爱华网译者：阅午暮
Why some men stray
男人为什么会出轨
By Tony Parsons作者：托尼·帕森斯（Tony Parsons）
At ten years old he wants to be tough. At 20 he wants to be cool. At 30 he wants to be free. At 40 he wants to belong. At 50 he wants to be fit. At 60 he wants to be rich. At 70 he wants to be healthy. At 80 he wants to be alive.10岁时，他想要变坚强。20岁时，他想要变得更酷。30岁时他想要自由。40岁时他想要归属。50岁时他想更健壮。60岁时他想要富有。70岁时他想要健康。80岁时他想活下去。
The difficult bit is accommodating the wish to be free and the need to belong. The difficult bit has always been balancing the yearning for an impressive sexual CV and the longing for a wife, family, and home.对男人们来说，在自由与归属之间作出取舍非常困难。男人们总是得在让人回味悠长的性体验和对妻子、家庭和家的渴望之间作出抉择。
The need to be free and the need for home. Age has something to do with what men want - the younger man is more likely to see the attraction of multiple partners, while the older man agonises if he has brought no children into the world.男人需要自由，但男人也需要家。年龄与男人需要的转变关系密切——男人年纪越轻，越易被多个情人吸引，而年长些的男人则会因为没有孩子而倍感苦闷。
But age is not everything.但年龄并非决定性因素。
Even this late in the day, there are plenty of men - especially among the working and upper classes - who get married and start having children in their twenties. And of course the swinging forty-something, fresh from the divorce court and ready to have another crack at the dating game, is always with us.时至今日，仍然有很多男人——尤其是工薪阶层和上流人士——20多岁时已经结婚甚至有孩子了(当然，没结婚有孩子的也不是稀有品种了)。而某些四十多岁的男士也刚刚离异开始新一轮的约会与求偶，这在我们身边并不少见。
So men stay early. Some men stray late. Age is much less important than the two impulses. And men spend a lifetime trying to negotiate a peace settlement between these most basic of instincts.所以，有些男人很早就投身婚姻和家庭。而有些男人则很迟才出轨。与文章之初提到的两对不同因素的角力相比，年龄因素似乎并没有那么重要。而男人终其一生都在努力在其这些最基础的本能中寻求一个平衡点。
Men want to stay. And men want to stray. How can they want both? Understand that, and you unlock the mystery of male behaviour.男人想要专一。男人也想要风花雪月。他们怎么会想要得兼二者呢？一旦你了解了其中因由，你就揭开了男性行为的神秘面纱。
Not all men stray. And some men stray for a bit and then they settle down. That is what many women find difficult to accept - that sometimes a man strays not because he is a heartless, fornicating bastard but simply because he has not yet met the right girl.并非所有的男人都会去拈花惹草。有些男人会鬼混一段时间，然后安定下来。这就是许多女人难以接受的——有时一个男人之所以到处拈花惹草并不是因为他是个无情、与人私通的混蛋，而仅仅是因为他没有找到自己的“真命天女”。
As a general rule, poor men stray because of opportunity (Mavis in the stationery cupboard), and rich men stray because of a sense of entitlement (VIP areas stuffed with willing lovelies).通常情况下，贫穷的男人出轨，往往是因为一个偶然，一个“机会”（就像一只画眉鸟落在了你的文具柜里），而富有的男人出轨，往往是因为对自己身份和权力的认知与追求（VIP专区里满是任君挑选的佳丽）。
When Tiger Woods made his public confession after his tsunami of shagging became public knowledge, he was criticised for apologising to his corporate sponsors as well as his wife. And yet, Woods perfectly summed up why the multimillionaire alpha male can love his wife and children, and yet also love having sex with porn stars. Look beyond that sterile, stage-managed setting, and you had Woods giving the Gettysburg Address of Infidelity.当老虎·伍兹（Tiger Woods）在一系列外遇和丑闻被曝光后进行公开忏悔时，他因有负其赞助商和妻子备受指责。然而，伍兹完美地概括了为什么他——一个巨富、一个一流男人——可以在与妻子、孩子共度家庭生活的同时，与色情明星夜夜春宵。抛开“精心编派、乏味的忏悔”这一背景不谈，你会觉得你是在葛底斯堡(Gettysburg)听伍兹发表关于不忠的演讲。
"I thought I could get away with everything I wanted to," said Tiger. "I felt I had worked hard and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me. I felt I was entitled."
“在做那些事的时候，我认为自己可以不留痕迹地抽身而出，”老虎是这样说的。“我觉得自己一向很努力，我有权享受自己周围的诱惑带来的乐趣。我觉得自己有这个资格。”
He felt that he was entitled. Simple as that. Lives turned inside out, oceans of hurt and betrayal to last a lifetime, because Tiger felt they he was well within his rights to do exactly what he wanted. He summed it up perfectly.他认为自己有这个资格。就这么简单。许多人的生活因为他发生了巨变，他的所作所为带来了终身的伤害和背叛，因为他觉得做自己想做的事是他的权利。他完美地概括了这一切。
No group of thick Premiership footballers, roasting some poor little slapper in their post-match hotel room, could explain their behaviour with such devastating psychological honesty. Because they are too stupid. But Tiger Woods did it - I do these things because I have earned them.那些头脑简单、赛后在宾馆里和小雏妓调情的主力足球运动员可没法用这么开诚布公的说辞解释自己的所作所为。也许是因为他们太蠢了。但是老虎伍兹这样做了——我之所以做这些事，是因为我有权这样做。
What most is interesting about Tiger Woods - and all the pea-brained Premiership footballers with all their hard-faced glamour girls - is not that they have a bit on the side. Men are biologically programmed to spread that seed far and wide, and the constraints that rein in most men - social, economic, having to do the school run or get up for work in the morning - simply do not apply to the medium-sized swinging dicks of professional sport. They are not frightened of their wives. Only the wrath of the media keeps them in line.关于老虎·伍兹——以及所有那些有不好打发的美女相陪的脑残的足球运动员们——最有趣的并非他们都在乱搞不正当的男女关系。将自己的“种子”四处播撒是男性的生理本能，而对男人起约束作用的各种限制——来自社会的、经济上的，还有每天都得去接送孩子或一大早就起床赶去上班——显然对职业运动员们不起作用，虽然他们裤裆里的小兄弟的尺寸与寻常人并无二致。他们并不惧怕自己的妻子。只有紧追不舍、状若疯狂的媒体才能让他们规规矩矩不去鬼混。
No, the wonder is not that they stray, but that they usually have a beautiful wife and children at home.他们出轨并没什么好奇怪的，问题是通常情况下，他们的家里都有一个美娇妻，还有孩子。
Think about it - the world is your knocking shop. Women are everywhere. Yet - even if you play for Chelsea - you still want to meet that special girl, and win her heart, and get married and have children. Why bother? Why not just stay single?好好想想吧——整个世界都是你的欢场。到处都是女人。但是——哪怕你在切尔西俱乐部（Chelsea）踢球（意思就是你像那些球星一样花）——你还是希望能遇见那个“她”，赢得她的芳心，与她结婚生子。何必这么麻烦呢？为什么不单身到底算了？
Because the impulse to stay is at least as strong as the impulse to stray.因为男人们对归属的需要至少和其偷腥的冲动持平，也许更甚后者。
The great irony is that men - rich men, poor men, and every economic bracket in-between - risk everything for sex that is probably nowhere near as good as what they can get at home, and definitely with a woman who is never ever in the same league as their wife.对于男人的花心，最讽刺的是，他们会——无论是富翁、穷人，或者处在这两者之间的男性——为了与一个很可能与自己的妻子没法比的女人发生一次质量远不如家中美好的性事豁出一切。
Consider the pictures of Woods' harem - that motley, plain-faced crew of cocktail waitresses, porn stars and single soccer moms. What man in his right mind would trade the lot of them for Elin, the Swedish angel who married Woods, and gave him his children?想想伍兹老兄的“后宫佳丽”们的尊容吧——那些相貌平平、肤色各异的鸡尾酒吧的女侍应生、色情明星和单身妈妈们。一个头脑正常的男人会舍弃艾琳（Elin）这样一个——嫁给伍兹，与他育有子女的——瑞典可人儿，而选择那一堆庸脂俗粉？
Commenting on how he remained faithful to his wife, when surrounded by the kind of Tinseltown temptations that today's fornicating sportsmen could hardly imagine, Paul Newman famously said, "You don't go out for hamburger when you have steak at home."当被问及为何置身浮华城（Tinseltown，指好莱坞）的诸多诱惑之中却对妻子忠贞不二时（这一点对今天热衷于出轨的体育明星来说，恐怕是天方夜谭），保罗·纽曼（Paul Newman）说，“家有牛排为什么还要在外面和汉堡纠缠不清？”
But men do. Oh yes, Paul - men go out for a Big Mac when they have prime fillet waiting at home. Men go out for fishfingers when sushi is in the fridge. Men go out for KFC nuggets when they have prime leg and breast at home. It is a kind of insanity, and the only possible explanation is that the male mind likes to have a varied diet. It does not mean he actually prefers hamburger.但是男人们确实会这么做。是的，保罗，你要知道——男人们会为了“巨无霸”（汉堡，和上文对应）而让家中上好的鱼肉独守空闺。即便家中冰箱里有上好的寿司，男人们还是会为了冻鱼条置之不顾。男人们会为了肯德基的上校鸡块，无视家中上好的鸡腿和鸡脯肉。这听起来挺荒唐，而唯一合理的解释就是男人骨子里都喜欢丰盛的餐点（这里的丰盛重点强调数量）。花心并不意味着他真的就喜欢汉堡包。
Yet, incredibly, men are more than mindless sperm-making machines. And we want more than a lifetime of musical beds. Any man that has had periods of extreme promiscuity knows that it palls. In fact, it's often the men who have lost count who are the keenest to settle down.不过，男人绝非无脑的精子制造机。而我们男人所求的也不仅仅是床第之欢。任何曾经胡天胡地过的男人都知道春宵总是不能长久的。事实上，恰恰是那些阅女无数的男人最希望能够安定下来。
When I was a lad on the NME, I knew a British musician who toured America and had a girl waiting for him in every hotel lobby in every city. These drawer-dropping beauties in skintight leather trousers. I remember one in Philadelphia who had a suitcase full of whips, paddles and furry handcuffs. The world was post-pill and pre-AIDS - the high tea of sexual liberation. And yet that musician - the one with the whip-lady in Philadelphia waiting for him - was one of the first to find a pretty girl, and marry her, and have children that he adored.当我还是个热衷于《NME》（英国知名音乐杂志，读者群年龄偏小）杂志的毛头小子时，我曾听说有个游遍全美的英国音乐家在他到达的每座城市的宾馆房间里和不同的女孩子寻欢。这些让人血脉贲张的美人儿穿着性感的紧身皮裤。我记得其中的一个费城女子有一个装满皮鞭、板子和皮质手铐的“百宝箱”。然而那个音乐家——和皮鞭女郎有亲密关系的那位——恰恰是他，最先遇见一位漂亮女孩，也就是那个“她”，并与之结为连理，生养孩子。
That is men for you. Secretly, we want a family as much as any woman. We want the whole package - a loving wife, bright-eyed children, and a home. We want to belong. We really want to belong. And we want it at least as much as we want to spray our seed in the hotel rooms of the Eastern seaboard.这就是男人。我们和所有女人一样渴望家庭。我们想要拥有家庭的一切——娇妻爱儿，还有一个家。我们想要一个归宿。我们确实非常渴望。其热切程度至少和我们想在东海岸的宾馆里开房“播种”一样强烈。
Belonging - we can want it too much. Those of us who were raised in nuclear families think that making a home is easy. Those who were raised in families with divorced parents are often compelled to try to restore that broken home.归属感——我们求之若渴。我们中在核心家庭里长大的那些人认为组建一个家庭非常容易。而在离异家庭里长大的则常要竭尽所能去挽救濒于破碎的家庭，你认为他们也会那么想么？
Either way, men are like Bridget Jones after half bottle of Chardonnay with "All By Myself" on the iPod - full of dopey dreams, and unrealistic expectations, and doomed fantasies. And desperation - that's what men really share with Bridget Jones. That desperation to meet and marry Mrs Right - especially after a few dozen brief encounters with Miss Right This Minute.无论是哪一种情形，男人就像伴着iPod里“孤单一人”（All By Myself）的歌声饮下半瓶夏敦埃酒（Chardonnay）后的布里吉特·琼斯（Bridget Jones）——脑中满是浑浑噩噩的绮梦、妄念和幻想。当然，还有那份不顾一切，这是男人们和布里吉特·琼斯真正的共通点。不顾一切想要找到自己的真命天女并与之结合——尤其是在经历过数个在特定的时间点让他神为之夺的女子（Miss Right This Minute）之后。
For the next generation, it will become harder to stay and easier to stray. In the old days, we learnt our hard lessons about the opposite sex from real girls and real women. Now that pornography is just another utility, as freely available as electricity and water, men are being warped by the propaganda of hard-core. And a man will never be capable of staying long when the majority of his sexual encounters happened with his credit card in one hand, and his grubby little mouse in the other.对于下一代人来说，对家庭忠诚将比偷腥难得多。以前，我们对异性的了解都来自我们身边真实的女孩子和女人。而现在，色情文化已发展成为和水电一样普遍的公共事业了，男人们对性的理解被这些赤裸裸的声色途径扭曲了。如果一个男人大多数的性体验都是通过购买成人用品、杂志和浏览成人网站得来的，那么他怎么能够对婚姻和家庭保持长久的忠诚呢？
We could save ourselves - and our girlfriends and our wives - so much trouble if we could have a period of wanton straying, followed by decades of blissful staying. What a wonderful world it could be. It doesn't work that way.如果有一个时期可供我们恣意寻欢，之后再将数十载时光献给婚姻和家庭，我想这会为我们自己——和我们的女朋友或妻子——省去很多不必要的麻烦。这样的话，世界该有多美好啊。但是事实并非如此。
Our twin basic instincts must forever live together in uneasy peace, punctuated by periods of bloody conflict. The need to stray and the need to stay - this is the Middle East of the male soul.我们的两种基础本能会一直在微妙的平衡中共存，其中不时会穿插一些碰撞和冲突。顺从放纵的欲望还是坚守家庭与婚姻——这就像男人灵魂中的中东地区一样。
The good news is that it doesn't go on forever. In the life of most men, there is a final battle between straying and staying. You do - if you are wise, if you are lucky - get to that Paul Newman moment when you say - you know what? I am really sick of bloody fishfingers.值得庆幸的是，这种角力不会永久持续下去。在大多数男人的生活中，出轨抑或守望最终都会有个了结。你确实能够——如果你判断正确且足够幸运——像保罗纽曼一样有机会说——你知道吗？我真的很受不了冻鱼条的不堪。
We want it so bad. But to make it work - to reach Paul Newman Valhalla - you need to have had your fill of hamburgers. There can be no staying without the straying. The tragedy is that sometimes men get it all the wrong way round. They do their staying. And then they really get stuck into their straying.我们太想要那样的结局了。但想要达成它——到达保罗·纽曼瓦尔哈拉神殿（Paul Newman Valhalla）——你至少得吃够汉堡才可以。在没有四处开花之前，你很难找到一个终极的归属。然而，不幸的是有时男人们会把整件事引向完全相反的方向，一错再错。他们让自己安定下来，之后就陷入欲望的漩涡不能自拔。
But it's easy to get your timing all wrong. I was married in my mid-twenties - a traditional wedding with a pregnant bride - and it came apart before I was 30. Then I was single for most of my thirties, going through a period of mental promiscuity when I slept with - for example - my neighbour, my neighbour's au pair and my neighbour's hamster. Or did I just imagine the hamster?但你很容易就会把时机搞乱。我二十几岁就结婚了——一次传统意义上的奉子成婚——这段婚姻在我30岁前就结束了。我40岁前几乎都是独身，那个时期我的男女关系异常紊乱，我和我的——打个比方——邻居、邻居的保姆，甚至邻居家的仓鼠都发生过关系。（请相信这是作者的夸张）我刚才有提到仓鼠么？
But I was off the rails. Then I met my wife. And then I got married and became a dad again. And it was all saner, happier, better.但那一切除了荒唐还是荒唐。然后我遇见了我现在的妻子。我结婚，又做了父亲。这下一切都变得更正常、快乐，也更美好。
And there have been times when I thought that nobody could get their staying and straying timing as badly wrong as me. But I do not feel that way any more. Because of my children. If the timing had been different, those children would never have been born.我曾认为没有人会像我这样把安定和放纵的时机搞得这么错乱。但现在我不这么想了。因为我的孩子们。如果时机有所不同，这些孩子们就不会出世了。
And I liked being a young dad in my twenties. As my friends grovelled in the sands of Ibiza beaches, off their faces on bad ecstasy, I was reading Where The Wild Things Are to my son. Everything was against being a father that young - money, love, common sense.我也喜欢二十多岁时做年轻爸爸的感觉。在我的朋友们把自己埋在伊比沙岛（Ibiza）的海滩的细沙里迷醉非常时，我正在给我的儿子读《野兽家园》（Where The Wild Things Are）。那时，我所有的一切都与做一个年轻爸爸格格不入——金钱，爱情，以及世俗观念。
Everything was against it, against nature.所有的一切都与我的父性本能相悖。
It felt right being a father in my twenties. It felt as if this was what I was here to do. And yet there is no denying that there were ten years of straying still on my to-do list. There is no denying that teardrops would fall because I stayed, then strayed and had to, before I could stay again.二十多岁做爸爸对我来说挺好。这感觉就像这才是我该做的事一样。当然，不可否认的是，在做爸爸的同时，在我的待办事项清单里，还有十年的放纵生活。毫无疑问，我在找到一个归属之后又重新变为浪荡子（虽然并非我的本意），并在我能够再次安定下来之前一直如此，这无疑会给一些人带来很多伤害和悲哀。
But that's the way we are - hard-wired to pine for a family of our own, yet biologically bound for our desire to wander. Rich men are no different to other men - they just have increased opportunities.但我们就是如此——我们一直迫切渴望拥有自己的家，但我们受生理上的欲望驱使徘徊不前。富有男人和其他男人没有区别——他们只是有更多的机会而已。
"I was surprised to find that Tiger Woods was the unfaithful type," said psychologist Oliver James.“老虎·伍兹居然是不忠的那种人，我很意外。”心理学家奥利弗·詹姆斯（Oliver James）说。
But Tiger is sport's first self-made billionaire - how could he be anything other than torn by the longing to stay, and the longing to stray? The beautiful wife is as inevitable as the mistresses. If Tiger just wanted to be a knob merchant, he could have stayed single. But the need for a loving family was as strong in him as the need for sex with the star of Diary of a Horny Housewife.但是老虎·伍兹是第一个成为亿万富翁的体育明星——他怎么会在满足自己的欲望和对婚姻忠诚之间进退两难呢？对他来说，娶得美妻就像搞情人一样手到擒来。如果老虎仅仅想满足自己下半身的需求，他完全可以做个钻石王老五。但显然，他对一个温馨的家的渴望就像他想和荡妇日记（Diary of a Horny Housewife）里的女明星上床一样强烈。
The staying should never be second best. The staying should matter more than the straying. The staying is what the straying should lead to. Look at Warren Beatty. Warren is not going out on the pull tonight. Because once you have had enough sex, the staying is better than the straying.对归属的需求永远不会逊于对欲望的追求。而男人们出轨、偷腥之后，恰恰就应该安定下来，专心于家庭和婚姻。看看沃伦·贝蒂（Warren Beatty）吧。今晚他可不会在诱惑之下夜不归宿了。因为一旦你爽够了，玩腻了，有一个温馨甜蜜的归属远比风花雪月要靠谱得多。
How can we want both? What cackling God programmed us to want to stay and to want to stray? Because the secret of life is more life.我们怎么可能会想要得兼这二者呢？上帝将我们造车这副自相矛盾的样子——既想要安安稳稳过日子，又管不住裤裆里的小朋友——难道不可笑么？因为生活的秘密远远不止于生活本身。
It is true, you know. At 30 a man wants to be free. He really does. But in some secret chamber of his heart, he always wants to belong.你要知道。30岁时，男人想要自由。他确实是这么想的。但是在他心底的某些隐匿的角落，那里有他对归属的渴望。
译者的一些话：
私以为这篇文章虽然不短小，但绝对比那些晦涩冗长、举各种研究数据和资料，从各种耸人听闻的角度剖析的文章要精到得多，这种嬉笑怒骂的风格比看到大姑娘穿露脐装就“非礼勿视”的老学究的说辞要高明些，这样的文章也更贴近我们。
跳出这篇文章，中西方国家国情不同，本文的某些观点虽然有一定道理，但请不要轻易践行诸如“先寻欢，吃饱了再找归属”这样的策略，我相信虽然我们的民族赋予的灵魂一直备受禁锢，但在这个时候他还是能发挥良性作用的。
出轨是一个社会问题，本文毕竟是在西方土壤上出炉的，有些地方并不完全符合我国的状况。在中国，出轨很多时候会被看作一个道德和责任感的问题，这显然比本文着重探讨的“自由与归属”要严肃些。毕竟后者都停留在满足男性自身需要的前提下，在这一论调之下，你出轨，满足的是欲望，你选择家庭，满足的是归属感，都是你本人在获益。人都是自私的，但我们要明白值得珍视和宝贝的东西究竟是什么，感情和婚姻生活不美满是另一种情况，但除此之外，请给自己的婚姻和家庭留有余地，用心呵护比激情更能持久的亲情和爱情。
