Men Chasing Masculinity and Women Seeking Pleasure: Current Research on Infidelity

Friday, November 4, 2022
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
Online

Gender complicates our romantic and sexual relationships. Gendered sexual scripts influence how both women and men perceive and negotiate their intimate relationships. This extends to participation in infidelity as well. The author of The Secret Life of the Cheating Wife: Power, Pragmatism, and Pleasure in Women's Infidelity (2017, Lexington Books) and Chasing Masculinity: Men, Validation, and Infidelity (2020, Palgrave Macmillan) explains how gender impacts infidelity among participants who created online accounts to seek out extramarital affairs. Commonsense understandings of infidelity assume men cheat for sex and participate in brief, strictly sexual liaisons, while women cheat for love and attention, falling in love prior to engaging in sex. Dr. Walker's findings challenge these conventional understandings of infidelity.

Presenter: Alicia M. Walker, Ph.D.

Join Lecture