Dads in doubt
Some years ago, I had a friend called Vicky, who enjoyed, then did not enjoy, an affair with a married man. Married man, ('MM') led vulnerable Vicky up the garden path with the same old pack of porkies uttered by MMs around the globe - the marriage is dead anyway, we don't even have sex anymore, she tricked me into marriage (how, exactly?), and... (drum roll, maestro, if you please) "I'm not even sure if our child is mine". More recently, a friend told me that he wasn't sure if his child was his either. In the cases of both these gentlemen, the very obvious similarity in appearance between them and their (supposedly-not) offspring was pointed out, and both swore by the same explanation. Their wives, around the time of conception, were having affairs with the men's best friends, who "looked very similar to me".
The reason these two guys have come to mind recently is because a frontpage article last week suggested that as many as a third of all fathers might be raising and/or supporting children who were not biologically theirs, in an article titled 'Sly DNA tests show 1 in 3 dads duped'. This article could have brought great cheer to the hearts of the men mentioned above. Perhaps the doubting dads cited in the article also made poor choices of friends. Perhaps out of vanity, they choose lookalikes, so that if they ever had to look at their mates whilst in their company, it would be not unlike looking in the mirror. I suspect, however that particularly in the first case, the invention (and that's what I thought it was) of the cuckolding clone served to ameliorate any guilt felt on the part of the MM.
Not only do I not buy the lookalike theory, I also don't buy the statistic proferred in the article, which suggests that around a third of all mothers were enjoying 'relations' with two or more partners around the time of their child's conception. I would be curious to know if statistics on infidelity would be high enough to support this. Those stats themselves could be unreliable, unless the research was carried out with the unrivalled scrutiny of, (thanks to Liam Neeson), deceased-man-of-the-moment, Alfred Kinsey (i.e. by actually seeing it in front of your own eyes). My other reason to doubt stats on infidelity is that the respondents who say they are getting extra-marital action (or those who are but don't say so), have already proven themselves to be accomplished liars. Furthermore, if there's one thing that unites the human race in not telling the truth, it is our sex lives.
So who could these doubting dads be? Who are these women active with multiple partners? Since the DNA tests reported are being conducted in Australia, perhaps Australian sheilas are partial to a bit on the side. Or maybe there is a spate of immaculate conceptions taking place over the Tasman. Or is it that some women, take a lookalike lover because the physical attraction is still there, but hubby has become a dud shag. I don't have any answers, but I would sure advise men to try their darndest to avoid having friends who look like them. WASPs in the US could try to befriends African American basketball players, boxers, or footballers. Gentlemen of colour could sign up to golf courses or country clubs in which their brother either a minority or visibly absent. Back in Horse-trailer, the white blokes might like to cruise around Redfern (in Sydney) and share a jar or two with the locals, whilst aboriginal gentlemen could stroll into almost any goverment office or business on the lookout for pale potential mates.
Had not intended to stay on a theme of sex and fertility, but like infidelity, taxes and death, these thangs ain't gonna go away.
