(Press-News.org) SAN FRANCISCO — When middle-aged women seek extra-marital affairs, they are looking for more romantic passion, which includes sex — and don't want to divorce their husbands, suggests new research to be presented at the 109th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association.
"Being happy in marriage is far different than being happy in bed," said Eric Anderson, a professor of masculinity, sexuality, and sport at the University of Winchester in England and the chief science officer at AshleyMadison.com, a popular website for those interested in having extra-marital affairs.
In their study, Anderson and his co-authors focus on 100 heterosexual, married, females between the ages of 35 and 45, and their conversations with potential suitors on AshleyMadison.com, in hopes of determining what drives this subset of women to infidelity.
The researchers found that the large majority of women — 67 percent — were seeking affairs because they wanted more romantic passion, which always included sex.
"But, the most surprising finding is that none of the 100 women were looking to leave their husbands," said Anderson, who co-authored the study with Matthew H. Rafalow, a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of California-Irvine, and Matthew Ripley, a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of Southern California. "Instead, they were adamant that they were not looking for a new husband. Many even stated their overt love for their husbands, painting them in a positive light."
According to Anderson, he thought women might be looking for sexual affairs because they were unhappy with their husbands or because they felt unloved by their husbands. "But this was not the case," he said. "Our results reflect not martial disharmony, but the sexual monotony that is a social fact of the nature of long-term monogamous relationships. The most predictable thing about a relationship is that, the longer it progresses, the quality and the frequency of sex between the couple will fade. This is because we get used to and bored of the same body."
While popular culture suggests that men cheat because "they are horny and women cheat because there is something wrong with the emotional aspect of their relationship, our findings challenge these perceptions," Anderson said. "Our research suggests that men and women are not as different from each other as some may think."
One way women seeking affairs may differ from men looking to cheat, however, is in their preferred number of partners, Anderson said. While only 47 percent of women involved in the study discussed the number of partners they were seeking, of those that did, they all wanted an affair exclusively with one man. On the other hand, Anderson's previous research indicates that men seeking affairs are not looking for a single partner.
Anderson said this distinction between men and women seeking affairs may be in part due to the "stud/slut dichotomy" that is so prominent in our society, which can reward men for having multiple sex partners but stigmatizes women. "One way of telling themselves that they are not 'sluts' is to say that they are desiring monogamy with their infidelity, and that monogamy must have passion," according to Anderson, who said another reason why women might seek monogamy within their infidelity is that some women need to be emotionally connected to a lover in order to have fulfilling sex.
Citing high rates of cheating, divorce, and premarital sex, Anderson said, "It is very clear that our model of having sex and love with just one other person for life has failed — and it has failed massively. Hopefully, this study will help unravel the stranglehold that our culture has on sex and love — showing that just because one cheats, it does not mean that one has failed to love his or her partner."
INFORMATION:
About the American Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association, founded in 1905, is a non-profit membership association dedicated to serving sociologists in their work, advancing sociology as a science and profession, and promoting the contributions to and use of sociology by society.
The paper, "Life is Short, Have an Affair: Middle-Age Women and Extra-Marital Affairs," will be presented on Monday, Aug. 18, at 8:30 a.m. PDT in San Francisco at the American Sociological Association's 109th Annual Meeting.
To obtain a copy of the paper; for assistance reaching the study's author(s); or for more information on other ASA presentations, members of the media can contact Daniel Fowler, ASA Media Relations Manager, at (202) 527-7885 or pubinfo@asanet.org. During the Annual Meeting (Aug. 16-19), ASA Public Information Office staff can be reached in the on-site press office, located in the Hilton San Francisco Union Square's Union Square 1-2 Room, at (415) 923-7506 or (914) 450-4557 (cell).
This press release was written by Sydney McKinley, ASA Public Information Office.
Papers presented at the ASA Annual Meeting are typically working papers that have not yet been published in peer reviewed journals.
Middle-aged women missing passion (and sex) seek affairs, not divorce
2014-08-16
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
For men in pink-collar jobs, a tradeoff: Lower pay, more job security
2014-08-16
SAN FRANCISCO — Is a man without a four-year college degree better off trying to land a well-paying but insecure job in traditionally male fields such as manufacturing or construction, or should he consider lower-paying but steadier employment in a female-dominated field?
Janette Dill, a University of Akron sociology professor, and her colleagues try to answer that question in a new study she will present at the 109th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association.
"It's such a hard labor market if you don't have a college degree," Dill says. "You're just ...
Parental incarceration can be worse for a child than divorce or death of a parent
2014-08-16
SAN FRANCISCO — With more than 2 million people behind bars, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world. This mass incarceration has serious implications for not only the inmates, but their children, finds a new University of California-Irvine study. The study found significant health problems, including behavioral issues, in children of incarcerated parents and also that, for some types of health outcomes, parental incarceration can be more detrimental to a child's well-being than divorce or the death of a parent.
"We know that poor people and racial minorities ...
Peers, but not peer pressure, key to prescription drug misuse among young adults
2014-08-16
SAN FRANCISCO — Current efforts to prevent prescription drug misuse among young adults need to consider peers — but not peer pressure — according to a Purdue University study.
"With the 18-29 age group we may be spending unnecessary effort working a peer pressure angle in prevention and intervention efforts. That does not appear to be an issue for this age group," said study co-author Brian Kelly, a professor of sociology and anthropology who studies drug use and youth cultures. "Rather, we found more subtle components of the peer context as influential. These include ...
Disconnect between parenting and certain jobs a source of stress, study finds
2014-08-16
SAN FRANCISCO — Some working parents are carrying more psychological baggage than others — and the reason has nothing to do with demands on their time and energy.
The cause is their occupation.
According to University of Iowa researchers, parents who hold jobs viewed by society as aggressive, weak, or impersonal are likely to be more stressed out than parents whose occupations are seen in a light similar to parenting — good, strong, and caring.
"We know that one source of stress for parents is the time and energy bind," says Mark Walker, a doctoral student in sociology ...
Ethnoburbs: Segregation in suburbia
2014-08-16
White flight does not end when residents move from poor urban neighborhoods to the suburbs. An Indiana University study found that white flight from one suburban neighborhood to another occurs when white residents move away from "ethnoburbs," suburban neighborhoods that attract a growing number of middle-class minority residents.
"The sheer force of immigration and suburbanization has resulted in the unmistakable rise of middle-class yet ethnic suburban communities. However, my research shows that despite their distinct middle-class character, ethnoburbs have lost a steady ...
The notion of love can lead to greater acceptance of couples' rights
2014-08-16
SAN FRANCISCO -- An Indiana University study found that how "in love" a romantic couple appears to be is interpreted differently based on the couple's sexual orientation, affecting what formal and informal rights people think that couple deserves.
Long Doan, a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology at IU Bloomington's College of Arts and Sciences, said the study was created to understand how people's attitudes differ based on sexual orientation.
"If you ask what someone thinks of a same-sex couple or what they think of a straight couple, they usually have different ...
New study takes the shine off magpie folklore
2014-08-16
Magpies are not attracted to shiny objects and don't routinely steal small trinkets such as jewellery, according to a new study.
In European culture, it is widely accepted that magpies (Pica pica) are the pilferers of the bird kingdom, unconditionally attracted to sparkly things and prone to pinching them for their nests, almost as a compulsion.
But psychologists at the Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour (CRAB) at the University of Exeter are now countering this folklore, having shown that the species is actually frightened of new and unfamiliar objects, rather ...
Bivalirudin versus heparin in patients planned for coronary stenting
2014-08-16
Boston, MA— Bivalirudin and heparin are two anticoagulant options for patients undergoing coronary stenting for ischemic heart disease. Bivalirudin, a newer anticoagulant, has been touted as being as effective as generic heparin, but with nearly half the rate of bleeding. However, several studies have hinted that, compared with heparin, bivalirudin-based regimens might not protect as well against recurrent heart attacks and might increase the risk of stents clotting off. Moreover, newer studies have questioned whether the reduction in bleeding holds up when tested on more ...
Dopamine replacement associated with impulse control increase in early Parkinson's
2014-08-15
(PHILADELPHIA) – New Penn Medicine research shows that neuropsychiatric symptoms such as depression, anxiety and fatigue are more common in newly diagnosed Parkinson's disease (PD) patients compared to the general population. The study also found that initiation of dopamine replacement therapy, the most common treatment for PD, was associated with increasing frequency of impulse control disorders and excessive daytime sleepiness. The new findings, the first longitudinal study to come out of the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI), are published in the August ...
Utility of sequence-related amplified polymorphism (SRAP) markers
2014-08-15
Today, many ecological and evolutionary studies depend on a wide range of molecular tools to infer phylogenetic relationships, uncover population structure within species, and track quantitative traits. Agricultural studies use these same tools to improve crop yield and increase resistance to pests and disease.
However, many of these methods—such as amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLP), inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSR), and random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD)—have technical limitations. These include issues of reproducibility, ambiguity in determining ...