Number seven

I’ve come across an interesting phenomenon in human behaviour, that I’m going to try and outline here for you.

When Carol cheats on Ross, she’s written off as a callous wench.

But when Carol cheats on Ross with Susan and surprises everyone with the widening of her sexual spectrum, Carol receives more sympathy.

All of a sudden she’s not a callous wench, she’s a confused individual who needs our support.

But she still cheated!

She still broke the implicit trust. She still went behind Ross’ back and committed an act she knew to be wrong.

So why does the gender reveal, evoke more sympathy?

Now this is a very tentative guess here but I think when we imagined Carol cheating on Ross with a man we assumed she was just plain greedy and this behaviour was inexcusable.

If you wanted to have sex with men, you should just go to your husband Ross!

But when we found out Carol was bisexual or potentially gay we imagined a conflicted soul who has possibly been burdened by living a lie for years, maybe even decades!