Why Some Men Risk Everything

Fox 4 Reporter: Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer in the middle of a prostitution scandal. Still ahead on Good Day we talk to an expert about why some men are willing to risk everything for sex.

Well this latest news first as well as the Spitzer scandal points to what seems to be a phenomenon these days – very successful men risking everything for sex.

Psychologist Heather Robbins is with us this morning to talk more about this. First of all, thank you so much for being there.

Heather Robbins: “Thank you for having me.”

Fox 4 Reporter: We appreciate it. Many of us, of course, after we heard this story were asking “Why?” and you say there may actually be a few reasons. The first reason maybe just be simple biology and it sounds like kind of a lame excuse but there might actually be something to this.

Heather Robbins: There is no good excuse, you know we’re talking about a few different factors but as far as the biology is concerned with men there is a certain amount of the genetic push, for like a better word, to kind of reproduce as much as possible, and kind of survival of the fittest that kind of thing. So that’s one aspect which leads to higher testosterone levels. Now we’ve also identified a personality called the ‘Sensation Seeker.

Fox 4 Reporter: Now this is this is what Eliot Spitzer would maybe be described as, right, as certain personality type?

Heather Robbins: You know it actually applies to a lot the people in the public eye, politicians certainly, often times celebrities. We know a lot of what happens with celebrity relationships.
Fox 4 Reporter: And what type of personality is this?

Heather Robbins: This is somebody who is really high excitement, really high energy oftentimes these people are very helpful to the popular people at large but on their personal lives it creates almost a sense of entitlement.

Fox 4 Reporter: Yeah they can feed off this, right, this energy and this need for this excitement?
Heather Robbins: Right and well they’re being told by hundreds and thousands of people that we love you, you’re perfect, you’re great, so it creates the sense that I can do anything and I’m not going to get, you know, there’s not going to be consequences.

Fox 4 Reporter: The good news is that what we’re talking about this morning is it necessarily your average man, correct?

Heather Robbins: Right, don’t worry.