Are more women having affairs? Or are they finally just talking about it?
Listeners can judge for themselves as iHeartRadio launches the groundbreaking podcast She Wants More, hosted by journalist and author Jo Piazza (Committed and Fierce), which will feature women of different ages and backgrounds telling the stories of their affairs, many for the first time.
After five years of reporting on marriage in the popular Committed podcast, Piazza is now uncovering the other side of monogamy and finding some surprising answers about the motivations behind female infidelity — from sex, to empowerment, to self-esteem, and even love.
The podcast was inspired by the book A Passion for More (Meridian Editions) by Susan Shapiro Barash, an intimate and trailblazing look in its own right at the reasons women in monogamous relationships and marriages take a lover. In this breakthrough book, women confide how they balance the emotional and physical aspects of their trysts.
She Wants More explores the double standard of cheating, unpacking the guilt, shame and the expectations placed on women. Piazza has candid conversations with women about the affairs that have either strengthened or broken their marriages that will make listeners feel like they are eavesdropping on intimate conversations between two friends. The stories will make listeners question everything they thought they knew about desire, monogamy, and marriage.
In Shapiro Barash’s book, she identifies four types of affairs — empowering, sex-driven, love and self-esteem — and answers questions including why taking a lover helps women remain in unhappy relationships and how women renegotiate monogamous relationships after having affairs.
While the book breaks down why some women choose to have affairs, Shapiro Barash’s research also looks at the aftermath. Through her conversations, she found that affairs can improve monogamous relationships. However, she also discovered that affairs can be the catalyst to leave long-term relationships.
Says Shapiro Barash, “There are more affairs now than in the past because there is more access to ‘the other man’ through social media, cell phones, the internet. If someone wants to find that former colleague she always had a crush on, or a college or high school reunion, the information is readily available. There are options at every turn because women have more autonomy and power than ever before — the workplace, the schoolyard, the gym, Starbucks, travel.”
Check out the introduction here:
