A few weeks ago, I was having drinks with some girlfriends when Ginger White, Herman Cain's mistress, made her way into the conversation. One member of our party aggressively stated, "Oh I saw her picture. She is not attractive -- at all! She is just not pretty." I was taken aback.
First, I don't think Ginger White is so unattractive that she warrants that type of response, but I was more surprised that this girl was endorsing the age-old assumption that the mistress is a nymph, goddess type -- the only woman attractive enough to lure a man away from his wife. Celebrity adultery scandals give us good reason to think the exact opposite is true (real life gives reason, too, but celebrities are a common frame of reference).
When a man is unfaithful, it's not as cut and dry as "I need a prettier woman in my life." He's usually fulfilling a deeper psychological desire. The male ego is a hungry beast -- if it doesn't feel it's getting the attention it needs, it will go hunting. The source of the attention doesn't matter as much as the attention itself. The one thing the mistress can always offer, regardless of what she looks like, is newness. She is a new body and a new face. She is an escape from that which is known. Of course one reason to get married is for familiarity -- wanting to love the same body and the same face till death do us part -- but oftentimes the routine of a relationship catches people off guard and they long for the unfamiliar. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying it happens. While it's true, mistresses like Angelina Jolie do come along -- she's the exception rather than the rule. Let's examine the evidence:
Camilla Parker-Bowles (Princess Diana) -- These days we know that Charles loved Camilla all along and never should have married Diana, but he was bound by duty to do so. At the time, all we knew was Charles was married to a striking, stylish 20-something, and he was having an affair with a plain, older woman who Diana nicknamed "The Rottweiler." Camilla is a good reminder that there's a lot more to being in love than the way someone looks, but it's unfortunate that Diana had to go through the humiliating ordeal. The monarchy has done right by letting Will chose his own wife and not insisting she be of royal descent.
Jane Doe (Halle Berry) -- Halle Berry's second husband, Eric Ben�t, was said to have cheated on her multiple times with multiple women. I don't know who he was being unfaithful with, but I'm going to go out on a limb and assume those women were less attractive than Halle.
Michelle "Bombshell" McGee (Sandra Bullock) -- Unless you have a penchant for tattoos, you probably consider Sandra Bullock easier on the eyes than her husband's mistress Michelle McGee. Last year Jesse James spoke to Piers Morgan about his affair. At one point during the interview (clip here), he inarticulately summed up the destructive relationship between man and ego. He said, "Turning to like infidelity or something to stroke my ego or whatever it was, you know, I don't think it was a decision I made 100 percent willingly or vindictively or anything like that ... It made me feel worse than before it happened." If a man has control over his ego and is able to tell it to simmer down when necessary, then he can be faithful to his family. If the ego has more control than the man, he is capable of betraying just about anyone -- including himself.
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