My best friend and female soul mate, Angie, recently wrote a post about men who cheat on their wives and the commonalities between them that she’s picked up on. You should read the post and comment if you haven’t, but the common trends identified for married men that stray include young power, self-made man status, and conference types. My comment on her post was the following:

This is a post that I’ve been meaning to write for awhile, but I think you’ve done more justice to the subject matter than I could ever have. What you’re blessed with is an outsider perspective, and what I’m cursed with is knowing that every single word you right is true. I am very much a part of the conference circuit, and men love the attention of a pretty girl. Exhibitors result to getting “booth” babes to attract attention…wtf? When did a conference become the type of venue where Hooters wasn’t the after hours event but the in-conference feature?

To the question of marriage, I too have lost all faith in the idea of monogamy. My parents, who are monogamous, represent an ideal that seems pretty much unattainable. Maybe it has something to do with my dad’s commitment to the church, to his willingness to accept his flaws and not give in to his lust, or maybe it’s because my parents are simple folks and the glitz and glamor of the spotlight has never burned in their loins.

I’ve reread this comment several times, and having just been to Hooters (I do kind of like the place), and a number of conferences, I have found that exhibition halls tend to purposely mashup business material with in-your-face sexual assaults. Combine this with the social nature of events and the expectation of free drinks, and you end up with a breeding ground for infidelity. It’s almost like one big Frat party where the costs are always expensed to someone else.

Think about this. When you go to Hooters what are your expectations? You expect to see gratuitous amounts of cleavage and an abundance of butt checks. Given that the setting was purposely created to provide you with sexual stimuli, you are essentially encouraged to stare, drool, and act like a brutish and neolithic man. You’re expected to consume the T&A. It’s just the nature of the business.

Now think about conferences for a moment. What are your expectations? You expect to network, you expect to learn, and more and more you’re expected to party. Social mixers are now very much integrated with the actual event, but to make matters even more sexually stimulating, you’re also expected to check out the exhibition hall, where savvy exhibitors use pay-per-hour females to dress scantily clad (much like Hooters a girl) and lure you over to their booth.

My point is that Hooters and conferences have become socially acceptable places to stare, gawk, and flirt with disaster. The more socially acceptable sexual flaunting becomes, the more difficult it will be to avoid temptation. Does monogamy have a fighting chance against our evolving sexual interests?

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