# Demographics of Cheating in the US



## MAJDEATH (Jun 16, 2015)

https://ifstudies.org/blog/who-cheats-more-the-demographics-of-cheating-in-america

Recent study shows *% who reported having sex with someone other than spouse while married *, broken out by sex, age, race, education level, political identity, family background, and religious activity, which effect the results significantly. I found amazing that from ages 18-29, women cheat more than men.

Keep in mind this is a self-reported phone survey, so I dare say the numbers might be higher if your spouse was sitting next to you while the person on the phone was asking you about sex with others.


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## sunsetmist (Jul 12, 2018)

MAJDEATH said:


> https://ifstudies.org/blog/who-cheats-more-the-demographics-of-cheating-in-america
> 
> Recent study shows *% who reported having sex with someone other than spouse while married *, broken out by sex, age, race, education level, political identity, family background, and religious activity, which effect the results significantly. I found amazing that from ages 18-29, women cheat more than men.
> 
> Keep in mind this is a self-reported phone survey, so I dare say the numbers might be higher if your spouse was sitting next to you while the person on the phone was asking you about sex with others.


The data are interesting. Worth the read. I couldn't find the number of people surveyed--probably right in front of my face, but.... Difficult then to determine what the difference in 11%-10% was for 18-29 year olds.

Another note from study: of course, cohort makes a difference. But, infidelity is painful to the person who is being cheated on and can be detrimental to the relationship. Although statistics on the link between infidelity and divorce are hard to find, my analysis based on GSS data suggests that adults who cheated are much more likely than those who didn’t to be divorced or separated.

Among ever-married adults who have cheated on their spouses before, 40% are currently divorced or separated. By comparison, only 17% of adults who were faithful to their spouse are no longer married. On the flip side, only about half of “cheaters” are currently married, compared with 76% of those who did not cheat.

Men who cheated are more likely than their female peers to be married. Among men who have cheated on their spouse before, 61% are currently married, while 34% are divorced or separated. However, only 44% of women who have cheated before are currently married, while 47% are divorced or separated.

This gender difference could reflect the fact that men are more likely to be remarried than women after a divorce. A portion of currently married “cheaters” may be remarried, since we can't tell from the data whether or not the person who cheated is still married to the spouse he or she cheated on.
-----------------------------------

Thanks--wish I had more time...


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## Spoons027 (Jun 19, 2017)

Informative and depressing.


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## VladDracul (Jun 17, 2016)

Taking this survey at face value, you cannot determine if women 18-29 in general cheat more than men or if women, this day and age, 18-29 cheat more than men. In the last few years, it appears women are giving it up more frequently, at a younger age, with more partners, banging on the first date, more careless with birth control, getting pregnant more often, than even 15-20 years ago. Not making a judgement call but that's my perception.


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## I shouldnthave (Apr 11, 2018)

VladDracul said:


> Taking this survey at face value, you cannot determine if women 18-29 in general cheat more than men or if women, this day and age, 18-29 cheat more than men. *In the last few years, it appears women are giving it up more frequently, at a younger age, with more partners, banging on the first date, more careless with birth control, getting pregnant more often, than even 15-20 years ago. * Not making a judgement call but that's my perception.


While you may think it appears that way, the statistics and the studies out there show much different trends. 

Teen pregnancy has been falling steadily since the 1950's:

https://www.cdc.gov/teenpregnancy/about/index.htm



> "This is another record low for U.S. teens and a drop of 8% from 2014. Birth rates fell 9% for women aged 15–17 years and 7% for women aged 18–19 years.
> 
> Although reasons for the declines are not totally clear, evidence suggests these declines are due to more teens abstaining from sexual activity, and more teens who are sexually active using birth control than in previous years."


https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/04/upshot/up-birth-age-gap.html

Women are waiting longer to have children, the average age of a mother with a first born as risen to 26 years of age. Your location also matters when analyzing this variable. In San Francisco for instance the average age of a new other is almost 32 years old, while the south for instance, sees much younger first time mothers.

Age of loss of virginity is a bit harder to track, but studies are not showing a decline in age in that either.


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## MaiChi (Jun 20, 2018)

People who take such chances tend to also indulge in risky sex behaviours so there must be a correlation between the rate of cheating in an area and the rate of STIs in the same area. So exclude young people and carry out a survey of STI infected older people and compare the areas based on that data. 

Cheating is a habit. an extremely tiny number only cheat the once. Large majority cheat over and over again, and cheating rate increases if spouse finds out and forgives. 

I was a volunteer for RELATE for 6 years and have seen a lot of what goes on in marriages.


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

MAJDEATH said:


> I found amazing that from ages 18-29, women cheat more than men.
> 
> .


I haven't read the rest of your post or the statistics or anything but I want to address this statement first. 

You need to keep in mind that an 18-29 year old woman that isn't morbidly obese could pretty much screw every man on earth if she had the time and stamina. And the morbidly obese and deformed and disfigured 18-29 year olds could only screw about 75%. 

Just by shear numbers of options and opportunities, it is a wonder that young women have the time to do anything else. 

A young women that is even reasonably healthy, let alone actually pretty, will get bombarded daily in one form another to hook up. To most women, it is just daily background noise that they barely even notice anymore. 

The fact that any healthy, attractive women in that demographic manage to remain faithful to one person *AT ALL* is what is amazing and is testament to their own will power and moral fortitude. 

There are cultures in the world even today that basically lock up women as virtual prisoners in their own homes and keep them covered in sheets from head to toe and bar them from obtaining educations or employment and do not allow them to leave the house unguarded by a male relative - all the attempt to keep them from having sex or cheating and guess what???? There is still adultery taking place in those countries. 

Even the threat of public stoning and being set on fire and castration etc etc does not stop people from fooling around. 

This is a part of the human landscape and part of our environment. 

And the 18-29 year old female demographic is at the very apex of that food chain and is the demographic that is the most in demand and that has the most options and opportunities.


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

I do not have a lot of faith in these types of surveys. there are too many variables and too many other factors. 

For starters people lie. If you get a phone call out of the blue, are you really going to tell that stranger on the other end that you blew your trainer in the bathroom of the gym or took an escort you met in the hotel bar back to your room when you were at that conference last year??

Another thing that must be factored in to self reporting is one person may have been married a week when they got the phone call and the next person may have been married 40 years. There have been people that have cheated on their honeymoon but probably not many. 

Cont....


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

cont...



This may be my own jaded view of the world, but I think if you went into nursing homes and drugged up people that have been married for 40, 50, 60+ years with sodium pentothal and hooked them up to polygraphs, the statistics would be closer to 90% for women and 75%+ for men that at some point in their 60 year marriage, they had some kind of contact with someone other than their spouse. 

And the only reason I'm giving men a lower % is because tend to let themselves go and get fat and slovenly more and they simply have to work harder than women to score; some are just simply not going to be up to the task. 


Asking a 28 year old person that has been married for 2 years in most cases is probably not going to result in a lot of positive answers because they simply haven't got around to it yet. 

Ask them when they are 85 and have been married for 60 years and you are liable to get a different answer. 


I think our sexual capacity as humans is even beyond our own comprehension. 

Someone posted a podcast of sex commentator Dan Savage in another thread recently and he said something I think is true. I am grossly paraphrasing and probably not stating it the way he meant it, but he said sex created all of us. Every one of us is here because of sex. We may look to some invisible and intangible being in the sky as our creator, but our true nuts and bolts creator that put every one of us here is sexuality. 

To think that people are going to live out their 80+-year life cycle and only have sexual contact with one other being is galactically unrealistic.


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## UpsideDownWorld11 (Feb 14, 2018)

oldshirt said:


> cont...
> 
> 
> 
> This may be my own jaded view of the world, but I think if you went into nursing homes and drugged up people that have been married for 40, 50, 60+ years with sodium pentothal and hooked them up to polygraphs, the statistics would be closer to 90% for women and 75%+ for men that at some point in their 60 year marriage, they had some kind of contact with someone other than their spouse.


Although, I think infidelity is rather common, that strikes me as ridiculous. I guess you can define "contact with someone other than their spouse" a thousand different ways, but if we strictly narrow it to phsyical intimate contact with someone else (even including kissing/touching but no sexual contact (oral or PIV etc), I couldn't imagine it being over the 50% range. I trust those polls about as far as I trust a politician not to lie, but I think some people just have far healthier boundaries than others and make it a point not to put themselves in such situations. 

I would imagine men would cheat more simply because of biology. Men have far more testoterone (Sex Drive) than women even if women tend to have it far easier in the SMP in their earlier years. Also taking into consideration that people get married later in life and that men's SMV tends to deteriorate slower than women's, the results don't seem too surprising, even if they are undoubtedly underreported.


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## MAJDEATH (Jun 16, 2015)

oldshirt said:


> MAJDEATH said:
> 
> 
> > I found amazing that from ages 18-29, women cheat more than men.
> ...


Keep in mind that the survey question was "sex with someone other than their spouse while married". These are newly wed ladies. I think it is overly simplistic and a disservice to young women to believe that they cannot choose a husband and stick with it. And you are assuming that the OM is ok with bedding a married woman. Do we not teach young women how to control undue attention?

Maybe the Muslims have it figured out (regarding the male relative rule). It's kinda hard to hookup when your brother is with you.


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

UpsideDownWorld11 said:


> Although, I think infidelity is rather common, that strikes me as ridiculous. I guess you can define "contact with someone other than their spouse" a thousand different ways, but if we strictly narrow it to phsyical intimate contact with someone else (even including kissing/touching but no sexual contact (oral or PIV etc), I couldn't imagine it being over the 50% range. I trust those polls about as far as I trust a politician not to lie, but I think some people just have far healthier boundaries than others and make it a point not to put themselves in such situations.
> 
> I would imagine men would cheat more simply because of biology. Men have far more testoterone (Sex Drive) than women even if women tend to have it far easier in the SMP in their earlier years. Also taking into consideration that people get married later in life and that men's SMV tends to deteriorate slower than women's, the results don't seem too surprising, even if they are undoubtedly underreported.


Like 72.6% of all internet statistics, I made up my own numbers to make my point. You are to do the same and if you want to assert that only 62.8% of married people have some form of sexual contact outside of marriage at some point in their lives, that is your perogative. Your guess will be as good as mine. 

My point is really not whether the percentage is 67.49% or 88.7% but that sexual activity outside the marriage throughout a lifetime is far far more prevalent than we will ever know or would even guess. 

While I agree that some people are better able to control their urges and never commit any form of infidelity. I also believe that their are lots and lots and lots of people that are great at keeping secrets and covering their tracks and are able to keep it from effecting their regular lives or giving other people any suspicion. 

That sweet lady that bakes cookies for the monthly Ladies Aid meeting at church may have blown her boss in his office one day (we had a president, the most watched and most highly guarded man in the free world get an office hummer)

And that pee wee baseball coach that is so good with the kids and who takes his wife on a Caribean cruise on their anniversary every year may have taken a product representative back to his room at a trade conference to negotiate the purchase order a little more intimately. 

This is the world we live in even though it makes us uncomfortable and leaves a bad taste in our mouths (no pun intended)

And I really see no distinction between males or females.

If men are cheating, who are they cheating with???

I think much of the reason for any disparity in male vs female infidelity is many women can be tortured to death and will still never confess to it or tell anyone about it. 

And just because a particular individual has not scored outside of marriage, that doesn't mean that they didn't want to at some point or that they didn't try or that they didn't chicken out when the opportunity to actually do the deed presented itself.


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

MAJDEATH said:


> Keep in mind that the survey question was "sex with someone other than their spouse while married". These are newly wed ladies. I think it is overly simplistic and a disservice to young women to believe that they cannot choose a husband and stick with it. And you are assuming that the OM is ok with bedding a married woman. Do we not teach young women how to control undue attention?
> 
> Maybe the Muslims have it figured out (regarding the male relative rule). It's kinda hard to hookup when your brother is with you.


All OM are ok with bedding married women. Otherwise they wouldn't be OM. 

And as I said above, despite some of the extreme measures that take place around the globe to prevent adultery, it still goes on.

Having your brother guard your wife seem like a good idea on the surface ------- until you read the threads here where it was the brother that was banging the wife.

There is even a thread here where the WW was getting it on with the H's father. 

If you can't even be assured that your wife won't get down with your old man, that kind of tells me we're fighting an uphill battle here.


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## VladDracul (Jun 17, 2016)

I shouldnthave said:


> While you may think it appears that way, the statistics and the studies out there show much different trends.
> 
> Teen pregnancy has been falling steadily since the 1950's:


I see the studies show a decrease but I have trouble reconciling these studies with the anecdotal evidence. Many, many moons ago when I was in high school, I recall only one student getting pregnant (representing 0.4% by rough calculations). When my daughter graduated thirty something years later, three of the 80+ females that graduated were pregnant or had a kid. When my grand daughter was a senior a few years ago, it was common to see more than three or four pregnant students on campus.

It appears the statistic show that teen pregnancy is falling but than we see this.

Pregnancy epidemic: 90 teens, 11 percent of student body, pregnant at Frayser High School in Memphis - NY Daily News


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## I shouldnthave (Apr 11, 2018)

Yep not sure about your ancedots. Sounds like you do not have much of a sample size, nor a random polling meathod.

i.e., you might be in a location with higher teen pregnancy rates. Teen pregnancy rates are higher in the south, areas with abstinence education, areas with higher rates of poverty etc.

As someone who attended high school in the mid 90's a time which saw record high crime rates, murder rates, and higher teen pregnancy rates - I notice that all of these factors are lower today than they were then - but if you ask people who watch cable news regularly, the vast majority report that all of these things are higher now than they used to be, while that is simply not the case, not at least on a national level.

Edited to add, the Memphis TN thing, I am going to go out on a limb and say that is a perfect storm of low income, lack of medically accurate sex Ed, access to condoms, parental involvement, and then we have the historically higher teen pregnancy rates in the south, contribute to by a number of social factors including religion that do not encourage birth control.


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## sunsetmist (Jul 12, 2018)

VladDracul said:


> I see the studies show a decrease but I have trouble reconciling these studies with the anecdotal evidence. Many, many moons ago when I was in high school, I recall only one student getting pregnant (representing 0.4% by rough calculations). When my daughter graduated thirty something years later, three of the 80+ females that graduated were pregnant or had a kid. When my grand daughter was a senior a few years ago, it was common to see more than three or four pregnant students on campus.
> 
> It appears the statistic show that teen pregnancy is falling but than we see this.
> 
> Pregnancy epidemic: 90 teens, 11 percent of student body, pregnant at Frayser High School in Memphis - NY Daily News


What NY Daily News didn't report is that FHS had a class for pregnant girls which skewed data. Also, it seems there arose a competition amongst girls who associated with the 'pregnant girls' to 'get' pregnant.


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## MAJDEATH (Jun 16, 2015)

The article did not mention the sample size. I was not so much interested in the percentages, but the differences between different groups/categories. Who knew that democrats cheat in marriage more than others? I thought that only applied to elections 🙂


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