The Tiger Scandal: Biological reasons why men cheat

Ladies and gentlemen, I am venturing onto perilous terrain. I hope you'll still respect me in the morning. I am not guilty of any infidelity. I am, however, guilty of being a heterosexual Homo sapien male.

I am not proud to admit how much of the male Homo sapien brain is cluttered up with thoughts of sex. I am not proud to discuss the hard-wired inclination of this same organism toward promiscuity. Nor to acknowledge that the male of standard specification is compellingly drawn to any attractive female-with "attractive" a somewhat nebulous concept vulnerable to such influences as time at sea, blood alcohol level, and an array of others you will have no trouble conjuring.

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But I am not especially ashamed, either, since none of this is in any way my fault. I might just as well compare myself to a dog or horse and feel ashamed at my lamentably lumbering bipedalism. Or compare myself to a dolphin, and regret my feeble butterfly stroke and the pitifully unwebbed feet that propel it. Or indulge in recrimination for my want of wings. I am a Homo sapien male, built to the standard specifications. Those specifications, courtesy of natural selection and several millions years of trial-and-error engineering, include the sexual predilections that have produced so much titillating scandal, Tiger Woods' modern Greek Tragedy the most recent, and among the more dramatic, examples. Dramatic, but the very opposite of unique.

Despite the veil of mystique, the rituals of romance, the fragrances and fashions, cultural overlay and commercial exploitation, sex is really about procreation. The sex drive is biological, and biology begins with the coding in genes. Imagine, for a moment, genes that encoded for a complete lack of interest in sex. Now imagine that lack of interest meant lack of activity. Then consider how, exactly, such genes would ever survive from one generation to the next? People who never have sex never make babies. People who never make babies make very poor ancestors, and so do their genes. There may well have been such a brand of Homo sapien males along the way, but they, and their genes, are long gone-or crop up rarely, and disappear quickly. In contrast, consider genes that encode for boundless interest in sex-and encourage corresponding activity. Such behavior reaches its pinnacle in the example of Ghenghis Khan, who had, apparently, the customary male Homo sapien will, and an unusual abundance of ways. Ghenghis, supposedly, is the direct ancestor of 0.5% of the entire global population, and 8% of the population across a wide swath of Asia.

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This has been sexist so far, and it's time to fix that. Obviously, it takes two to tango, so female interest in sex is part of this equation, too. In women, some inclination to promiscuity has its rewards, but by no means to the same extent as in men. This is not a cultural distinction-it is purely a biological one. Men can, to put it rather bluntly, sow their seed far and wide. The potential for procreation, illustrated by the exploits of Ghenghis, is limited only by access to fertile females, stamina, and lust. The story for women is, of course, quite different.

Women bear the biological burden of procreation-pregnancy and nursing. These are profoundly rate-limiting. Just consider how many offspring a single man could father during the 9 months when a woman is busy with just one. So women are hard-wired to be rather choosy. Men who will be capable, reliable, strong, and devoted offer distinct advantages. But then again, a woman can only judge a man's biological advantages so well by looking at him. The vitality of his sperm is an important consideration as well-not consciously to the woman, of course, but from the indifferent perspective of evolutionary biology and the calculus of survival-that can't be readily discerned simply by scrutinizing a group of likely fellows. The best way to determine the most robust sperm is to have those sperm compete directly with one another for the privilege of fertilizing an egg. How a woman might conduct such a competition is…rather self evident.

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The point here is quite simply that biology, genetics, survival, and natural selection are the basis for the compulsions underlying both male and female inclinations toward promiscuity. That basis is certainly stronger in men. We see the consequences of that in tabloids almost every day. It is what got Tiger by the tail.

The prompt for this reflection is obvious enough: Tiger's high-profile fall. But what is the point of it? That knowledge, potentially, is power. The first step in overcoming alcoholism or addiction is acknowledging it. I hold out hope that the first step toward the more consistent supremacy of trust over lust is acknowledging both the lust, and its origins. If we have insight into both what we feel and why, we are in a better position to decide whether or not to act on it-we certainly don't have to. The impulse left to ferment in shadow may more readily drag us there as well. The inclination we scrutinize by light of day loses its mystery, and its power of tyranny.

I am, for better or worse, pride or shame or neither, a Homo sapien male, built to the standard specifications, hard-wired in the customary ways. But I adore my wife. There are obligations implicit in the love and trust I see in her eyes. But more important, deserving that love and that trust is the greatest of all prizes. Trust does not merely rise in episodic crescendo and then crash likes waves on the beach. It is the whole ocean.
For my fellow heterosexual Homo sapien males, including, when he's a bit older and ready for it, my son, my message is this: Who we are is not what we feel, but how we behave. Impulse is not decision, and biology is not destiny. I fully appreciate how compelling the biological impulse can be. The woods of temptation can seem enticingly lovely, dark, and deep.

But we have promises to keep. And keeping them makes us something more than Homo sapien males. It makes us husbands and fathers. It makes us trustworthy and honorable. It makes us deserve the love we are privileged to have bestowed upon us. It makes us … men.

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