WHY CELEBRATE MEN WITH SIDE-CHICKS?

 Sir,
 
I feel that the side-chick issue has been on the rise over the years. Women are either being side-chicks or they are fighting off side-chicks. Social media has defined ‘side-chick’ as a woman who is dating someone who is in a relationship, knowingly or unknowingly. The circumstances are always complicated and the feelings are rarely less valid than those in the primary relationship. There is a certain amount of vulnerability, accountability and communication that have to be in place to sustain such an arrangement.

However, the so-called side chick phenomenon is nothing new; the language repackages infidelity as primarily the fault of the woman. Mistresses are taken care of, taken out, splurged on and at times prioritized above the wife.  Side chicks are secrets, limited to booty calls and late night texts, and are expected to play their position; never interfering with a man’s ‘real’ relationship. There is usually one mistress, but a side chick is generally one of several. Mistresses are white and upper-class and therefore redeemable. Side chicks are poor and of color and are therefore viewed as thirsty, grimy, low down, gold-diggers who actively pursue somebody else’s man. There’s something wrong with that picture.

Further, why are side chicks vilified while dudes who have side chicks are celebrated? The fact that men are not held accountable for their culpability in the destruction of their own relationships, and the responsibility is almost always and exclusively put on ‘the other woman’, implies that men can’t help it, that they are biologically wired to be promiscuous.  This makes it the responsibility of wives or main chicks to hold their man’s attention, and the responsibility of potential side chicks to resist their advances.  Men, in this dynamic, have no liability for their actions.  If they get caught they blame the side chick for seducing him from home.

The responsibility for fidelity should rest on the shoulders of men who are in committed relationships. It’s infuriating that while men are busy accumulating side-chicks willy-nilly it is women who are at each other’s throats. We call women who are involved with men in multiple relationships all sorts of names but what do we call a man who has a side chick?

N Mbuli

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