Subjectivity On Infidelity

By: Billy BeerSlugger

Now there have been countless stories in the news about this guy cheating on his wife with that girl.  Stories of infidelity about politicians, sports stars, coaches, teachers, CEO’s and every other walk of life. Lately I’ve been following the Rick Pitino sex scandal from afar. All I know is that he admitted on cheating on his wife with a woman and she was allegedly trying to blackmail him.  But that’s neither here nor there.

You look at the lot of these cases whether in court or portrayed in the media and 99% of them paint the guy in a negative light.  Donald Trump, Frank Gifford, Peter Cook/Kristy Brinkley, Bill Clinton, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Rudy Giuliani, Senator Larry Craig, Jim McGreevy, Eliot Spitzer, Hugh Grant, Jude Law, Usher, Kobe Bryant and the list goes on and on and on. I think one thing is for sure that men (and women) will continue to cheat on their significant others.

That being said, there’s two oddly peculiar cases surrounding cheating that women rarely scoff at. David Beckham and Brad Pitt are two people who (allegedly) cheated on their spouses yet received little to no harm to their careers because of it.  Brad Pitt broke it off with wife Jennifer Aniston to get with Angelina Jolie and David Beckham seems to have been in the news a couple of times for banging random girls.

I’m not sure if these two stars just have great PR teams and were able to quell the backlash or if women generally just did not care that these two guys cheated.  Not to say that the stories were not covered but not in the negativity and public outcry of say a Bill Clinton, Peter Cook or Eliot Spitzer.  Granted some of the political figures involved in sex scandals are makers of public policy and should be held to a higher standard but are not they all human.

Now I’m not advocating cheating or anything of the like, all I’m saying is that it’s weird that if you talk to a girl about Peter Cook who cheated on Kristie Brinkley most will say they hate the guy and think he’s an asshole for cheating on his wife but if you ask the ask the same girl about Brad Pitt they’ll say he’s the hottest man alive and leave out the part that he (allegedly) cheated on Jennifer Anniston.  Is Brad Pitt or David Beckham or any other so called “sexiest man alive” held to a lower standard on the fidelity part of their relationships than the rest of us mortal men?  Does being insanely hot get you a pass in some instances?  I know hot women get passes all the time but does this happen for men too?  I’ll bring this point up to women and some say they don’t care if he cheated that they still love Brad Pitt.

I’d like to hear some comments from men and women on this matter.  Given the same level of marital indiscretion from two men, one being average looking and the other being or Brad Pitt status, does the average looking one receive more heat than the really good looking one? From a mass media standpoint and from a woman’s opinion standpoint?