Why You Shouldn’t Be Surprised That Men Cheat On Victoria’s Secret Models
On the lies of beauty culture and sexual double standards.
s_bukley / Shutterstock In October 2022, rumor had it that Adam Levine, the lead singer of Maroon 5, cheated on his supermodel wife.
And the woman he allegedly had an affair with — a 23-year-old Instagram model Sumner Stroh — took to Tik Tok to talk about it. Apparently, the singer even suggested naming the baby his wife is currently pregnant with after her.
Oh, wow.
The audacity is strong with this one.
But frankly, I’m not surprised at all. This isn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence in the world of the rich and famous, now is it?
Beyoncé got cheated on by Jay Z. Emily Ratajkowski got cheated on by Sebastian Bear-McClard. Eva Longoria got cheated on by Tony Parker.
And that’s just to name a few.
Still, as it usually happens when a famous beautiful woman gets cheated on, many people are in shock, with most comments pointing towards an age-old dilemma: why do men cheat on beautiful women?
So why do they?
And why it seems like it’s more often men — both those in and out of the spotlight — than women that are unfaithful to their partners?
Beauty culture lied to us all
Adam Levine’s wife, Behati Prinsloo, is a former Victoria’s Secret model. And, like most Angels, she embodies practically all of the current, Eurocentric societal beauty ideals.
She is a thin, tall, white cis-woman with long, voluminous blond hair, a small nose, and high cheekbones.
And that’s precisely what makes this situation shocking for many people.
It’s confusing and almost outrageous to think that a man would stray from her — the literal standard of beauty — and get with anyone else. Let alone that anyone else be someone who isn’t equally as beautiful or is just an ‘Instagram model’, right?
This reaction also reminds me of another recent situation. Now that Charles became king here, in the UK, and Camilla Parker-Bowles a queen consort, this reignited an old frustration that it’s ‘unthinkable’ he would cheat on and then choose her over Diana.
Why?
Because Diana was conventionally beautiful. But Camilla isn’t.
Here’s the thing, though.
We’ve been conditioned by mainstream media, advertising, and entertainment industries to believe that to be desirable is the ultimate achievement in a woman’s life. Because pretty girls get better treatment. Because pretty girls get all the boys. Because pretty girls get opportunities just thrown at them constantly.
Because pretty girls are happy, loved, and respected.
And this thinking is so deeply ingrained in society and our psyche that women and girls often go to excessive and, sometimes, even dangerous lengths to get closer and closer to that ever-changing beauty ideal.
We try on one fad diet after another. We starve ourselves. We spend thousands on cosmetics products and procedures. We wear painful corsets and waist trainers. We develop eating disorders. And appearance anxiety. And body dysmorphia. And sometimes, we even die.
All in pursuit of something as fleeting as beauty.
It’s no wonder we look at celebrities like Behati Prinsloo, who embodies impossibly high beauty standards and assume her relationship and life must be perfect. Or that we look at Queen Consort Camilla and, well, we can’t believe that’s the woman King Charles ended up with.
Yet women like Prinsloo still get cheated on. And women like Camilla still get chosen over other, more conventionally beautiful ones.
And while it’s true that adhering to standard expectations of beauty provides access to certain privileges in society, being beautiful isn’t everything. It won’t grant you immunity from being lied to, taken advantage of, or cheated on.
Because if a man wants to cheat, it doesn’t matter how beautiful you are.
He will cheat anyway.
It’s men who still cheat more, and there are reasons for that
I hardly know any women that cheated on their partners.
But I know quite a lot of men that do.
And while it’s true that people of all genders cheat, it seems like most studies on infidelity confirm my observation on the matter: it’s men who still cheat more than women.
For instance, one study found that 20% of married men had cheated on their spouse at least once in their relationship, compared to 13% of married women. And according to another survey, men are also 16% more likely than women to believe cheating is actually… acceptable.
Right.
As bizarre as it may seem, if you consider purity culture, sexual double standards, and all the evolutionary myths about men having the constant urge to ‘spread their seed far and wide,’ it does make sense.
Because according to all that, men who cheat are, well, just men. But women who cheat are dirty wh*res. Sl*ts. Home wreckers. Pariahs.
The bad women.
After all, women were held to near-impossible standards of purity and had to walk a narrow line on what it meant to behave for centuries on end. And at the same time, society seemed to be way more tolerant — if not almost congratulatory — of men’s infidelity and other misdeeds.
That’s why, historically, and in most cultures, laws against adultery were enacted only to prevent women — and not men — from having sexual relations with anyone other than their spouses. That’s why women deemed unfaithful to the men they married could be openly shamed, tortured, or even executed.
And that’s why it was Hester Prynne who wore the scarlet letter ‘A’ — which stands for adultery — in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 classic novel The Scarlet Letter, and not the man who did her wrong.
She was a wh*re.
He was just a man.
Although today we know that ‘men have higher sex drive’ or ‘men are more inclined to be non-monogamous are largely myths, and obsession with the heteronormative concept of female virginity is slowly dying out, these infidelity double standards remain.
And men who are caught cheating are too frequently excused for their behavior.
Because that’s just what they do. Because that’s ‘male nature.’ Because perhaps their girlfriends or wives aren’t sleeping with them often enough. Or because they put on the extra weight and no longer take care of themselves.
Interestingly, it’s not only the girlfriends or wives who often get the blame for their partner cheating on them but mistresses as well. You know, all the Monica Lewinskys of this world.
And that’s the case with Adam Levine and Sumner Stroh now, too.
Ever since the scandal about their alleged year-long affair broke out, it’s mostly Stroh who’s been criticized for going for a married man. And, so far, she seems to be the only one being forced to wear the scarlet letter.
Is that fair, though?
In the end, cheating is 100% a choice
The reasons why people may cheat are far from perfect science.
But many psychologists and relationship experts agree that, more often than not, it has nothing to do with the person being cheated on or the relationship they have.
And only relatively recently we’ve started to consider that maybe many of us — or even all of us — are simply non-monogamous, and the social structures we lived in for quite some time now aren’t as ‘natural’ as we used to think.
So you could be the most beautiful woman in this world and cook the best lasagnas and give the best blowjobs and massage your man’s feet every night, and that still will not make a man who is either insecure or selfish or is simply not interested in committing to you stay faithful.
But if someone makes that choice, they should be ready to take accountability for their actions.
And society should finally let go of the absurd double standard that men cheat ‘because they’re men’ and the not-so-good-but-definitely-old misogyny that too often makes us point our pitchforks at women first, regardless of the situation.
And no, I’m not trying to excuse Sumner Stroh’s actions here.
She is an adult, and it’s not humanly possible she wasn’t aware that Adam Levine was married with kids at the time. A quick Google search can tell you all that.
Still, I don’t see why all the blame for cheating should fall on her shoulders alone. It takes two to tango, after all.
Besides, affairs can be complex too.
And in the case of Adam Levine and Sumner Stroh, there is also a clear power imbalance. Because he’s not only infinitely more famous and wealthy than her but also almost twice her age. And, if he lied to his wife about having an affair, what makes any of us believe that he didn’t lie to his mistress about leaving his wife for her?
We might not know the ins and outs of celebrities’ marriages and affairs; nevertheless, we know they’re human like the rest of us.
So let’s not turn this into yet another orgy of misogyny as we too often do with the ‘other women.’
What I also hate about the narrative that if you’re a beautiful woman, it’s unthinkable for a man to cheat on you is that it implies that if you aren’t, then it isn’t wrong for him to do so.
Because it’s not surprising he wants to ‘find better’ as if women should only be valued for their looks.
But let’s face it, your desirability cannot influence whether someone treats you well and chooses to be faithful to you or not. Because beauty doesn’t shield us from the assholes of this earth.
It never did, and it never will.
Even if you look like Behati Prinsloo or Emily Ratajkowski.
Katie Jgln is a writer, satirist, social scientist, and activist whose work covers gender equality issues, pop culture, and trending news. She has bylines in Scary Mommy, Daily Mail, and others.