Template:Fidelity and Adultery - Russians cheat A LOT whereas Americans act like Puritans

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Attitudes towards sexual fidelity differ in Russia. The shortage of men provides considerable opportunities for short and long-term affairs, and for Russian men infidelity is the rule rather than the exception. Since men are at a premium, a wife may have to put up with her husband's having a permanent mistress and even an out-of-wedlock child. Such a "second family" is quite common, and a man is not criticized for it; in fact, he may be praised for keeping both women happy by not abandoning either of them. A Russian woman will not be criticized for leaving a husband who beats her or who is an inveterate drunkard, but male adultery is not assumed to be automatic grounds for the wife's walking out. A man is expected to be discrete, and to spare his wife's feelings by keeping his dalliances from her. Extramarital sex, both casual and long-term, is quite common; more than three quarters of the people surveyed had extramarital contacts in 1989, whereas in 1969, the figure was less than half. But public opinion is critical of extramarital sex. In a 1992 survey only 23 percent agreed that it is okay to have a lover as well as a husband or wife, while 50 percent disagreed. Extramarital affairs seem to be morally more acceptable for men than for women. During the Soviet Union, “Sex was the last thing they couldn’t take away from us, and that’s why we did it so much. Everyone had affairs with everyone. Moscow was the most erotic city in the world.” One REASON there’s so much adultery in Russia is that there are so few men. Since the 1980s the average life expectancy for Russian men has fallen from sixty-five to fifty-eight. They die of alcoholism, cigarettes, job injuries, and car accidents. By the time men and women reach sixty-five there are just 46 Russian men left for every 100 women (compared with 72 men for every 100 women of that age in the United States). These skewed demographics infect romance. In Moscow I have lunch with a well-off single woman in her forties who tells me that if she didn’t go out with married men she’d have almost no one to date. In fact, she doesn’t know any single women who don’t date married men. And none of them try to hide this. For Russian women in their thirties and forties, let alone older ones, a man who isn’t married or an alcoholic is as rare as a Faberge egg. Women "need to accept [men cheating], because he feeds her, her children, everybody. She needs a strong man, but a strong man can leave for one or two nights.” Eighteen-year-old Katya is tall and skinny, with a pageboy haircut and a precocious command of English. She’s animated and confident, especially when describing what she wants in a husband: someone who doesn’t drink or beat her. She says she’ll be lucky if she finds someone like this. She’s just a few years shy of marrying age. Though she has the occasional fling, there are no significant prospects on the horizon. Boys her age are “very cruel, and they drink.” The few serious ones are more focused on their careers than on relationships, and there’s a lot of competition for them. “For me, of course I would like my husband to be faithful, and I will do the same, but I don’t know, it depends on the situation. But if we have a good relationship as family partners, we have children, then if he has someone on the side, I have someone on the side, it’s okay, so that the child will grow up in a family with both parents.” In the Russian edition of Cosmopolitan, Russia’s best selling magazine, is running a primer for women on how to hide their lovers from their husbands. Outside Russia’s big cities some husbands don’t even bother hiding their affairs. Russians, like Americans, seem to believe that married people shouldn’t keep secrets from each other. But whereas in America that presupposes a harmless emotional openness and intimacy, in Russia it often means exposing harsh truths about affairs. If there’s a 50 percent affair rate for men, then presumably the other half of men don’t cheat. So where are these missing men? I can’t find them. The whole time I’m in Moscow, I don’t meet a single person who admits to being monogamous. In Moscow, women in their forties told a New York Times author that, by necessity, they only date married men. That's because, since the life expectancy for Russian men has fallen so sharply (to 59) that by age 65 there are just 46 men left for every 100 women. And it was clear that Russian men flaunted this demographic advantage. With the exception of a pastor (who was sitting with his wife at the time), I didn't meet a single married man in Russia who admitted to being monogamous. A family psychologist whom this same reporter had intended to interview as an "expert" boasted about her own extramarital relationships and insisted that given Russia's endemic alcoholism, violent crime, and tiny apartments, affairs are "obligatory."