WHY DO GAY MEN CHEAT? This is a question that is taking up a lot of real estate in my mind. My name is Kabir, and I hold a diploma in Broadcast Journalism. I’ve hosted and produced over 40 episodes of my own cable talk show, and I hosted a dating show. I run my own web channel, and I’m also a certified personal trainer and pilot-in-training.
This summer, my 3 1/2 year relationship ended, suddenly and to my disbelief. My life changed during two distinct moments on two days in August.
August 10th, 2014 : The plane lands, and I’m finally on my way home. I am so excited to see him. I can’t wait to wrap my arms around him. I walk through the door, and a few minutes later the doorbell rings.
It’s him!
“Have a seat” he says. We walk into the living room.
“This is it, I’m breaking up with you,” I’m told.
I know we’ve been fighting a little, but this is sudden. I am distraught, and I don’t know what to do with myself. This can’t be happening.
After 3 1/2 years, this is how it ends?
August 17th, 2014: No, there’s more. Days later I’m going through my friend’s phone. It’s here that I learn that I was cheated on by my ex.
Cynthia: OMG I LOVE RICK!
Ex: Really? I’m glad 🙂
Cynthia: Mhm, but you have to tell Kabir. About both of them.
Ex: He’s not worth it. I’ll just dump him and be done with it. I feel like I wasted so much time already.
While I have moved on from being broken up with, I am still grappling with the cheating aspect of this experience.
I keep asking myself: Why do gay men cheat?
My ex and I met when we were 16, so I’ve never had the chance to date anyone else. I also don’t have very much experience with gay culture.
This puts me in an interesting place; a young, single gay guy looking at gay culture from the outside.
What I’ve observed is that we typically seem very happy.
But I’ve also noticed that we love to sleep around.
Still, I still don’t understand why I was cheated on. I think I’m a catch!
So, I did some research.
- A lot of what I’ve found indicates that “committed” means something slightly different in gay couples than in straight relationships.
- I also learned that one third of homosexual marriages are between gay men.
- In a study conducted by The New York Times – “The Gay Couples Study” has followed 556 male couples for three years — about 50 percent of those surveyed have sex outside their relationships, with the knowledge and approval of their partners”.
But my question is why do gay men cheat? Even if they’re in a committed, loving relationship? After speaking to a few of my gay friends, there seems to be an underlying understanding in the gay community that being promiscuous is normal, both in and out of a relationship.
My mother is a psychotherapist. She gives me all sorts of wonderful advice. She says being involved in ‘serial relationships’ feeds into insecurities that make it hard for us to be alone. She says that after a long relationship, you need to take an extended period of time to learn to be alone.
So I have. Despite how my relationship ended and discovering I was cheated on, months later I am feeling great. I’ve taken the time to be alone and discover more about who I am. (I’ve even discovered that I love to paint. Not anything fancy, mostly abstract stuff. That way, I have an excuse when people don’t know what I’ve painted.)
But getting myself to the point of feeling great doesn’t remove the scar I still have from such a nasty breakup.
How do you turn something so terrible into something positive?
You embrace it. I’m producing a documentary called Why Do Gay Men Cheat?
The only way to answer all of my questions is to ask the right people. Why Do Gay Men Cheat? will examine why guys cheat, who they cheat with, how they cover it up, and if cheating is within the terms of their relationship. So far, I’ve got cultural leaders, life coaches, therapists, cheaters and the cheated lined up to speak in the film. I hope to uncover some answers about why gay men cheat, and I hope to come to some personal understandings about the nature of male relationships for when I’m ready to begin again with someone new.
– You can help Kabir Rathaur-Bageria with his documentary Why Do Gay Men Cheat? by making a donation on Kickstarter.
most gay men cheat because they only think with their dick
Most gay men cheat because they have absolutely no impulse control. also so many are so immersed in the gay culture that they soon come to believe it is normal. Just listen to the crap that comes out of their mouth….constantly talking abou the size or shape of some strangers genitals etc. What could be normal about deceiving, lying, cheating, sneaking around just so you can touchy touchy feely feely some other dudes-strangers genitals is beyond me. I personally think gay men are trying to fill a void by and in some sick way trying to obtain from another dude what they fell is lacking in themselves. This skulking around washrooms and slithering around parks is depraved. Now on that note I do know gay men that have matured and operate like civilzed humans……not the ones that are having sex with anything that moves and therefore become reservoirs for sexually transmitted disease.
My last post may seem harsh. However I am sick of gay men portraying themselves in a loving relationship only to find out time and time again they have betrayed their partner. I am sick of them comparing themselves to straight men ONLY when this serves them and I am sick of them making their excuses up for their deceptions and hurt they hurl on their partners because of their apparently uncontrollable desires to check out some strangers private parts. Not all but their is an absolute sickness that has evaded gay men….called selfishness and selfcentredness.
Kamir, to answer your question from more of an anthropological, biological and evolutionary perspective, as to why “men cheat” not just why “gay men” cheat, you must look beyond the idea that “sex and love or sex and loving relationships” are somehow mutually exclusive, which for many people, they are not. It is worth noting here that recent discoveries within human genome specifically the X chromosome and those genetic markers contained within it, as well as the observations and studies of spermatozoa in the human male prove what anthropologists have known for quite some time; humans by evolutionary standards are not a species that are genetically monogamous. Monogamy is in fact a “relatively new concept”(by evolutionary standards)and is largely associated with “monotheistic and patriarchal religious ideals” that claim that sex beyond the intent to procreate and sex simply for the enjoyment of sex, is/was somehow evil. One need only look at the ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman cultures to understand that when there was a belief in multiple Gods and Goddesses, sex for enjoyment and not simply for procreation was not discouraged but actually considered to be a normal part of life. More recently biological studies confirm that “sperm competition” and even “mate guarding” are specifically designed evolutionary “defence mechanisms” contained within the spermatozoa of human males to essentially ward off and fight “foreign invading sperm” often (from multiple males) to prevent the sperm from another male from fertilizing the female egg. This means that “sperm competition” is genetically part of the human condition, so much in fact that it has imprinted on the human genome. Modern monogamy on the other hand is still largely today a bit of a myth as it has left no significant marker within the human genome. (One need only look at the number of women that have multiple children from multiple partners of “differing baby daddies” quite common these days to understand that our ideas may have changed but much of our behaviours have remained as they were in the past). If you were to examine the 1231 +cultures contained in the Ethnographic Atlas Codebook, 84.6 percent of relationships within these cultures are classified as polygamous, 15.1 percent as monogamous, and 0.3 percent as polyandrous (women having multiple husbands). So perhaps instead of looking at the question in the way you have posed it you may consider rephrasing it and ask a different question altogether? For Example: “Why do some gay men choose monogamous relationships, when gay sex is purely for enjoyment and intimacy as procreation is off the table and men have a genetic predisposition to spread their seed around”? Just a thought. I hope this is helpful to you.
I was cheated on 5 weeks ago and yes in same way but only he got drunk and then told me. So he did it the coward way.
Life’s not fair. But we have to carry on.
Not only that after being together for 11 years and married 6 makes it even harder.