Are Men Hardwired to Cheat

So last week Tyrese was on the Wendy Williams Show and the topic relationships, men, and cheating came up. And Tyrese had plenty to say on the subject. According to him “It’s expected of men to cheat:”

“I don’t have all the answers, but I can say that most mothers raised their daughters to believe that if you cook, clean, thoroughly take care of your man and go all out for your man, that should keep him home. Unfortunately that’s not the truth, but I will say to my daughter when she gets old and starts dating is, if you end up being cheated on, don’t own the cheat. Don’t make the cheat yours. It’s something in that skirt and those legs and whatever the case may be, and [he] decided to dip off. Does he see the value in his woman at home? Yes, but if he ends up dipping off, that spaghetti couldn’t keep him at home.”

However Tyrese wasn’t so understanding when Wendy asked him if he’d be so forgiving if his woman cheated on him:

“No way. See, it’s expected of men to cheat, even though all men don’t cheat. I can’t just generalize and say all men cheat, but it’s expected because it’s a part of our upbringing[…]no listen if your in high school or in college, if one dude has sex with ten different women he is a hero, he’s the champion of the campus. If one woman has sex with ten different guys, they’re all kind of things in the book right?[…]Its just a part of what instilled in us growing up.”

Right.

Now I could go into a long diatribe about the age old double standard that black men in particular like to hold on to. The adherence to patriarchy in a community that can ill afford to hold on to such antiquated notions and the high rate of out of wedlock births, low rate of marriage and high rate of sexually transmitted diseases that this sort of attitude fosters. But I won’t.

Instead, I will point out that as women it’s high time we stop worrying about what men are “expected” to do and concern ourselves with what we want and need out of our relationships. The main problem for black women isn’t that there is sub-culture within our community that encourages this behavior, it’s that we somehow believe we have to accept it.

Newsflash: if you don’t want to deal with a cheating man you don’t have to. The adage that “all men cheat” is bullshit and a cop out that lets men off the hook for their bad behavior and makes women perpetual victims. Believe it or not, there are women who draw the line in the sand at cheating and don’t allow for any discussion of “see what happened was…” once the cheating has occurred. Just ask Lisa Bonet who let Lenny Kravitz go when she found out he was screwing around on tour. There was no amount of begging, pleading, cajoling, and song writing that would bring her back. And they were married. And he’s Lenny Kravitz. I mean…Lenny Kravitz

Yet so many sistas running around here keeping men who are screwing anything that moves, they’re not even official girlfriends let alone wives and these dudes are definitely NOT Lenny Kravitz. These relationships are temporary at best and women are trying to figure out whether they should keep Tyrone after they’ve found out he’s slept with Tisha, Cindy and Mai Ling. Enough is enough already.

It’s high time women stop crying, whining and complaining about the trifling ass men in their lives and simply cut them loose. Why all this drama over men who will be in your life for a few months to two years, max. Brothers don’t’ do that. Like Tyrese said, a woman caught cheating is reason enough for immediate dismissal. It’s time black women take a page out of black men’s playbook.

So no, the question isn’t should women expect men to cheat, it’s should we put up with cheating once it happens. And the answer is simply: HELL NO! On to the next. All men don’t cheat, so stop spending your time with the ones who do.