New research shows that culture can dampen women’s responses to infidelity with other and same-sex partners. The study, published in the journal Human Nature, compared women’s reactions to heterosexual and homosexual infidelity in Canada, Samoa, and the Istmo Zapotec, an indigenous population living in Mexico.
“It’s often assumed that non-heterosexual people look inside-out in the heterosexual ‘mating market’, but that’s not always true,” said study author Scott W. Semenyna of the University of Lethbridge
“Spending time in non-Western cultures often leads to research, and it is quite common for men in places like Samoa to have short-term sexual relationships with fa’afafine – a non-binary gender identity adopted by Samoan men who are feminine and attracted to men. The same thing happens in the Istmo Zapotec region of southern Mexico, where it is not uncommon for men to have sex with muxes, a category of gender / sexual orientation similar to Fa’afafine. “
“In both cultures, these men appear to be predominantly straight or, to a lesser extent, bisexual. Much research examines people’s responses to heterosexual infidelity, but we wanted to build on the much smaller literature on same-sex infidelity and expand that research to non-Western cultures, ”Semenyna said.
The researchers asked women from all three cultures how upset they would be if their male partner had a one-time sexual encounter with a woman or another man. The sample included 1,041 Canadian women, 113 Samoan women, and 263 Zapotec women.
Semenyna and his colleagues found that Canadian and Samoan women were more likely to be upset about heterosexual infidelity than about homosexual ones. The women at Istmo Zapotec, on the other hand, were more angry about homosexual infidelity.
“Same-sex infidelity can and does occur, in part as a result of sexual competition between the sexes, which is quite common in places like Samoa and Istmo Zapotec. Canadian women in general were more upset at the thought of heterosexual infidelity. An even bigger difference was found in Samoa, where some women were barely upset when they imagined their partner was being unfaithful with a Fa’afafine but dismayed to imagine being unfaithful with a woman, ”Semenyna told PsyPost.
As one Samoan woman told the researchers, “With a woman one can transform into another and another”, but with a Fa’afafine: “I don’t mind because the man goes and comes back.”
“Women’s greater responsiveness to heterosexual infidelity is likely related to things like risk of pregnancy and being abandoned for another woman,” said Semenyna. “This general pattern can be modified if women believe that same-sex infidelity suggests that their partners themselves have an ubiquitous (but hidden) same-sex preference, which would be catastrophic for a heterosexual relationship. This is illustrated by the fact that women at Istmo Zapotec are a little more angry at the thought that their partner has a one-night stand with a muxe than another woman. “
In another study looking at partner poachers’ perceptions of behavior published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, Semenyna and colleagues found that Canadian women tend to trust gay men more than other women, and Samoan women tend to trust more in fa ‘afafine than other women. Zapotec women were equally suspicious of women and female muxe, but they trusted the male muxe more.
On the limitations, Semenyna noted that “we don’t yet know how common same-sex infidelity versus heterosexual infidelity is, or what individual differences (personality, previous experiences, etc.) make women more responsive to one type over the other.”
“While same-sex infidelity is likely less common in European-American cultures, we don’t know how much this varies around the world. We also know very little about the partner competition between men and women for the same romantic / sexual goals, but it clearly happens and affects human mating psychology in largely unexplored ways, “Semenyna said.
“The growing knowledge about the diversity of sexual orientation and gender expression should feed into our theoretical models,” added Semenyna. “This adapts the lenses that are used to understand different sex interests and behaviors that make evolutionary sense and how we interpret same sex interests or behaviors that are not as seamlessly integrated with evolutionary perspectives on human mating. Intercultural models, as we used them in our study, will be particularly important in answering such big questions in psychology. “
The study “Women’s Reaction to Opposite- and Same-Sex Infidelity in Three Cultures Data from Canada, Samoa, and the Istmo Zapotec” was written by Scott W. Semenyna, Francisco R. Gómez Jiménez and Paul L. Vasey.
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