Why high-caste men cheat with lower-caste women
The aimlessly bilious
New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser has, for once, written a worthwhile
piece that really says something.
Why do these wealthy, privileged husbands, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and John Edwards, when they cheat, cheat not with beautiful actresses and so forth, but with household help, interns, and unglamorous videographers? The answer, says Peyser, is that they want to get away from today’s over-empowered, over-demanding, and over-aggressive women, such as their wives, and be with more regular, easy-going women with whom they can relax and not have to try so hard.
‘Easy’ does it for husbands on the prowl
By ANDREA PEYSER
May 23, 2011
What was he thinking? Or was he thinking?
It’s as plain as the gap between Arnold Schwarzenegger’s pearly whites. The California Sperminator never in a millennium believed he’d get caught. Not with her.
A long line of powerful cheaters, each man graced with an educated, attractive and accomplished wife—from Eliot Spitzer to John Edwards to Bill Clinton—got down and dirty with the housekeeper, the videographer, the intern. The hooker.
Actor Jude Law cheated on stunning fiancée Sienna Miller with his son’s nanny. Tiger Woods liked hostesses, blond or brunette. Not a Rhodes scholarship among these women. Or a GED.
The question that sends New Yorkers to the vodka is this: Why did Arnold (and, to another extent, Dominique Strauss-Kahn) risk his family for the privilege, alleged or admitted, of keeping naked company with the help?
The truth is that men with major egos and outsize appetites are, at their cores, insecure sloths. There exists a need for many a high-flying celebrity to punish a spouse he doesn’t, deep down, believe he deserves.
The low social caste of their conquests is no accident. The gals picked by guys who should know better are usually adoring, needy and broke. They’re also discreet, available and easily accessible. Powerful men tend to be competitive in sports or politics. But in matters of the zipper, they’re lazy bums.
Arnold’s affair with housekeeper Mildred “Patty” Baena, who gave birth to his love child under wife Maria Shriver’s nose, seems less a crime of passion than opportunity. Sometimes, a guy accustomed to drinking champagne just wants a good scratch and a beer. The mistress, whether or not she realizes it, is degrading herself.
Men “pick people who are less likely to give them trouble down the line,” said Dr. Alan Hilfer, chief psychologist at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn.
“They think the women will cover for it, money will cover for it. Part of this is a matter of convenience. When he got an urge, [Baena] was there to fulfill it. She’s a pleasant enough-looking person, not a bombshell knockout. Someone he thought he’d be able to seduce.”
Some wives reach what the Women’s e-News Web site calls “the Tipper Point,” after Tipper Gore. “The moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point where a wife can no longer stand for the sexual philandering, sexual abuse or gross misconduct of her rich and powerful husband.”
Ellen Fein and Sherry Schneider, who wrote “The Rules”—the bible for ladies who play hard to get—think Schwarzenegger’s marriage, like those of Eva Longoria, Sandra Bullock and Reese Witherspoon, was in trouble the day the pair met.
Spotting Arnold at an event, Maria asked Tom Brokaw to introduce her to her future and soon-to-be-former husband. Then she whisked Arnold via private jet to her family’s house on Cape Cod.
Eva met Tony Parker when she “acted like a groupie” at a San Antonio Spurs basketball game and invited him to dinner. Sandra used her nephew to meet Jesse James. Ryan Phillippe met Reese at her 21st birthday party, where she introduced herself with, “I think you’re my birthday present.”
“No one ever taught these women you don’t speak to a man first,” said Schneider. “If a guy thinks you’re crazy about him, he thinks, ‘I don’t have to try so hard.’ “
Blaming the victim? Perhaps. But Fein and Schneider see this as a teaching moment.
A friend who watched Anne Sinclair, wife of Strauss-Kahn, blowing kisses to her accused wannabe-maid-rapist hub last week at his bail hearing was appalled. “What’s up with these women?” Being a doormat encourages bad behavior. Take it as a lesson.
Maid or wife, this could be you.
- end of initial entry -
James P. writes;
Just look at the pictures of Shriver and Baena in the UK Telegraph. Baena looks warm, motherly, and inviting; Shriver looks cold, marmoreal, and repelling. It is easy enough to see why Arnold might recoil from his serpent of a wife into a more feminine embrace.
I must disagree with the NY Post article that the mistresses are somehow “degraded” and victimized in these relationships. They are adults and they know what they are doing. It was no secret to Baena that both she and Arnold were married to other people, and she could not possibly have imagined that Arnold would dump Maria and marry her. Nevertheless, with eyes wide open, she agreed to an adulterous relationship with him.
James N. writes:
I disagree strongly with Peyser.
The warmth of a real woman is irresistible, especially if you don’t have it.
Schwarzenegger and Edwards were looking for love in all the wrong places. DSK is a rapist.
Columnists who conflate them don’t understand men. At all.
Hannon writes:
I think Miss Peyser makes some good points in her adventure [?] piece, but, in addition to its oversimplification, there are some misleading gaps and assertions as well. For one, she completely exonerates all mistresses and would-be mistresses from their bad behavior. I guess the powerful magnetism of the men she speaks of is simply overwhelming for a certain type of woman, especially if she is in a vulnerable position. Peyser does not even suggest that there may be a plethora of better females who reject the advances of these lotharios. Secondly, she hints at but does not explore the idea that men are ego-driven creatures much more than women, and that many women find this male feature attractive.
Here I think she has gone way off course with not a whit of supporting argument:
“The truth is that men with major egos and outsize appetites are, at their cores, insecure sloths. There exists a need for many a high-flying celebrity to punish a spouse he doesn’t, deep down, believe he deserves.”
This is directly akin to the old argument that violent criminals and bullies are, deep down, insecure and never got the affection they needed as children. Some years ago I read about at least one prisoner study that found this idea to be to a significant extent a fallacy and that the uber-aggressive personality type simply exists as the essential nature of some men. They probably had troubled backgrounds but they are not necessarily insecure “down inside” nor are they seeking compensation for alleged emotional deficiencies through violent behavior. It is simply how they are structured for as far back as they can remember.
This pejorative statement in particular by Peyser is but a further denial of the fact that men and women, or just plain individuals if you like, have an essential constitution. In her world every person is pure at heart, by nature, and needs only psychiatric therapy to come around.
James N. writes:
To understand Rudy and Judy, as they say down home, “ya hadda know Donna”.
Can’t wait for Laura to comment on Peyser.
May 26
Mrs. K. writes:
Andrea Peyser’s article is interesting, but I’ve found myself focusing on the issue of looks, rather than intelligence, power, or prestige.
After hearing about Schwarzenegger, the question in my mind is, what draws him to unattractive women? I agree with the comment describing Maria Shriver as repellent. But the pictures I’ve seen of Mildred Baena show her as equally unattractive—just in a different way. Maria is indeed cold and marmoreal; Mildred I find frowsy (isn’t that a great word?) and coarse. Whatever, they both take a back seat to Arnold where looks are concerned, not that I find him especially handsome.
(Also, haven’t I read in the news that Mildred, like Maria, took the initiative with Arnold? Told friends she was attracted to him, pursued him? I don’t have any sources to hand.)
There are other examples of unattractive women pairing up with well known men, who presumably could do better: Woody Allen’s Soon Yee, Prince Charles and Camilla. Monica Lewinski I always saw as the desperate fat girl.
Perhaps the men feel they have more control over a homely partner, or that they look better as a result.
Karen writes from England:
It’s quite simple—maximum return for minimum investment. Low caste women are easy to impress and cheap to bed without having the expense of expensive gifts and restaurants and holidays and they are unlikely to have influential relatives who might cause a high caste man some hassle or problems at some stage. Therefore they are easy meat. Easy sex with minimum hassle and expense, unless of course they go to the newspapers.
Laura Wood writes:
Regardless of how cold and unaffectionate Maria Shriver may look from her photos or be in real life, Arnold Schwarzenegger chose her for his wife. He was not forced to marry her. And it is very possible if she was warmer and more easygoing, he would have liked to have another woman who was warm and easygoing too. The man lied to his wife for years. He lied to his children. We are supposed to say he was justified because Maria was cold?
Peyser’s thesis is offensive, especially the idea that DSK, who has had three wives and at least one affair with a woman executive, was seeking love. Powerful men cheated with servants and lower-caste women long before there were heartless female television executives or MBAs. Contrary to what Peyser claims, the men in these cases are not seeking emotional gratification so much as the avoidance of emotional entanglement. And they face extraordinary temptations in the form of eager and willing women who are servants or staff members.
But, love and affirmation are not physical phenomena. The problem with the Freudian argument is that it claims that non-physical things are supplied by a physical act.
Gilda A. writes:
I object to the use of “mistress” to describe “the other or another woman.” To me, you’re not a mistress unless he’s paying the rent. And if that’s the price of putting up with him, you shouldn’t have to show up for a day job.
James N. writes:
Thanks, Larry, for posting Andrea Peyser’s confession that she has no idea about men, or, rather, that her default position is that they are kinda bad.
Let me begin by saying that I hold no brief for adultery. Life on the cheatin” side of town stinks, it’s nothing that any decent man should do, the benefits seldom (but not always) don’t recompense the harm caused, and so on …
But Peyser makes two serious errors in her piece, errors which call into question her qualifications to speak about the male side of la condition humaine.
First, she (and others) associate DSK’s alleged violent and unprovoked rape of a chambermaid with affairs that married men have had that produced children. These two phenomena, although both involve betrayal of a spouse and the breaking of a vow, are very different from a man’s point of view.
Peyser’s understanding of what these men sought is primitive: “The gals picked by guys who should know better are usually adoring, needy and broke. They’re also discreet, available and easily accessible. Powerful men tend to be competitive in sports or politics. But in matters of the zipper, they’re lazy bums” … “Actor Jude Law cheated on stunning fiancee Sienna Miller with his son’s nanny. Tiger Woods liked hostesses, blond or brunette. Not a Rhodes scholarship among these women. Or a GED.”
Lazy bums. Settling for women, ACCEPTING AS LOVERS women who don’t have Rhodes scholarships. Or, OMG, GEDs!! Some, presumably, actually do have GEDs. I bet Jude Law’s nanny has a high school diploma and goes to college.
Nevertheless …
A married man owes his wife loyalty, fidelity, and support. What does she owe him? Even IF, maybe especially if, she has a Rhodes scholarship.
Well, the women whom Peyser scorns are broke. OK. But they are also adoring, available, and discreet.
If you are Arnold Schwarzenegger, or John Edwards, or Bill Clinton, or Rudy Giuliani, or maybe even Tiger Woods (he doesn’t quite fit the theory), and you are married to Maria Shriver, or Elizabeth Edwards (RIP), or Elin Nordgren, or Hillary Clinton, or Donna Hanover, well, then, you have a hole in your soul. The hole that a only a woman’s caring, and love, and perhaps, yes, even adoration can fill. Each of these men is very different (again, maybe except Tiger) from DSK. Each of them, I believe, was looking for a kind of love that every man wants and needs.
In a marriage without that kind of woman’s love, many distortions can occur. What these men did was wrong, it’s always wrong. But it’s very human, and it’s not at all like violent assaults against strangers.
James N. writes:
Here are lyrics of “Too Cold at Home”:
Well it sure feels good to come in here
And just pull up a seat
A frosty mug of a cool one
Helps to beat the heat
These old dog days of summer
Lord I’ll be glad when they’re gone
It’s too hot to fish and
Too hot for golf and
Too cold at home
Well that baseball game on TV
Takes me back to when I was a kid
We proudly wore those uniforms
Just like the Dodgers did
Yea we won a few games and lost a few
And for me it still goes on
It’s too hot to fish and
Too hot for golf and
Too cold at home
Well I only planned on one or two
I might stay for three
If that good looking thing in the corner
Keeps smiling back at me
It’s so easy not to care
Bout what’s right or what’s wrong
It’s too hot to fish and
Too hot for golf and
Too cold at home
Yea I only planned on one or two
I might stay for three
It’s that good lookin’ thing in the corner
Keeps smiling back at me
It’s so easy not to care
Bout what’s right or what’s wrong
It’s too hot to fish and
Too hot for golf and
Too cold at home
Ed S. writes:
Actually, I’m not so sure about the low social caste relationship; in my experience, it’s more about power.. Consider Peyser’s quote of Schneider, “If a guy thinks you’re crazy about him, he thinks, “I don’t have to try so hard’.” Women are attracted to power (and powerful men); and they can’t hide this attraction. It’s so obvious that men notice and capitalize on it.. This, I guess, could make them “lazy bums” as Peyser notes. In the case of married and cheating, it makes them much more.
May 27
A female reader writes:
The comments about easy-going women rather than tough wives reminded me of a story in Edna Ferber’s book One Basket, in which the male character much preferred being with a quiet, soft woman. I don’t remember the title, but “nothing new under the sun,” right?
Carol Iannone writes:
I just talking to someone about the Barbara Pym novel, Jane and Prudence, where an attractive (and rather spoiled) widower prefers the older, easier, less stunning female to the younger, more demanding, and better looking one.
The Post today had a story that evidently came from one of Baena’s family, explaining that Arnold told Baena during one of Maria’s many absences, when she was working on her news career, that his marriage was sex-starved and Maria was often away, and he and Baena had a drink together, and one thing led to another, and so on.
Gintas writes:
There’s no wondering about what goes on with the most powerful man in the world, Barack Obama. He knows Michelle can beat the living daylights out of him.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 25, 2011 09:29 AM | Send
