BELOW IS THE ARTICLE...
July 14, 2003 -- Virtually all of the adulterous women interviewed in a recent survey said they cheat because they deserve all of the pleasure and thrills associated with a secret affair.
Ninety percent of the cheating wives said they suffered absolutely "no guilt" but felt "entitled" to the good feelings they got, according to Susan Shapiro Barash, a professor and author, who randomly interviewed 120 women from a diversity of professional backgrounds, ages and races for a recent book on the issue.
She posted ads in YWCAs to find women who were sexually active, according the report on her study in The New York Post.
She said her research reveals that six in ten women will cheat on their husband at least once during their marriages.
"Women feel entitled because they're not getting what they need in marriage," said Barash, who wrote A Passion for More: Wives Reveal the Affairs that Make or Break their Marriages. "These women would recognize her need - her desire to have more in her life than she had in her marriage. "For the women who choose it, it's with great effort, so they really juggle the affair and somehow fit it in."
Baltimore psychologist Shirley Glass agrees with Barash.
"I don't see women feeling a lot of guilt," said Glass, in her recent book, Not Just Friends: Protect Your Relationship from Infidelity and Heal the Trauma of Betrayal . Women with careers and financial resources can take more risks, she added: "If their partners find out, they can take care of themselves."
But Barash has her dissenters. "I have not witnessed a growing experience of 'entitlement.' Their conscience is bothering them," Kristen Harrington, a marriage counselor in upstate New York, told the Post .
Glass also found surprising changes in men who mess around.
She said that men's affairs tend to be almost exclusively about sex; they're usually just getting "a little on the side" with a female subordinate.
"Now, men and women are working together as equals, with a lot of intellectual energy and common interests," Glass said. "It's a combination of emotional and sexual bonds. And it's more dangerous because it creates an alternative to the marriage, rather than just a supplement."
Still, being equal in some ways hasn't erased the differences in why men and women cheat, some experts say.
"Men have affairs to boost their self-esteem and because it's available. Their feelings are closely tied to their sexuality and potency," Brooklyn psychologist Marcella Bakur Weiner said. "Women don't just want a night of joy and pleasure. No matter what the feminists say, women want love. They want emotional attachment and bonding."
2006-09-04
10:56:15
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