Wednesday, February 08, 2006

On Infidelity

Via Guardian, columnist Zoe Williams points out an interesting conundrum:

Anyway, what this all unleashes is the age-old debate between, on the one hand, people who are loath to judge infidelity too harshly because they're only, you know, human, and on the other, people who think infidelity is inherently misogynistic, since it's always men and they never tell their wives, and the wives can stand by them or leave them but they will always end up weeping in a corner somewhere. Really, it's buyer-beware on either position - if you take the first, you effectively toss out all that most of us have that amounts to a moral position of any kind on anything. If you take the second, you ram home the women-as-victims message that is partly plain wrong, but mainly just annoys me.

Ms. Williams leaves out the possibility of infidelity by women -- but her point remains since even there our natural concern is the victimhood of the innocent spouse. What man likes to be seen as a victim?!

3 comments:

froginthewell said...

May be I am weak in reading long-winding sentences but wasn't she only summing up the position of those who think infidelity is inherently misogynistic ( and not herself ruling out the possibility of infidelity by women? )

For some reason I find this language obscure - "take the first" etc. - I don't understand why people write can't write more lucidly and directly instead of substituting nouns by qualifying clauses.

What man likes to be seen as a victim?!

Isn't that an unfair stereotype? Which is why such men keep hearing "Don't moan" while everyone sympathises with women.

froginthewell said...

Sorry, I had not noticed that the first in "take the first" referred to the first position. And I mistook your "leaves out" for "rules out". Now the article makes sense to me. Thanks and regards.

Primary Red said...

No worries.

Regards

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