A new, authoritative study finds that few of us, including expert researchers, can agree on what cheating is.
Many of us think of sex and other forms of sexual contact (such as touching private parts) as cheating. What about kissing on the cheek, holding hands, flirting? What if your partner only supports the other girl emotionally? Or did you watch porn? Is it still possible to cheat?
Scientific studies have shown that the concept of betrayal is often different for different people. Especially if we are not talking about sexual intercourse. This is according to co-author of the new review, Benjamin Varach, a clinical psychologist and infidelity researcher at Stony Brook University in the US.
Research also shows that people often have different understandings of what does and does not constitute sexual contact.
A team of scientists analyzed 305 articles about infidelity for a recent study. In total, more than half a million people from 47 countries on six continents participated.
On average, 17.45% of people confessed to sexual infidelity and 27.5% to emotional infidelity. 35% reported engaging in nonsexual activities that could be perceived as liking someone else (e.g., dancing, holding hands).
At the same time, men admitted to infidelity much more often than women. For example, 25% of them confessed to sexual infidelity (among women it was 14%), 35% admitted emotional infidelity (among women – 29%).
Source: Ferra
I am a professional journalist and content creator with extensive experience writing for news websites. I currently work as an author at Gadget Onus, where I specialize in covering hot news topics. My written pieces have been published on some of the biggest media outlets around the world, including The Guardian and BBC News.
