Op-Ed piece I was trying to get published last week:

They say “Boys will be boys.” This statement presupposes that ways of man cannot change. Of course, men can change if we are forced to. Ever watched “Mad Men” and thought “Wow, things have really changed since the 1960s!” Well, you can thank the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and nearly 50 years of accompanying jurisprudence for that.

The problem is, however, government only has limited jurisdiction to control the acts of individuals. There are laws against making sexist comments in the workplace, but there is no law against cat calling on the street.

And there is certainly no law prohibiting married men from sexting via SMS or on social-networking sites (unless it’s a government issued phone like former-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick). In fact, the law is moving in the opposite direction–states are decriminalizing adultery (which is the proper course of action).

Public opinion does not seem to regulate behavior either. There are countless elected officials who have been reelected notwithstanding a sex scandal. Or if he leaves public office, he can always get a show on CNN like Eliot Spitzer.

So that’s the dilemma society is faced with: we have to find a way to change men in areas where they cannot be forced to change.

Because there is essentially nothing to force men into fidelity, men must independently do our part to fight temptation, especially in the digital age. It was relatively difficult to receive a message from your mistress by “snail mail.” Now we can send and receive private messages from an assortment of devices in real-time.

The biggest externality of instantaneous communication is the lack of forethought that goes into a text or tweet. We process information very quickly and have all sent messages without thinking (After all, Twitter is basically an external hard drive for our brains).

Accordingly, it does not surprise me when smart people do extremely stupid things. Fidelity is not about intellect, it is about discipline. Today’s committed man is one who takes steps to remain committed. It is not possible to be a passive monogamist anymore. Men, even those who are not on social-networking sites, are faced with online perils every day.

I fear that we are just seeing the beginning of Adultery 2.0 because the ways of man are not keeping up with the changes in society. As the world becomes more ripe for trouble, men have to resort to more “drastic” measures to prevent oneself from getting in trouble. I placed drastic in quotations because the methods for fighting temptation are not that drastic at all.

Out of all the ways to stay out of trouble, I believe staying away from private communication is the easiest and most effective. That’s part of the reason why I like Twitter so much; if you send a message to someone, ALL of your followers will see it. Although you can send a private direct messages (like Rep. Weiner tried to do), you are still limited to 140 characters.

I am a firm believer that every message that could be written on someone’s Facebook wall or as a public tweet should be. There’s no reason why a guy in a relationship should send “so how was your day?” as a private message or a DM. Further, context is significantly more important in written language. The reader’s impression (i.e. that of the significant other) and not the senders intention is what matters. Moreover, while men may not necessarily make smart decisions in a public forum, we are more likely to consider the consequences of our actions than when acting clandestinely.

Many people challenge my public-communication solution by invoking “privacy” concerns, but to that I say 1) our notions of “privacy” largely began with the cell phone (remember the days of worrying about mom picking up the phone while you were sweet talking?) and 2) the vast majority of “private” conversations we have are not private at all. If something were truly private, you probably would not send it in a text message because you would not know if the intended recipient received it. I also cannot think of any seriously private message that I have received on a social-networking site.

My approach may be “drastic,” but I cannot think of another practical way to change the ways of man. While I realize that I cannot stop all men from cheating, I can at least help people think before sending lewd Twitpics to all their followers

Abudallah Kazibwe was rushed to a hospital in the Nebbi District in Uganda after Habib (last name?) found him in bed with his live-in girlfriend Irene (last name?). Abdullah and Irene used to date and Abdullah, a truck driver, just wanted to stop by and see her while he was in the area.  Apparently the flame was rekindled and they ended up having sex. Somehow Habib heard about it, stormed in, and caught them in the act.  Habib cut off Abdullah’s testicles with a kitchen knife.

We don’t know whether Irene conveyed to Abdullah that she was in a new relationship.  If she did, then I guess we can’t feel too sorry for him.  And if he didn’t know, then this is quite a tragedy.

We read cases like this all of the time in criminal law during my first year in law school.  Since Habib acted out of passion, he’d get a lesser sentence.  I can understand him being mad, but I’ve never been the type to get mad if my significant other decides to cheat on me.  In fact, men should expect that other men will try to sleep with their woman (I actually wouldn’t want to date someone that no one else would want).  But that’s why you date someone that is trustworthy.  Habib’s anger, instead, should have been placed toward the person that has a duty to him – Irene.

Source: New Vision (Uganda)

One of my favorite things about Google Voice: embeddable voicemails.  Here’s a voicemail that I had my mom leave for Mother’s Day.  Enjoy.

“Til death to you part” is a long time.  And there inevitably will be bumps along the road.  Not all marriages are meant to last.  Conversely, not all marriages that ended in divorce had to end that way.

When things get tough, you’ve got four options:  1) Walk out 2) Cheat 3) Stay silent and get over it or 4) Talk about your problems with your significant other.  The Manogamy Movement cannot stress the importance of #4 (or as we would call it openness).

So many people stay in relationships when they’re unhappy out of fear of being alone or what others may think.  I’ve done this before and it was one of the worst decisions I ever made.  Why? Because your problems will only build up into bigger problems.  Eventually an emotional timebomb will go off.  Psychotherapist Mel Schwartz does a good job of summarizing the dilemma with this paragraph

Fear is the greatest impediment to growth in our lives. Too often, individuals are literally afraid of sharing their true feelings with their partners. This range of fear may run the gamut: the fear of divorce and its incumbent anxieties or simply the avoidance of coming to terms with a relationship that may be lacking in intimacy, passion or respect. When you stay married out of fear, the emotional paralysis that pervades further poisons the relationship. Staying together out of resignation–due to fear–results in an enigmatic dilemma. Such people won’t consider divorce and yet they are convinced that their marriage won’t improve, so they don’t work on the relationship. This is the worst of all possible scenarios. They are literally caught between the proverbial rock and the hard place.

If talking things out doesn’t work, THEN you should go with #1 and move on.  #2 and #3 should never be an option.  If you are truly unhappy, then you’re only making matters worse by having an affair.  Don’t buy that Ashley Trashy Madison affairs save marriages crap (and by the way, I still haven’t received a response from them about why Noel Biderman spread the gospel of infidelity when he claims to be monogamous).

Source: Psychology Today

A follower on Twitter was gracious enough to send over an article about celebrity couples that don’t cheat.  Here’s the list:

Kevin Bacon & Kyra Sedgwick

Michael J. Fox & Tracy Pollan

David Arquette & Courtney Cox

Source: Staying Loyal

Why Did I Get Married Too? is a sequel to Tyler Perry’s hit 2007 movie.  The movie chronicles four Black couples and their unique problems:  communication; suspected infidelity; trust after infidelity; joblessness (and leaving the past in the past).  With the exception of the communication issue in Janet Jackson (Patricia) and Malik Yoba (Gavin), I think that the plots involved well-developed salient issues in society.

One of the big issues in the movie was Tasha Smith (Angela) wanting the passcode to her husband Michael Jai White’s (Marcus) phone.  He wouldn’t give it up to her and she suspected that something was wrong with it.  Marcus had a history of cheating and Angela suspected that it was still going on.

We constantly emphasize openness in relationships.  There’s probably a problem if you cannot let your significant other see your phone.  We are of the opinion that if you have nothing to hide, then it’s not a big deal.  Tyler Perry (Terry) tells Marcus that he willingly let his wife Sharon Leal (Dianne) see his phone.

I don’t want to spoil the movie, but I recommend that you see it.  I laughed for most of the movie and was on the edge of my seat for some of the most intense scenes.  The consensus in my theatre was that everyone liked it.  However, I’ve talked to lots of people that hated the film.  So I guess it’s something that you’ll just have to see for yourself.

Oh yeah, I left this out (I thought I included it the first time). The ending to the movie is horrible. I haven’t met one person that likes it. If When you see it, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

As we all try to sit back and reflect on the Sandra Bullock situation, one article attempts (and I think pretty well) to make some sense of how Jesse James cheats on Sandra Bullock.  But it’s not just Bullock, a similar thing happened to Reese Witherspoon.

And while there was no evidence of cheating, the significant others of Hilary Swank, Helen Hunt, Julia Roberts, and Kate Winslet all left after they received awards.

We’ve always heard that successful men have a propensity cheat due to power.  However, it could be that (relatively) unsuccessful men cheat due to the lack of power.

The article is REALLY good and you should check it out.  Here’s a little morsel for you to savor:

According to [Carole] Lieberman, [Beverly Hills psychiatrist,] the typical reaction for a man who feels professionally threatened, and thus insecure in a relationship, is to cheat. When a woman edges ahead, “the man’s unconscious fear is that now that their partner is so much more successful, she is going to leave him. So what they do is cheat, that’s typical, because they’re angry. They’re already angry for the rejection that they’re anticipating.”

Infidelity is “a way of taking control and not letting the woman leave them; to not have it be her decision.”

“It’s primordial,” Lieberman continued, “and with celebrities, the idea of being broken up with is so much more devastating and humiliating because it’s so public… So they need to show the world that ‘I cheated.”

Hence the tawdry details about James’ alleged months-long, sexaholic affair that began while Bullock was filming The Blind Side.

However, if this is true, then doesn’t it mean that the stage is set for all men to cheat?  That’s where the Manogamy Movement steps in.  I’ve always said that all men have the propensity to cheat.  What’s important is conditioning that cheating is not okay.  If we are having problems, we need to be able to talk them out beforehand (openness) and not viewing infidelity as a solution to problems.

Source: The Daily Beast

Today’s newest cuckoo theory of monogamy comes from Dr. Esther Perel. Perel basically says that people should just embrace cheating because it happens. Man I wish the cops would be as nice whenever they give me a speeding ticket.

Perel relies on the fact that it is easier to cheat now to normalize it. She figures that since people send flirtatious text and facebook messages, it cannot be that bad. Rather than argue that people need to adjust to our newfound personal communication by not engaging in secret communication, we should just adjust by not expecting fidelity.

Perel has horrible logic. She assumes that someone wouldn’t mind the other person cheating on them if they cheat. I don’t know of any man, I including Noel Biderman, that’s okay with their significant other cheating. And making it easier to cheat won’t change that.

I wrote an Op-Ed on this and hopefully I’ll get it published.

Source: The Guardian

My little brother and I don’t agree on much.  Our personalities are literally night and day (although he’s coming more toward my side now).  Nevertheless, our views on relationships are strikingly similar.  We both have given our significant others access to our Facebook accounts.

It is time that I address a really big issue in society:  Privacy.  This post is going to be relatively long, so I am going to chop it up into a series.

Privacy amongst couples.  The notion of privacy within a relationship is somewhat of a head scratcher for me.  Before the Internet (which was only popularized about 15 years ago), there was basically four ways to communicate with someone 1) Telephone at home 2) Mail to home 3) Telephone at work and 4) Mail to work.  The latter two primarily applied to white-collar workers.  Naturally, it was somewhat harder to have an affair.  After all, your mistress (gender neutral) would be dumb to call your home phone because you may pick up.  And I suppose that your mistress could send you mail under a pseudonym, but that’s about it.

And then we got pagers, cell phones, smartphones, e-mail, social-networking sites, etc.  Now there are endless ways to reach a person INDIVIDUALLY (literally, you can have as many e-mail addresses as you want).  Digital messages are also faster to transmit meaning you can send something without really thinking (as opposed to walking to the mailbox and having a change of heart).

While technology has changed, human nature has not.  Many people have failed to understand the responsibility that accompanies a computer or a cell phone and fall susceptible to temptation.  That’s why 20% of divorces cite Facebook as the cause of divorce.  And that’s why you have people getting caught up with sexting.  Humans have always had urges to cheat and technology makes it that much easier to act upon that feeling.

My brother and I are firm believers of openness in relationships and that’s why we have no problem giving our girlfriends our passwords to our Facebook accounts.  We both believe that if you have nothing to hide, there shouldn’t be a problem.

There’s a REBUTTABLE presumption that a personal message is inappropriate.  Simply put, if you have something to say, you should be able to say it on your wall.  When you hear about people getting in trouble on Facebook, like Judge Woods, it’s usually because they send private messages.

You will think twice about sexting or poking if you know that your significant other could be checking watching you.

And if you really care about privacy, then don’t get on a social network.  But you can’t have it both ways.  You can’t say that I am free with everyone on my network knowing my business, but I have a problem with my significant other knowing my business.  What is the “my business” mess about?

The same rule applies to not being protective about your phone.  My girlfriend has a Blackberry and often asks to use my iPhone to check a website (since it looks better).  I hand over my phone with no questions asked.  Again, if you have nothing to hide, then what’s the big deal?

Now you may be asking, what if one of my friends sends me a confidential message about their life?  To that I respond, you should talk to that individual in person or on the phone.  It’s NEVER a good idea to send a confidential text message because you don’t know who will receive it.

Notice how this post is specifically discussion social networks and text messages and not e-mail. I understand that people may have confidential work-related content in their e-mails, so giving your significant other access could be a problem.  But no one sends serious messages on Facebook.  In fact, the vast majority of the messages that I receive are for parties.

My girlfriend also brought up the point of how people personalized profile settings can lead to trouble.  For instance, I can prevent my friends from seeing certain information or pictures.  We both agree that you shouldn’t add someone as a friend if you don’t want them viewing your profile.  We can’t really determine an instance where it is appropriate for some people to see that we’re in a relationship, but not for others.

I can speak on this issue firsthand because I got caught by an ex sending flirtatious messages on Facebook.  I had a universal password and she correctly guessed that I used it on Facebook too.  We got into an argument about trust and since we were both in the wrong, we moved on.  And what did I do after that? Change my password.  If I really wanted to stop myself from flirting, I would have kept it the same.

Giving your significant other access to your profile doesn’t mean that he/she will actually check it.  It’s just a symbol of trust.  In fact, I believe that they will be less likely to check your messages because you have exhibited that you can be trusted.  However, if you clamor up at the thought of your significant other checking your Facebook or text messages and they have the opportunity to…they’ll likely want to take a peek.

Technology clearly demonstrates that people are more quick-tempered, racist, weak in the flesh than we once thought.   The Manogamy Movement cannot solve every problem, but we at least aim to help with the third.

I received a comment today equating our website to a gossip blog.  I must say that personally hurt.  The user said that we weren’t doing enough to provide tips for people that would like to know more about monogamy and fidelity.  This is something that I have been meaning to get around to, so I guess I deserve it.  So here it goes.  I’ll try to post these weekly as a series. In order to make it easy to access, I will create a page just for this post.