it, 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:01.280 and I think it's it's so interesting. We heard this 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:03.360 over and over and you heard it in the cliff. 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:07.600 She compares what she's doing to a man, and I 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:11.040 think that we see that so much because we don't 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:14.440 have any other point of comparison. We've been talking about 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:16.840 male affairs. We talk about how men have sex, We 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:19.840 talk about male passion and the male gaze and male 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:23.960 desire so often, and we don't talk about it with 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:26.040 respect to women, which is why the only thing we 0:13:26.120 --> 0:13:28.439 have to compare any of us too is how a 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:32.400 man does something. And if I learned anything doing this podcast, 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:37.719 it's that women have affairs just like men. They desire 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:41.360 just like men, They have passion just like men of 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:45.360 all ages too. Women's desire does not stop at age 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:49.360 thirty or forty or fifty. But we just haven't talked 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:51.640 about those things enough. And that's what we wanted to 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:54.960 do with this podcast. We wanted a place to share 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:57.319 women's stories that we don't hear nearly enough of. 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:01.240 Well, this one was like particularly interesting to me because 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:04.120 it becomes a lifestyle for Nicki. She went on to 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:07.680 cheat on her husband for twelve years in counting how 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:09.920 did she say that this changed her marriage? 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:13.640 NICKI said that for a long time, it changed it 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:18.800 for the better, that she was actually much happier with 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:22.120 her husband. And we heard this a lot, that women 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:25.920 were happier in their marriages because they were finally getting 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:29.720 what they needed somewhere else, and then the resentment went away. 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:34.200 I think resentment is such a huge issue in a marriage. It's, 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:36.920 you know, you expect this person to give you all 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:39.520 of the things, to be your everything, to be your soulmate. 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:43.480 It's such a bullshit construction, and it's just the rom 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:46.640 com version that we've been fed for so long, like 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:50.480 this one person walking down the aisle and seeing them 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:54.520 and finally marrying them is going to change everything and 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:58.480 make your life better. And that's not true. No one 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:01.040 person can be your everything. It can't be your best friend, 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:03.520 your soulmate, the best sex you've ever had, your tennis partner, 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:06.920 all of the stuff, and so sometimes, and I'm gonna 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:10.640 sound really crass here, sometimes you have to outsource things. 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:15.720 Like you know, I spend so much time with my friends, 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:18.760 both male and female, and have so many talks with 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:21.560 them that I would never have with my husband. I 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:24.080 am not outsourcing sex. But that's what some of these 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:24.760 women are doing. 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:28.360 I guess the question is is what are you comfortable outsourcing? 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:32.800 Because to me, I have zero judgment in terms of 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:38.080 women or men finding what they want. What I can't 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:41.640 seem to reconcile is the lie. And that's just a 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:45.360 personal thing, right. Everybody has their own, you know, feeling 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:48.720 of what's okay and what's not. But yeah, as I 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:51.040 listen to these clips, that's the one thing that I'm 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:52.280 having trouble with. 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:55.560 Yeah, same, same, I have to say. I mean, the 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:58.720 one thing that I have difficulty with is the deception, 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:02.240 and especially as one who was cheated on by boyfriends 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:04.240 and I know how much that broke me and how 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:09.640 terrible it was. The lying aspect sucks, and that is 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:14.920 what is completely destructive, honestly. But the rest of it 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:18.240 I don't have any any judgment about. And I think 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:21.160 a lot of people, you know, I've talked talked to 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:24.320 talk to some people who they say they're judgmental about 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:27.240 the lying, but they're really judgmental about the sex. And 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:29.840 I think that's so interesting because it just it feels 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:33.480 almost more culturally acceptable for us to be like, no, 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:36.160 but lying is wrong and we don't want to admit, like, oh, 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:38.560 but the sex parts making me feel a little squishy too. 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:41.840 And I think about that a lot because I was 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:44.760 I was judgmental about all of it. Walking into this podcast, 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:46.680 I was like, well, you're only supposed to have sex 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:50.800 with your husband? Why and why is sex such a 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:54.600 thing that can only happen with like such a big 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:57.560 thing in the marriage. When when a marriage is really 0:16:57.560 --> 0:17:01.600 a business partnership in so many ways and a friendship partnership, 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:04.000 and you're raising kids together, you're building a home together, 0:17:04.680 --> 0:17:07.439 why does the sex have to be entwined with that? 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:11.000 Which feels kind of esoteric, But this podcast got me 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:13.159 bringing up all of these esoteric questions. 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:16.159 Well, I guess you're picking a totally different partner if 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:21.399 you're not thinking about the sexual aspect, potentially totally right. 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:24.440 I mean, then you might be picking a different partner. 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:27.520 But maybe you should pick a different partner because the 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:29.920 person that you're having the greatest sex of your life 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:33.720 with may not be the person that you're meant to 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:35.280 lead a life with. 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:38.920 It's interesting, it sounds like you have really been able 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:40.720 to separate the two I. 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:43.080 Have I have, But then again, I think I can 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:47.480 separate them as a reporter and as an observer. But 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:49.560 you know, if I found out that my husband was 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:52.720 treating of me, I'd probably lose my fucking mind. 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:58.200 So there was data released last year that says in 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:01.639 fidelity rates among women are on they and they've increased 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:05.520 by forty percent since the early nineties. Forty percent, and 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:09.120 that's reported, so I can only imagine what's unreported. Yeah, 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:12.920 data from married adults ages eighteen to twenty nine say 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:16.600 that women are slightly more guilty of infidelity even and 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:19.680 in adults thirty years and older, men are more likely 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:22.159 to cheat. So women are more likely to cheat when 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:25.119 they're younger, and women are more likely to cheat post thirty. 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:26.120 What do you make of that? 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:27.000 You know? 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:30.359 I think we also have to think about when it 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:33.560 comes to those stats, who is more comfortable talking about 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:39.119 it too? But I have to say I think women 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:45.399 are getting a lot more comfortable overall confessing this. I 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:48.760 think of what this study had been done ten twenty 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:52.240 years ago, women wouldn't have talked about it. It did 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:55.199 not feel safe to talk about having an affair then, 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:58.600 and for so much of human history it wasn't safe 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:01.000 for a woman to commit adult treat and it was illegal. 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:04.919 A woman could be jailed or killed for having an affair. 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:09.080 And I think we finally reached a place, at least 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:12.880 in America, where more and more women feel comfortable admitting it. 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:17.600 So we're seeing those statistics rise a lot when people 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:20.320 are doing these studies. Also, people are finally doing studies 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:23.560 on this, and that was something interesting that we found 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:27.119 reporting this podcast, because we talked to so many experts 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:30.960 and they were studying this at the university level, and 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:34.760 they were still mocked by their fellow academics for studying 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:37.480 the sex lives of people, when so many people would 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:42.000 consider their sex lives such an integral part of their 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:43.439 entire lives. 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:47.000 Well, it's interesting that you use the word comfortable because 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:50.880 you interviewed Susan Shapiro Bearrish, who's you mentioned the book 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:53.919 that inspired your podcast, and in that first episode, she 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:56.560 says women are feeling more and more like they deserve 0:19:56.840 --> 0:19:59.960 to have an affair, and deserve is way different than comfortable. 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:00.880 Yeah. 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:03.520 Yeah, And we heard that over and over again that 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:05.879 more and more women felt like they deserved it, that 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:09.359 more and more women described their affair as self care, 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:11.919 as the way that they were taking care of themselves, 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:15.040 and I going into this podcast, I would not have 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:17.240 been like, oh, yeah, of course, having an affair is 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:20.600 self care, like your dry brush, you do some yoga, 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:24.120 you just go have sex with someone who's not your husband. 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:28.280 But that's what we kept hearing over and over again. 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:29.320 It wasn't a one off. 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:34.399 So I'm fascinated by the gender differentiation here because, like 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:38.520 we constantly talk about if men and women cheat for 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:42.359 different reasons, and esta Verell writes in her book that 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:45.520 there's this generalization that men cheat out of boredom and 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:48.840 fear of intimacy, and women cheat out of loneliness and 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:52.200 hunger for intimacy. I'm dying to know what your take 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:55.080 is after these all of these episodes. 0:20:55.680 --> 0:20:58.280 I really think that that is such a stereotype and 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:00.920 I don't think it's true. I saw so many women 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:04.920 cheat for the reasons that we believe men cheat, and 0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:09.960 I think men are hungry for the same emotional things 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:12.680 that women are, and that women are hungry for the 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:16.560 same kinds of physical things that men are. I don't 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:19.200 think that there is a huge dichotomy in how men 0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:21.160 and women cheat, except for one thing I do believe 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:23.359 that women are better at covering it up. Yeah. 0:21:23.400 --> 0:21:28.119 I've heard that too, that they're more meticulous like that 0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:30.320 first woman Nikki was twelve. 0:21:30.080 --> 0:21:35.080 Plus years never got caught, Now got caught. Okay, let's 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:37.960 talk about Katie. So Katie has a very specific type 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:41.080 of affair. This is a love affair that you mentioned. 0:21:41.119 --> 0:21:43.360 So Katie and her husband move in with her husband's 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:47.120 best friend when they decide to relocate to la and 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:49.960 in this new city, Katie feels free to explore new 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:52.760 things and aspects of herself to the extent that she 0:21:52.960 --> 0:21:57.840 almost doesn't feel married anymore. Romantic tension builds between Katie 0:21:57.880 --> 0:22:01.280 and Phil, her husband's best friends, and as they spend 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:02.760 more and more time together. 0:22:03.359 --> 0:22:05.680 This one really threw me for a loop. 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:08.720 We started to push boundaries, like we would always be 0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:11.440 sitting next to each other, we would hold hands, we 0:22:11.440 --> 0:22:14.600 would put our arms around each other. No one seemed 0:22:14.640 --> 0:22:16.840 to be bothered by this. No one seemed to notice 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:20.000 or care. My husband never brought it up, but I 0:22:20.240 --> 0:22:23.800 was starting to feel like this tension building. It was 0:22:23.840 --> 0:22:27.560 definitely like a high. I mean, I know, love can 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:30.320 be such a high, and you feel like you're not 0:22:30.440 --> 0:22:35.200 in control and there's just this other worldliness to the situation. 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:37.160 So Katie wants to get caught. 0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:39.760 It seems she sure did. She shared it, and she 0:22:39.800 --> 0:22:43.159 did get caught, And like I said, the love affair 0:22:43.400 --> 0:22:46.520 was really rare. Katie's our only love affair in the 0:22:46.520 --> 0:22:49.720 whole series. She wanted to get caught. She also got 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:52.760 married very young. That was a common thread that we 0:22:52.800 --> 0:22:56.480 saw over and over again that people, a lot of 0:22:56.480 --> 0:22:59.879 the women that were having the affairs had tended to 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:02.320 get married when they were very young, and they had 0:23:02.320 --> 0:23:04.200 felt like they'd missed out on something. 0:23:05.880 --> 0:23:07.920