Survey - Getting to Know the Cuckold
In April of 2011 I created a survey (using Surveymonkey.com tools) intended to gather data on men who self-identified as cuckolds. This survey ran for 8 weeks and was advertised on my website, on Facebook, via Twitter and on specific Cuckolding websites such as Jinxypie.com and Hotwifelife.com. The response rate was excellent, with 486 men participating from all over the world. And while a multitude of countries were represented, just over half of majority of those who participated live in the United States.
The intention of doing this work was to contribute to the body of knowledge on the practice of Cuckolding and to determine if there are any common characteristics shared by men who are attracted to this lifestyle. To ensure the questions accurately targeted the real-life experiences of cuckolds, I constructed this survey in consultation with Steve, an American who has been previously been a cuckold himself. While he does not live as a cuckold in his current relationship, it remains an ongoing source of arousal for him and his advice on the type of questions that are relevant to an erotic interest in Cuckolding were of great value.
In a Cuckolding relationship the wife has sex outside of her marriage with her husband’s knowledge, while he remains faithful to her. The husband is known as a cuckold or cuck for short and he does not take lovers himself, instead his sexual pleasure and gratification is derived from the existence of his partner’s relationships. There are all sorts of variations in how these relationships operate and what involvement the husband may have, ranging from simply hearing about it from his wife, to input in the selection of her lovers, helping her prepare for a date, watching during sex, participating as directed, or by providing some type of sexual service to the wife and her lover.
According to the results of this survey, the so-called ‘typical’ cuckold is a very well-educated, white man in his thirties or forties who lives in the United States. He earns well above the average wage and is most likely to be in a long term relationship or first marriage. He does not have self esteem issues and considers himself an alpha male with an average sized penis. Despite that, he enjoys being sexual humiliated and in particular may enjoy penis humiliation. He is most commonly sexually submissive to his wife and he enjoys the loss of control and responsibility being in this space offers. His enjoyment in loss of agency and control is fulfilled by having little or no choice in how his wife expresses herself sexually.
He is likely to have been initially drawn to Cuckolding by arousal experienced at the idea of his wife having sex with another man, and his lust and passion for his wife is increased after she has been with another man, a response say researchers into the male brain caused by the stimulation of mating hormones.
He is also most likely to be bisexual or at least bi-curious, whether he articulates that to his partner or not.
Cuckolds report having sex with their wives in roughly the same number as the population surveyed in the Kinsey Reports, which is at odds with a general perception that they are denied marital sex. However they consider themselves to need more mental, visual and aural stimulation than other men and say they enjoy masturbation and fantasy more than actual sex.
17th June, 2011 Angela Lewis, PhD
Steve, anonymous cuckold
AGE
Cuckolds who responded to this survey were fairly widely and evenly spread across all age groups. The largest number were found in the 30-49 year bracket and either side of this, men 50-60 years old and men 21-29 years old, were to be found in roughly equal numbers.
ETHNICITY AND NATIONALITY
Cuckolds were most commonly Caucasian (at 91.1%) and at 55%, the most represented nationality was American.
There was a large gap numbers-wise to the second highest nationality represented, with Britain and Canada tying at 6%, followed by the Germans in third place at 4%. The table below goes down to a 0.4% representation, and a diverse range of nationalities were present under this figure, but the numbers were too low to register any significant value. Some of those countries included in small numbers were Estonia, Poland, Turkey, Portugal, Norway and Scotland.
EDUCATION
Men who identified as cuckolds in this survey were well educated. For example, a total of 83% of respondents had some form of college/university education and 19.5% of those had completed post graduate studies such as an MBA or PhD.
INCOME
Reported income levels tended to be fairly high (Given the average American wage is said to be around $35,000), with 48.8% of the men earning over US$50,000 per annum and just over one third, at 30.6%, earning over US$100,000.
INDUSTRY SECTOR
47.3% of the men were employed in the white collar (private or government) sector, which explains the high income levels. The other sectors were all represented, but in much low numbers and the number of men who were retired, students or unemployed were extremely low.
RELATIONSHIPS
Unsurprisingly, given that a Cuckolding relationship is based on the existence of a primary traditional husband/wife dynamic, 87.3% of the men were living with their significant others and a majority of 77% were married.
How Long in Current Relationship
Cuckolding relationships appeared to be durable and long term, as most of the men were in them for 11 plus years. The second highest number of cuckolds were in the group married 0-5 years, so we might assume that there is space and time for the couples to partake in cuckolding early in the relationship—say before c***dren come along—and then again later after have and are raising young c***dren, perhaps explaining why the lowest number of cuckolds were in relationships of a 6-10 year duration.
Most of the cuckolds were in their first marriage and close to a third were in their second marriage.
We were interested to know if cuckolding was present in the men’s previous relationships, however for the majority, their current Cuckolding relationship is their first. If you take into account that many are in long term relationships with their partners, this would confirm 9.3.3% agreeing with the statement: Happy and successful Cuckolding couples are able to separate love from sexual desire. Nearly one third (25%) of practicing cuckolds have been in a previous Cuckold relationship, so for these men it is likely an openness to the possibility of Cuckolding was a factor when seeking a prospective new long-term partner.
THE PRIVATE CUCKOLD SELF
Asked to choose a response to this statement: “I’m an alpha male and I enjoy the loss of control that Cuckolding gives me,” 64% gave a positive response, making comments about how Cuckolding offered a way to take a step out of how they usually lived their lives and how it temporarily released them from a position of control:
Being temporarily absolved from responsibility, for my performance, for her pleasure, in fact having no control even if I wanted it, is incredibly freeing.
I like the idea of having no choice, from being the guy always in charge to being the guy who is told to lick the other guy’s jizz, it freaks me out and excites me.
Allowing others to make decisions for a while is relaxing.
I love giving the gift of male sexual dominance to my wife.
Not having a choice in their partner’s behaviour was rated as exciting by 65.7% of respondents. As cuckold Steve explains, this is also tied in with the humiliation factor that many cuckolds crave.
76.2% of the men described themselves as sexually submissive with their wives and a further 15%, while not submissive, found the idea attractive. Only 8.8% had no interest in being sexually submissive. Some comments made included:
It gives me a freedom I don’t have when I’m expected to be sexually dominant.
We both enjoy being submissive, so we try to take turns with each other.
I like the loss of choice.
Are you sexually submissive with your wife?
65% said their partners tended to be dominant in all aspects of the relationship, and when asked the question: “Do feel inferior to your wife?” exactly half said they did not feel inferior on any level to their female partners, while the other 50% considered themselves inferior to their wives in some fashion. Given the submissive nature of Cuckolding, it would be a fair guess that the men who do not consider themselves inferior consciously chose a role of inferiority/submission as part of their sexual persona, and are not victims of circumstance.
Taking into account the high percentage of men who consider themselves alpha males, it is probably not surprising that only 8% nominated themselves as intellectually inferior. My fellow researcher, cuckold Steve suggests that the 20% who nominated being physically inferior would be alluding to their genitals and not to their physical stature. If you take into account that 36% of the men said they were attracted to Cuckolding because they perceived themselves as having a small penis, coupled with the fact that sexual humiliation was nominated as attractive to 55% of respondents, this would seem like a fair assumption.
The Cuckold’s Sex Life
Based on the responses I recorded, cuckolds have regular sex with their partners in proportion to population averages as rated by the Kinsey Institute. While figures do vary widely according to which reports are consulted, I have chosen to compare my data to that collected by the respected research body, The Kinsey Institute (www.kinseyinstitute.org.)
Using the Kinsey data for comparative purposes, I averaged the number of married men aged between 25—69 who were tabled as not having had sex in the past year and arrived at a figure of 20.7%. There is a perception that cuckolds do not have sex with their wives, however when you compare this to the figure of 19.8% reported by the cuckolds in this survey, there is not a big differentiation between the general population and cuckold men. Similarly, 38.8% of married men between the ages of 24—69 in the Kinsey data had sex a few times per month to weekly and this correlates fairly closely to the 45.1% who said they had sex 1-3 times per month in this survey group.
Over half the men supported the statement that a Cuckoldress should practice sexual denial with her husband and this supports a theory that loss of control and agency make the idea of Cuckolding attractive to many cuckolds. As well, anecdotally another reason men who are drawn to Cuckolding support sexual denial is because they believe or want to believe that that they are not able to sexually satisfy their women (primarily because they believe their penis is adequate) and/or because they have a preference for living vicariously through the experiences of the wife’s lovers or through the fantasy of the wife’s sexual affairs.
To me, the hottest thing about Cuckolding is when my wife talks me off [re-tells her sexual exploits]
It is understood that my pay-off for being what she calls ‘a good little cuck’ is in hearing about it.
Hearing her moaning in the other room while I wait outside the door until she finishes with her Bull is totally hot for me.
Nothing hornier than receiving a text during the night to say: I have just been fucked.
This probably also explains why 82.3% of the men said they believed cuckolds need more aural and mental stimulation than the average man and that 66.9% of the men surveyed said they enjoyed masturbation and fantasy more than actual sex, using the a primary fantasy of the Cuckoldress wife having sex with other men.
A Cuckold wife should practice sexual denial with her husband:
WHY CUCKOLDING
The men were asked to select all the factors which led them to Cuckolding. With the highest response rate at 82.8%, the major drawcard for the men was arousal caused by the thought of seeing their wives with other men; and the ‘my private porn star’ response—while not a politically correct one—was alluded to by a number of men. However to be fair, it would have to be said that anecdotally the fantasy of a wife with other men is not limited to men interested in Cuckolding.
The second most popular factor was an enjoyment of sexual submissiveness, at 61.9%. This one is interesting, as culturally men are expected to be the aggressors and being permitted a submissive role in a so-called vanilla relationship is not that common, instead it is most often labelled a BDSM practice. For men (and couples) who do not see themselves as belonging to the BDSM community, it may be difficult to frame ways for the man to be submissive; however Cuckolding does provide that opportunity. The majority of cuckolds are self-assertive and describe themselves as an alpha male, holding a socially dominant position, whether in the workplace by wealth or earning power or through being highly educated.
They generally know their place in the world and it is not a submissive one. However when it comes to sex they enjoy the taboo, novelty and ‘letting go’ that being the submissive partner promises:
There is no question I’m a powerful guy in real life, therefore sitting in women’s underwear outside the door waiting while some guy pleasures her is so quirky, so different to who I usually am, that I get off on the idea of that ‘other me’ being so pussy whipped.
At 55%, just over half of the men rated the opportunity for sexual humiliation as a factor which attracted them to Cuckolding. Sexual humiliation falls under the definition of masochism, as it is seeking pain in some form and taking sexual pleasure from it. Interestingly, according to Baumeister (1988) rather than pathologising it, masochism should be seen simply an unusual way to take a ‘time out’ from the pressures of life, and in his words is ‘an escape from self and self awareness’, in the same way that others might take up mediation or exercise. The majority of men who took this survey described themselves as alpha males (see Self Image), as well as being well educated and earning good salaries in white collar occupations; therefore fit Baumeister’s description of individuals who use sexual masochism as a way to temporarily give up the control and responsibility that they carry in their day to day lives.
In relation to humiliation, comments were made that creampies (specifically the ejaculate of the wife’s lovers on her genitals which the husband is permitted to see, touch or consume but can also be on the face, mouth or breasts), were a powerful attraction, and on reflection it would have been beneficial to have included a line of questioning on this interest. However as nearly one third of respondents said that a desire to explore bisexuality was what attracted them to Cuckolding to begin with; the desire to interact with other men’s sexual fluids in this manner could be a way for some men to express homo-erotic desires, plus for some who may be wrestling with the idea of bisexuality, enjoying this on the wife’s body may legitimise it and remove the practice from being framed as homosexual—a type of bisexuality by proxy as it were.
I believe we were also remiss in not including an option for ‘pleasing my wife’, as a factor for being attracted to Cuckolding. We made the assumption that the men were only motivated by their own sexual desires, however there were a number of voluntary comments made by the men which related to a desire to please their partners:
I just love seeing her live her true sexual passion.
Sexual freedom for my wife boosts her confidence.
My wife loves being dominant and I’m man enough to let her express it.
I enjoy seeing her enjoy getting pleasured.
Penis/Small Penis Humiliation
The men were also asked if they enjoyed small penis humiliation, taken to mean having derogatory remarks made about their size, length, girth and their ability to satisfy a woman sexually or being compared to men who were more endowed. While 29% had no interest in it, the remaining 71% were attracted to having this experience to some degree. Cuckolds do appear to have a strong interest in the penises of other men, particularly big penises, so this could mean that even those men with average size penises fantasize about their wives being with larger men than they are. Given the interest that cuckolds have in interracial cuckolding, both anecdotally and evidenced by the large number of websites offering material that focuses specifically on wives with black lovers, this is may not be an unreasonable conclusion.
For this survey we used the generally accepted penis size for Caucasian men:
Small (under 5 inches long)
Average (5-7 inches long)
Large (over 7 inches long)
The common assumption around cuckolds is that they must have a small penis and that is is a deciding factor in them being attracted to Cuckolding. However in this survey the majority of cuckolds described themselves to be of average physical endowment. Obviously there is no way of knowing if the responses are true as men do anecodotally overestimate their penis size; however in this case 36% of men said they were drawn to Cuckolding because they perceived themselves as having as small penis, which is higher than the number who actually identified themsleves in the small penis (5 inches and under) category according to the measurement table.
Taking this into account and given the percentage of cuckolds who also nominated an attraction to small penis humiliation (SPH) which again is also far higher than the self-reported figure having a small penis, we would have to consider the men assessed their penis size truthfully.
Feedback from cuckolds on what makes penis humiliation (or SPT for short), attractive is interesting in itself. For some cuckolds the fact that they will never have a larger penis means they actually erotize their negative feelings about their perceived inadequacies and appear to turn this around to a plus rather than a negative. For others the taboo act of a woman actually making derogatory remarks about his penis is thrilling precisely because it is not a socially accepted thing to do. Explains one cuckold:
I often suggest we watch porno movies with supremely endowed men. This makes my dick look even smaller in comparision and then I fantasise about my little dick next to his and how my wife is probably comparing me to him.
Bisexuality
In response to the question, ‘do you consider yourself bisexual?’ 29.2% described themselves as bisexual, 18.4% as bi-curious and 18.1% would like to be f***ed into bisexual behaviour. In total this means that 69.9% of the men have some interest in, or identification with, bisexuality. The high number who would do it if ‘f***ed’ probably speaks a little to the fact that in society generally it is much more acceptable for a woman to be bisexual or lesbian than for a man to be bisexual or homosexual
Some comments made were:
I think cucks are lying if they say they are not interested in the other guy’s dicks. We think about how big, how heavy or how long they are, these are all questions swirling around in the mind of the curious cuck.
I wish to take my wife’s place.
Every now and then she makes me come in and wipe her lover down. What can I say, it is just heaven.
Occasionally I am allowed a creampie. Understandably it is only with guys she knows well so we are aware of their sexual history.
While an interest in consuming another man’s semen through the act of the creampie is tied to the masochistic experience of humiliation, for many it is openly a way to express their bisexuality. For others it is also entirely possible that wishing to give a wife post-sex oral sex or licking ejaculate from her breasts or body, is a way for some men of framing erotic homosexual desires so that they remain within a heterosexual framework, i.e. between the man and woman.
LIFESTYLE MECHANICS
We asked how open couples were with regard to their Cuckold arrangement and perhaps unsurprisingly, couples were very selective about who they told. Given how taboo extra marital sex remains round the world and how few people are familiar with what Cuckolding actually is; this would explain why f****y and close friends were the least likely to be chosen as confidants. However what we consider a fairly high number (at 40.7%), confided in others, who they described as not necessarily f****y or friends, and from that we would infer these are other couples in leading a similar lifestyle. Other people are of course involved by virtue of the fact that the couples need to locate, screen, meet and play with the male lovers, most often referred to as Bulls.
Bulls are located by the tried and true methods of meeting through work, at social venues like pubs and clubs and by advertising on websites that cater to the Cuckolding community. In our survey group a very tiny 9% of the men choose the Bulls, while close to half of the time the wife locates her own sexual partners. As the cuckold generally defers to her when it comes to matters of sex and the Cuckoldress generally holds the sexually dominant role in the relationship, this would be expected; however relationships appear flexible enough to leave room for it being a co-decision when required, given the result that 20% said they looked together and 25% said it was situation dependant.
Where does cuckolding take place?
The question of where the actual act takes place unearthed a mixed bag of responses. While the figure of 17.8% (just over one in five men) said their wives had sex with their lovers in the marital bed, that figure is probably higher, given that 54.6% of the men stated it could be any of those venue: the marital bed, in the home or outside of the home.
As Steve explains it, anecdotally there is a strong element of submissive symbolism related to the use of the marital bed, which can be powerfully erotic and stimulating to both cucks and Cuckoldresses. In fact one of the best known amateur pay for view cuckolding sites uses the marital bed to film their exploits for precisely this reason. Given the number of cuckolds who display some interest in bisexuality it also allows a way of expressing their sexual interest in other men by smelling/tasting/feeling the other man without having any direct contact:
After they have had sex in our bed I can fall asl**p and imagine I was her.
I find it highly erotic to smell their sex on our sheets.
It is the ultimate humiliation. What can I say, a stranger, my bed, my wife, I guess it just makes it very real to me.
What Sort of Cuckold?
We created arbitrary categories of Cuckold and asked the men which they identified with the most. The responses mirrored the reasons for being attracted to Cuckolding in the first place and which are discussed earlier under ‘Why Cuckolding’. We did not create a category of Submissive Cuckold, as we believed that a position of submission is taken in all the categories. There was very only a 1% difference in identifying as a Humiliation or Voyeur cuckold. Given the popularity of Voyeur Cuckold category, this also tends to support why there was such high number (66.9%), of self-reported cuckolds who said they prized masturbation and fantasy above actual sex.
What the Cuckold is Allowed
We also asked what role the cuckolds took when the wife was with another man. For the majority of couples it was a case of the wife’s wishes in a given situation. However from the categories we presented of watching, watching/participating and not being present, it is most likely that the wife has sex with other men alone. In terms of what the cuckold enjoys, most cuckolds nominate being humiliated, so it would depend on how humiliating the allowable roles are to him.
However most cuckolds report enjoying watching almost equally, so it would seem that if only 15.2% are permitted to watch, their needs are not met in this respect, and perhaps as Steve suggests, this in itself further adds to the cuckolds feelings of humiliation and loss of control.
98.2% of the cuckolds agreed with the statement: ‘The desire and passion for my Cuckoldress is heightened after she has been with another man’. Brizendine (The Male Brain 2010, p.64) refers to this concept as ‘mate guarding’, in which a man’s mating hormones are stimulated by fear of loss and rejection, and this in turn intensifies his feelings of love and passion for his mate.
