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Tiger, (Let’s Pretend) We Hardly Knew Ye

December 30th, 2009 by Christina

3578897009_c8078e2a22 As usual, the end of the decade is being marked by countless articles, TV and radio specials–all of them scrambling to accurately distill the ’00s into a tidy list of significant people and events.

Oh sure, there was that 9/11 thing and a few wars started here and there–but apparently one of the most shocking things to happen in the past 10 years was that a rich, famous athlete had extra-marital affairs.

If you are among those who claimed to be floored by this news–who has perhaps smashed the face of your Tag Heuer watch in disgust–here is what I say to you: Give. Me. A. Break. You are so not shocked and you know it. You know it. Whatever one may think or feel about Tiger’s indiscretions on a moral level, I find it impossible to believe that anyone is genuinely shocked. Disappointed? Sure. But not shocked.

Since when has anyone with a squeaky-clean public persona lived up to it in his personal life? If you are a rich and famous married man, you are required to cheat on your wife. It’s not a choice. Ask David Letterman, Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer and all the others. Having extra-marital sex with younger women is written into their rich-powerful-man contracts. They are not allowed not to cheat. (OK, there’s the occasional Paul Newman, who finds a loophole by making salad dressing and pretzels.)

My cynicism about this should not suggest that I am one of those bitter divorcees who thinks all men are weak and pathetic–because truly that is not what I’m trying to convey. I certainly don’t condone adultery or deception, and I feel for all the duped wives involved.

I just think it’s naive to be surprised, given that unremitting monogamy seems like a longshot for most humans–rich, poor, male or female. In fact, what Woods did was so predictable that that’s what he should be most embarrassed about. Couldn’t he have instead surprised the world by not philandering? That would have been refreshing.

I like the way Frank Rich put it in a recent New York Times op-ed called Tiger Woods, Person of the Year: What’s striking… is the exceptional, Enron-sized gap between this golfer’s public image as a paragon of businesslike discipline and focus and the maniacally reckless life we now know he led. What’s equally striking, if not shocking, is that the American establishment and news media — all of it, not just golf writers or celebrity tabloids — fell for the Woods myth as hard as any fan and actively helped sustain and enhance it.

I just hope our president, who has so much riding on his own image as The Perfect Husband, has something like the Paul Newman clause written into his powerful-man contract–because if he ends up in a Monica Lewinsky-type situation, we will surely be looking right in the face of Armageddon.

What are your thoughts? Why is our society so, um, wed to the concept of lifelong fidelity, and why do we feign shock when we discover that, for the gazillionth time, someone has cheated on a spouse?

6 Responses

Jen Singer writes:

December 31st, 2009 at 8:51 am

What was shocking to me was the sheer numbers of women, some at the same time, that he managed to juggle while at the same time avoiding any rumors of his infidelity, er, infidelities. It was his multi-tasking skills more than anything that floored me.

In the past few days, CNN reported that the losses for many of the companies he represented has been in the billions of dollars. All because he couldn’t keep it in his pants. Shocked? No. Disappointed? Absolutely. And a great teachable moment for my sons.

Leslie writes:

December 31st, 2009 at 9:03 am

Nothing shocks me anymore. But yes, like Jen, I’m disappointed. But why can’t we have life long fidelity? If the women can keep it in their pants, why can’t the men? I suspect it has less to do with sex and more to do with narcissism. These men think they’re above the law, so to speak. That they can get away with anything and everything and not get caught. They have no concept of how their actions will affect everyone around them. The whole subject is sickening. But no, not shocking.

Christina writes:

December 31st, 2009 at 10:25 am

It actually seems like self-sabotage on Tiger Woods’ part, ya know? This stuff always gets discovered–esp with so many women involved. It’s as if he was begging to be found out and taken down.

Men are wired differently than women, for sure. Testosterone is powerful stuff. It doesn’t excuse the stupidity of men who pull this crap, but it sort of explains it.

Juliaink writes:

January 3rd, 2010 at 5:39 pm

I would guess that people who seek illicit relationships get stimulated by and addicted to the physical excitement of what they have to do to escape detection. It is sort of like the pattern of falling hardest for people who are intermittently rejecting–the emotional turmoil gets channeled into sexual desire. In the case of the cheaters, I wonder if the pattern might be related in part to a hardwired social behavior of seeking access to females without drawing negative attention from the dominant male. And even the dominant male has to have developed sexually during a period when he was not yet dominant, when such a pattern could become ingrained. I also suspect that different adulterers have different motives–Clinton seems to have been channeling suppressed fury when he got involved with Lewinsky, others seem to act out of arrogance, entitlement, frustration–whatever. Acting on illicit desires is another matter, and there is always the question of why the other party is willing to get involved with and may even seduce someone who would be otherwise monogamous. In the end, I guess people do these things simply because they can…

Alexandra writes:

January 4th, 2010 at 5:24 pm

I don’t care much about Tiger Woods. I feel sorry for the children, and Elin. It’s hard enough to sustain a bicultural marriage, but such betrayal must be really galling, any betrayal is – and I speak from experience – multiply that by however many mistresses surfaced and it makes you want to get in there and swing that golf club along with her.

angeloubouvier writes:

January 25th, 2010 at 3:23 pm

Rainy day re-evaluation causes me again to jump from what is expected to what is real.
If you watch the documentaries on women who fall for “con men” who rob them of money and property, one never thinks; who were these women? who marries a man after 6 weeks? (Sunday night documentary on con men dated 1-24-10 on one of those basic cable stations)In a less glaring perspective, most of us are guilty of this in a far more reduced state. I think all of us that are in long term marriages are in denial to some degree but there are those few marriages that are just lucky and its as real as it can be. If any of you are truly feminists, playing victim is as outdated as wearing curlers in your hair to the A&P.
The only way Mrs Woods could be unaware that her fine husband was spending time with 8 other women was if she was too busy to notice but how is that possible? How could she NOT know? One would feel it or if not, nothing was happening there worth talking about unless of course you want to find solace with those that pretend they had a real marriage.
Mr Woods was wrong but what part does the highly attractive Mrs. Woods play in this generic high end drama? Please understand I’m not defending Mr Woods nor am feeling sorry for Mrs Woods or Mrs Draper.
I’m just hoping that schools make”The emperors new clothes” required reading.
I met someone new last week and its hot but I really don’t know if hes an honest man or a player. Its just hot.
I don’t miss my husband at all.