Monday 7 December 2009

Unfaithfulness, Thy Name is Man

Tiger Woods' extramarital affairs have nothing to do with me, but it does set me off on a trail of thoughts.

Firstly, his perfect image as the protective and loving husband being smashed.

We all know that human beings are not perfect, but in our subsconciousness, many of us still see Woods as being 'perfect' in that he doesn't stray, especially when he has a top model for a wife and no tabloid has ever been successful in finding his fault. His image is always healthy. Always with that pearly-white smile. I'm not sure if his tan or naturally-tanned skin contributes to his healthy image.

It's quite a blow to idealistic people like me, that even Woods, someone who's fiercely protective of his privacy, falls from grace in the fidelity aspect.

Is it really so hard to be faithful?

Secondly, the society seems to accept that men being unfaithful is a norm. They often quote the well-abused phrase 'He is just a human being' to the point of it being rotten.

Aren't women 'just human beings' too? What makes women's infidelity more unacceptable than men's? And what makes men's unfaithfulness more acceptable than women's?

And why do we, more often than not, have men unfaithful rather than women?

I recall vividly how Jacky (or is it 'Jackie') Chan found the quick, perfect excuse for his act of infidelity when his female co-star stood up to expose his unfaithfulness, by claiming that she's pregnant with his baby,"我犯了全天下男人都会犯的错。" loosely translated as "I've commited the fault that the rest of the men on Earth would." It suggests that EVERY man is or will be unfaithful, and it's as if that's acceptable.

It's disgusting.

A New Paper journalist or columnist, Joanne Soh, was blasted on paper how her view of 'Men are Pigs' was twisted and that it implied that she has some issues about her own marriage.

Incidentally, those who paper-lambasted her are all men, while women supported her view. And I, of course, stand by her too, having gone through at least 2 pigs of a man.

The arguments that the men gave were weak: they started to say immature things like 'Then women should all be bitches', and they knew of women who were unfaithful too.

I mean, the world is SOOOOOO big. There will definitely be women who cheat their spouse as well, but what's the probability of women cheating as opposed to men?

It's so ironical that on one hand, men agree whole-heartedly that infidelity is something that all men would commit when high-profiled celebrities' unfaithfulness is splashed all over the papers, yet on the other hand, they try so hard to refute that claim when the title is directed at the common men. I think it also tells us that men are vain and frivolous. They want to be associated with acts commited by celebrities, yet they do not want to admit that they are fallible when the topic directs more at the vile act than the celebrity in question.

Vanity, frivolousness and unfaithfulness, thy name is man.

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