“Why must I be like that? Why must I chase the cat? Nothin’ but the dog in me.”

— George Clinton, “Atomic Dog”

“They say Eve tempted Adam with an apple/

But man, I ain’t goin’ for that …”

— Bruce Springsteen, “Pink Cadillac”

“Into the boundary/Of each married man/Sweet deceit comes calling/And negativity lands … But it’s no sacrifice/No sacrifice/It’s no sacrifice at all.”

— Elton John, “Sacrifice”

Several of the important women in my life are pissed off. Not at me, for once, but at Tiger Woods. These women, who did not care about Woods two weeks ago, are now angry and upset at the mention of his name.

At press time, Woods has been linked to approximately 6 million women with whom he allegedly conducted extramarital affairs. It has been a spectacular fall from grace that is reverberating throughout popular culture and conversations in boardrooms and bedrooms.

It is striking how many women have taken this personally. Not since Prince Charles humiliated Princess Diana with his affair with Camilla have I seen so many women so angry at a famous man’s infidelity. John Edwards did not evoke such passion, and women’s reaction to Bill Clinton’s behavior was a complicated mix of tolerance and disappointment. There are far too many such marital betrayals to list — it’s a parade of douchebags that stretches from Jon Gosselin to Gary Hart and Jim Bakker in the modern era and back from that to Og the Caveman.

Upfront, I will state that I am not throwing stones at Woods. I do not live in a glass house when it comes to this topic, but there are some unsightly large windows that past near-idiocies have installed in my domicile, so I tread lightly and with no pretense of purity.

I am stating without judging that the Woods case seems to have struck a strong nerve with women, some of whom are projecting past betrayals or present fears on the situation, but much more intensely than when the usual male idiot screws up. Not judging Woods does not mean expressing sympathy for him; he has earned his status as a national punchline.

In processing the coverage of this story, which will be with us as the last great scandal of the decade, one particular comment has stayed with me. Dan Le Batard, writing in the Dec. 2 Miami Herald, said, “Woods … is a man trying unsuccessfully to ignore his body’s wiring and all natural impulses and temptation while comedian Chris Rock reminds us that any man is only as monogamous as his options.”

Admittedly pulled from the context of Le Batard’s entire column, doesn’t that last sentence sound like a “he couldn’t help himself” excuse?

Is it that simple? Men are physically “wired” and mentally compelled by “impulses” to cheat? What about the strength of commitment? What about the morality of fidelity? And, as Tina Turner once asked, “What’s love got to do with it?”

It would be a lie to say that marriage, love and commitment erase a man’s interest in women, sex and the wondrous areas where the two overlap. But there are two issues here, and neither of them have to be beaten into submission by “wiring” or “impulses.”

The temptation to bite into the occasional new and shiny apple is one issue. The other is the potential formation of connective emotional tissue to another woman. For many of the women I know, that latter concern is a far greater betrayal, not that the former is granted any leeway.

But both scenarios involve free will and choice; neither are ruled by wiring and impulses.

There are people who believe monogamy and marriage are artifices of a puritanical society that run against nature’s intent. Those people should remain single and hop like rabbits from warren to warren as they and their partners see fit; love and marriage aren’t for them.

Le Batard’s other reference, the Chris Rock quote that “any man is only as monogamous as his options,” is even more frightening as an implied license to ill.

It’s a cheap and easy out to blame (or credit) Woods’ affairs on some uncontrollable and dominating testosterone mandate, as if the penis is a divining rod that controls the man.

We may be animals, but we’re not animals, right?

My guess is that Woods’ marriage was a novelty to him, something to experiment with as a life experience. The man is a billionaire with the world at his feet and the resources to buy anything he can imagine. I wonder if marriage and family were a concept to him to try out, like the multimillionaire and bored Beatles once opened a clothing boutique just to see what it felt like to “play shopkeeper.”

He certainly did not treat the institution, or his wife, with the respect both expect.

I do not speak for women, or even all men, but when we make mistakes and bad decisions, we are accountable for them.

It is our hearts and brains to blame, not our testicles.

We are men, not dogs, even if the best of us sometimes act like we are.

Michael S. Miller is editor in chief of Toledo Free Press. Contact him at mmiller@toledofreepress.com.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 11th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under Lighting The Fuse, Opinion.
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