Sympathizing with Adulterers

During today’s lecture, we discussed sympathies and audience forms regarding adulterous relationships. In the two examples we saw in class, both of the cheaters were sympathized with despite the fact that they were the ones doing the cheating. This fact interested me and called into question why, as an audience, we are sometimes able to disregard the fact that a character is cheating on their significant other in order to feel sympathy for the character. I found some
telling information about this in two articles. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheUnfairSex
and http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoodAdulteryBadAdultery
)
One of these articles dealt with the “good” versus “bad” adulterer in popular media today. It listed aspects that are often found in both of these types of adulterers and how we determine whether we sympathize with the cheater, or the person being cheated on. Some examples of a bad adulterer include the affair occurring out of lust instead of love, the cheater having no remorse or guilt about their actions, and the adulterous relationship destroying an otherwise happy marriage. On the other hand, a good adulterer is described as being in an abuse
relationship, “forced” into cheating, and cheating for true love.
The other article describes a discrepancy between the number of male and female “good” adulterers. In general, most “good” adulterers are female and vice versa. This fact correlates to the two examples we were shown in class because in both cases, Ravages of Vice and Sex and the City, the “good” adulterer was a woman. The writer argues that this discrepancy is present because of the way society stereotypes men and women. In general, men are thought to be more lustful and thus, more likely to have an affair for carnal pleasure, while women are often viewed as entering into affairs for reasons that deal with love rather than desire. These common beliefs are quite possibly what lead to the difference in how we view both male and female adulterers in film and tv.