I’m in an airport right now watching Tiger Woods recite a scripted, stilted apology to the world on CNN.

Apparently, he is sorry for “being selfish.” I guess “being selfish” is shorthand for “banging a boatload of bitches.” He looks pallid, almost wan, like he’s been taking Michael Jackson black-be-gone pills. His mom is sitting there, arms staunchly folded, looking sternly Phillipino.

Among other things, he says that he had felt entitled, after working so hard in life, to give in to all the “temptation” around him.

By a strange bit of serendipity, I am eating an Apple, bite marks skirting around the edge of the sticker….

Tiger keeps reading as if an automaton, apologizing to the golf community, the children of the world, unborn fetuses, and everyone else whose world view has been totally subverted by the sloppy swinging of Woods’ wood.

Now Wolf and the Situation Room are having a ‘Brady Bunch’-style panel of talking heads discussing the whys and the whatnots. Pat “O’Let’s Get Crazy” Brian is one of the “experts,” which is hilarious and depressing.

The panel is discussing the sincerity of the apology and whether or not Tiger has changed. I, for one, truly believe that Tiger has changed. As a matter of fact, I would bet my life that Tiger Woods will NEVER, EVER cheat on his wife with a Chili’s waitress again.

He will probably upgrade to an Applebee’s hostess.

I mean, he is DEFINITELY going to cheat again. Let’s face it, the course of the history of politics, art, and war has been chartered by powerful men sticking their peepees — or attempting to stick their peepees — into forbidden fruit.

So, to understand Tiger and his skank-fetish, it might help to look at some of the causes of male infidelity in general…..

There is a universe of notions about ‘Why men cheat.‘

Inside this giant circle are the different permutations of cheater. There are theories on ‘Why married men cheat,’ with more specific explanations of ‘Why wealthy, successful married men cheat’ and ‘Why black men cheat,’ AND, in a tiny subset of venn diagram, there exists ‘Why the fuck did Tiger Woods cheat on his hot supermodel wife with a bunch of dumb white trash?!’

Does Tiger’s lonely sliver hold the key to all the outlying circles of the kingdom of infidelity? Why did this man, who has everything, bone a Chili’s waitress in the back of a Buick? And then sundry sluts everywhere else? Is there a hole this golfer won’t play? When he gave in to “temptation,” did he eat too much of the Apple from the Tree of Knowledge and now nothing can sate his appetite?

In the ongoing maelstrom, the women wonder ‘Why the fuck did he cheat?,‘ while most men only think ‘Why the fuck did he get married?’

The reason the Tiger drama has struck such a chord with America is because it taps into every woman’s fear that her man may, in fact, be a cheater.

So… Is he?

Well, the good news is that men don’t always cheat. The bad news is that men almost always want to cheat.

However, the problem with all these easy statements — including the nauseatingly popular “Men are as available as their options!” axiom — is that they don’t offer the reason why.

So, if we accept that all men do, indeed, WANT to cheat, we can start to hone in on the genesis of why.

For some cheaters, maybe the ‘why’ seems obvious.

Like one-balled wonder Lance Armstrong: “I have one testicle so I’ll show you a man!”

Typical Hollywood actor: “My mom was a drunk and I fear abandonment so let me spork you… and you… and you!”

Tiger Woods: “I was an OCD golfer in high school and longingly short-stroked to tit-laden blondes who thought I was nerdish and blackish.”

But, alas, these could just be excuses. Maybe Lance would have been a prick with three balls. Plus, Hitler allegedly had one ball and he exterminated the Jews — he didn’t hump Hollywood starlets. Clearly, these reasons are anecdotal. Something MORE must be at the cheating core of the mass of men, right?

Is it, as some “Iron John” followers believe, that modern men are so removed from their macho saber-tooth-hunting ways that plowing women is the only way, in today’s world, to assert masculinity? These neo-masculinists believe that the urge is curbed by doing manly man shit, but it seems that men with six-packs who go on warrior weekends and build stone houses are still mostly assholes. Ernest Hemmingway tough-guy’ed his turkey neck into most any supple “v” that was willing.

So, are men just psychologically damaged by the pressures of society? Well sure, the neural highway connecting a man’s cerebellum to his celery stick is full of fucked-up potholes, detours, and Mexicans on the off ramp selling oranges, but, again, these explanations becomes way too varied and anecdotal. The reason for rampant male infidelity throughout the history of the world MUST be more systemic, right?

Ok, let’s start at the beginning. Adam and Eve.

Adam was a man. He lived in paradise. He was safe. Completely. With a push, Eve introduced him into the “world” which is harsh and violent and begins and ends in suffering. She betrayed him. As a former mayor of D.C. might say, “The bitch set him up!”

Of course, there was no actual Adam and Eve. It’s a myth. But the true meaning of the ‘Garden of Eden’ is rarely expanded upon.

The real metaphor of Genesis, at once obvious and obscure, is childbirth.

The ‘Garden of Eden‘ is the womb. ‘Eve‘ is mother.

After nine months in a womb of Eden, a woman betrays man by pushing him out into mortality. Harsh lights, cold steel, shrill screams. His connection to God, his paradise, is lost with the snip of a cord.

This woman is now a con artist, holding him and saying, ‘This whole umbilical thing was a set-up. It was always meant to end. You’re on your own now! So go to that Tree, take that Apple, and cut your teeth on it, boy.’

Birth. The first and ultimate betrayal by a woman.

We never forget it and, because of that, we never, ever, fully trust. And we silly men can never understand the fathomless, unconditional love of birthing another person. Of creating life. We can only understand protecting it for reasons that we don’t fully comprehend. So we are left with that paradoxical, initial trauma of birth. And then a life of vigilance and being hard, and fighting wars, and defending what is ours.

Yet underneath that armor, we have a vague memory. It is antithetical to this truculent existence. It is our alpha and omega. Inside of a woman. It is the lure of the womb, the Garden of Eden. Mysterious, unseen, calling to us like Sirens from salty cliffs.

And once we arrive, the deceptive opiates of our orgasm create, however briefly, a snapshot of amniotic oblivion. The unbearable lightness of being. For a moment, we are engulfed and surrounded in safe and unconditional love. The flatlined thoughts and the pounding blood in our ears mimic that liquid sarcophagus whose benevolent whooshing tricked us into believing that once, in the beginning, life actually WAS a paradise.

And then, we collapse into you…. After a few seconds of vulnerability, too soon, we are back.

We open our eyes.

And all we see is Apples.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 20th, 2010 at 2:27 am and is filed under All blog entries. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.