Lessons for men and players from The State of Affairs

The State of Affairs should be assigned reading to guys thinking about marrying but also to guys who want to be players… Esther says, “Whether we like it or not, philandering is here to stay. And all the ink spilled advising us on how to ‘affair-proof’ our relationships has not managed to curb the number of men and women who wander.” I beg you not to despair, but to contemplate the truth of that statement and think about it before you consider marrying some woman: fidelity is temporary, but some other dude’s baby is forever. What should we do with this knowledge? Consensual non-monogamy is one answer, one that I’ve elucidated extensively, probably tediously, since Perel says “infidelity has a tenacity that marriage can only envy.” Speaking of infidelity “also plunges us into today’s culture of entitlement, where we take our privileges for granted.” She says “entitlement,” but “narcissism” would be a truer, more accurate word: the ocean of attention available to women on Instagram loosens whatever bond to a man any individual woman might once have had. All her exes live in texts, waiting for her to resurrect the affair: social media dissolves the bonds of marriage and affection like strong acid dissolves metals. Women know it and will, in private, admit it… an individual man cannot keep up with the man parade on her phone, with her ADD mind as it flicks and scrolls and fantasizes. What are you going to do with this information? If you’re like most men, you’re going to ignore it, pretend it doesn’t exist, like most people pretend that growing atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions somehow won’t affect them… the past year has demonstrated the human organism’s capacity for denial, which knowledge cannot seem to staunch. There is “more freedom, as well as more uncertainty” today, but most countries fight against standard DNA testing at birth.

You can be the guy she cheats on, or the one she cheats with. Which do you prefer? Choose?

Don’t get married and make sure you get that DNA test

So. The new Esther Perel book, The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity ,is out. I read her first book Mating in Captivity and that book solidified to me how dangerous Western marriage is. I’ve been slipping Mating in Captivity to friends, after a couple of beers, for years. I’m sure most of them don’t read it. Then they marry and divorce and cry when their exes take all their money.

You need to read the new book, although I’ve only gotten through a few pages. This is an important part:

Whether we like it or not, philandering is here to stay. And all the ink spilled advising us on how to “affair-proof” our relationships has not managed to curb the number of men and women who wander. Infidelity happens in good marriages, in bad marriages, and even when adultery is punishable by death.

She’s right. So the solution is, do not get married. And if she says that baby is yours, get the DNA test to prove it. RP guys like to say there are guys who are cheated on and guys who are cheated with. Be the latter. Don’t get married. It’s not impossible that a married (not to me) woman had my kid, and I should write that story (she was married, work weekend, she wanted to use a condom…).

Know how to “rethink infidelity?” Rethink marriage. Specifically, guys shouldn’t marry, at least not while the legal system in the United States is stacked against them.

Feminists have been castigating marriage for decades. They’re going to get a world where guys don’t want to subsidize chicks. Which isn’t going to make a lot of women happy. Guys are waking up.