Master of His Domain
Why Powerful Men Cheat With The Help
What makes those who are powerful and famous, wealthy and privileged go after those hired to serve them? What is behind the appeal of seducing an employee, specifically one who works in your home? Here are a few explanations:
1. Our culture has definite domination and submission fantasies. We sexualize women in subservient and submissive positions and perpetuate this idea that women in a maid's uniform are ripe for anything. These women are often young, single, struggling financially and perhaps attracted to the allure of male power (think Monica Lewinsky). Maybe the Schwarzenegger's maid wanted to have sex with Arnold. She admits she pursued him early on. And Arnold did lavish money on the maid; he was reportedly good to her financially. Yet in both cases, these women were in a subservient position to their employers.
Perhaps the fantasy of the nanny in the schoolgirl outfit or the maid with her feather duster is as ingrained in our culture as this symbol of male power and female submission that men feel they can't "not" act it out. The question I have for Arnold is this: Why not act it out with your wife? Does it have to be the real maid? There are maid costumes galore, with the short aprons and short skirts, in costume stores everywhere, so why don't you just play "chase-the-maid" at home and stay out of trouble?
2. With money and power comes a sense of entitlement. Perhaps powerful men look at women like they would candy, saying to themselves, "Oh, that looks good—I'll take one of those." Maybe this sense of entitlement is partly a result of our increasingly polarized upper and lower classes, with the lower class identified as the working class and the disenfranchised.
Several hundred years ago, a man could just take the woman he wanted, domestic worker or slave, and she was often powerless to stand up to him. Usually these women had little recourse and were blamed for the incident in the case that it surfaced. How much has this really changed?
3. Taking a risk is exhilarating. Trouble is fun sometimes. The excitement of the forbidden can be erotic and edgy. But lots of things can entice us, and we don't have to pursue our every urge. With higher brain function, we have a superego that helps us control those thoughts. We also have control over our impulses. Why can't these men keep their impulses in check?
4. Cheating is about power and opportunity. Studies have shown that cheating may not be a symptom of a bad marriage. Most people cheat because of opportunity. (Leading marriage researcher John Gottman says this accounts for 80 percent of affairs.) For example, Tiger Woods had opportunity—he was in a male-driven culture where the men around him either turned a blind eye to his affairs or they helped him procure women for his sexual liaisons. Men like Tiger and Arnold, in power positions, have ample opportunity to cheat, much more than the average guy who travels in somewhat smaller circles. Maybe the average guy does it just as much, too, but we don't hear about him on the nightly news.
Affairs happen because of opportunity, but they also happen more often in cultures that are not driven by financial desperation. Men of power have the freedom to pursue an affair because they don't have to worry about where their next meal is coming from. And they may even have an aggrandized sense of entitlement from their wealth and power. Perhaps infidelity comes naturally with privilege. Maybe the privileged and powerful feel they are so far above the typical morals of daily life that all these "rules" about staying faithful just don't apply. When people see they have the opportunity (an in-home worker) and power, the cards get stacked against fidelity. It's happened with Jude Law, Arnold and countless others.
5. We separate the good girl from the bad girl. Or the wife from the girlfriend, the servant from the master. We sexualize the bad girl, the girl on the side and the servant, while we tell jokes about the good girl and the wife who won't put out. Wives are supposed to be the women who don't cheat. And frankly, fidelity is expected in marriage, from both men and women, at least on the surface.
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