There’s a certain kind of energy that shows up when some men talk about cheating—and it goes beyond casual approval. You’ve seen it. The friend who claps a little too loud when another man admits he’s juggling women. The guy in the comments calling him a “king,” “goat,” or “him,” as if deception is a competitive sport. The one who defends him like it’s personal, like any criticism is an attack.
On the surface, it reads like typical locker-room behavior. But if you pay attention, it starts to feel less like celebration—and more like fixation.
Because not all praise is equal. And not all of it is about the act itself.
According to clinical psychologist Dr. Terri Cole, admiration can often mask more complicated emotional undercurrents. “When people overly invest in someone else’s behavior—especially behavior that violates social or moral norms—it can signal identification, envy, or even unacknowledged attraction,” she explains. “The intensity of the reaction usually tells you more than the behavior itself.”
In simpler terms: when the reaction is bigger than the situation, something else is driving it.
In many male-dominated spaces, especially those rooted in hyper-masculinity, there’s very little room for emotional nuance. Vulnerability is often framed as weakness. Desire—particularly same-sex desire—is stigmatized or outright rejected. So when feelings arise that don’t fit the script, they don’t disappear. They get rerouted.
That rerouting can look like celebration.
Take a closer look at how these conversations unfold. The focus is rarely on the women involved—the betrayal, the emotional fallout, the consequences. Instead, the spotlight stays on the man. His ability to “pull.” His sexual stamina. His control over multiple partners. The admiration becomes almost performance-based, like he’s executing masculinity at a high level and the audience is taking notes.
But admiration, especially repeated and intense admiration, isn’t neutral.
Sex therapist Dr. Joe Kort has spoken about what he calls “eroticized admiration,” where individuals fixate on traits or behaviors in others that they subconsciously desire or identify with. “In environments where direct expression of same-sex attraction is discouraged, people may express it indirectly—through idolization, fascination, or even defending behavior that keeps them psychologically close to the person,” he notes.
That “closeness” matters. Because in many cases, the man being praised becomes a central figure in the admirer’s mental space. He’s watched, discussed, defended, sometimes even envied. There’s an emotional investment there that goes beyond casual approval.
And then there’s the performative aspect.
Some men participate in this culture not because they genuinely admire cheating, but because they feel pressure to align with it. Supporting the “player” becomes a way to signal belonging. It says, “I’m one of you. I get it. I move like that too.” But when that support feels exaggerated—when the praise is constant, loud, almost theatrical—it can point to insecurity rather than confidence.
Real confidence doesn’t require you to co-sign dysfunction.
Sociologist Dr. Michael Kimmel, known for his work on masculinity, has long argued that many male behaviors are driven by what he calls “homosocial validation”—the need for approval from other men. “Men often perform masculinity not for women, but for other men,” he explains. “The audience is male, and the reward is status within that group.”
That lens shifts everything. Because if the real audience is other men, then the celebration of cheating isn’t just about women at all—it’s about how men see each other.
Now layer in repression, and things get even more complicated.
Not every man who celebrates cheating secretly wants other men. That’s too broad and too easy. But there are cases where admiration crosses into something more personal—something unacknowledged. It shows up in the details: the way certain men are constantly brought up, the way their actions are analyzed, the emotional charge behind defending them.
It’s not always conscious. In fact, it rarely is.
Human behavior is messy. People don’t walk around labeling their own motivations with clinical accuracy. But patterns don’t lie. And when admiration turns into fixation—when someone is consistently centering another man’s sexual behavior, defending it, glorifying it, and staying emotionally engaged with it—it’s worth asking why.
Because at that point, it’s no longer just about cheating.
It’s about identity. It’s about suppressed curiosity. It’s about the narrow definitions of masculinity that leave no room for honesty, so everything has to be filtered through performance. And sometimes, that performance looks like cheering for behavior that, in reality, reflects deeper internal conflict.
There’s also a cost to this culture that often gets ignored. Normalizing cheating as something to celebrate doesn’t just affect relationships—it distorts how men relate to each other. It creates a space where emotional intimacy is replaced with performance, where connection is built on dysfunction instead of authenticity.
And that’s a losing formula long-term.
Because healthy men don’t need to glorify betrayal to feel bonded to other men. They don’t need to orbit someone else’s behavior to feel secure in their own identity. And they definitely don’t need to disguise admiration as something else just to make it socially acceptable.
At some point, the question stops being “Why are you cheering?” and becomes “What are you really seeing in him?”
And that’s where things get honest—whether people are ready for that or not.
