The old “I’m sorry… but I was really drunk” excuse has just been trumped. Researchers in the US have recently discovered there is, supposedly, a genetic condition which could explain why some people cheat on their partners.

It’s the old Michael Douglas “I have a sex addition” baloney.

Give me a break. It seems that every time someone gets caught drink driving, cheating, being violent (or whatever) they trot out some medical or genetic condition to excuse their behaviour.

‘It wasn’t really me Your Honour (Honey/Boss)… I have this condition.” And then they trot out some medical mumbo-jumbo or psycho-babble.

We’ve become a society where we’re never wrong. We’re never a complete idiot. We never take responsibility for our actions. There is always some excuse which is beyond our control.

I know this “cheating is in your genes” theory has been hanging around for years, but they reckon this study out of the State University of New York is the most convincing so far.

But just as downing 10 Jagerbombs doesn’t make it OK to go and pash the next person you see, this discovery most certainly is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. It’s not a free pass to go out, forget about any morals you may have had last week, and then use the excuse that ‘it’s in your genes’.

Now I’m no scientist, so I’m not going to argue the validity of genetic variations and chemical balances. And I don’t really care whether it’s true or not, that some people can be more predisposed to cheat than others. The bottom line is that scientific theories do not excuse someone from taking responsibility for their actions.

Way too often we are seeing people shirking their responsibilities because of lame excuses like their delicate emotional state or some psychological condition they’ve just made up.

We see it everyday in Hollywood. I don’t care who you are, sex addiction does not strike me as a reason to be able to go out and do what ‘sex addicts’ do. It’s another Hollywood-conjured way for celebrities to get out of admitting they messed up, they did something they shouldn’t have, and that they’re sorry. No, instead they expect sympathy for their “terrible” condition, a visit to some swanky rehab resort and a hefty pay-out for their emotional story to be printed in gossip magazines.

This new research about ‘the cheating gene’ is not an excuse. It doesn’t mean you are going to cheat. It means you’re more likely to be tempted to cheat, and the rest is up to you as a person. It comes down not to your genetic make-up, but to your own values and principles.

Don’t give me the “we’re all animals and it’s in our nature” speech. That’s just as bad. The simple fact is that sometimes we just have to take responsibility. Because everyone has a choice of whether they are going to do something or not.

Of course I’m not talking about people with serious psychological issues that do actually influence their behaviour. I’m talking about the average Joe or Jane who just wants someone or something to blame for their bad choices, so they can go on without any guilt about what they’ve done.

It has become a “get out of jail free” card of modern society.

The trend is not just concerning the cheaters though, it’s all over the place. In the workplace, ‘sickies’ are constantly on the rise – the average now for Aussies is 9.3 days each year. In a developed nation with constantly improving and more accessible health care and medicines, shouldn’t that number be going down?

Today people don’t have sickies for sore backs, now it’s a ‘mental health day’. I’m not saying it’s not important for workplaces to look after their staff and their morale, but this has gone way overboard.

So why is this happening? Why do people think it’s OK to make up excuses that, deep down, they know are not good enough?

Perhaps life is so great in Australia and everything is so easy, that it’s a bit too easy. We need a bit of drama in our lives, something controversial that makes us feel like we’re in an episode of The Bold and The Beautiful. So we do things we know are wrong, then realise that real people get hurt by our decisions. So to escape the guilt and repercussions we find a scapegoat.

I guess I’m lucky in a way – the whole bald and big-nosed thing means I’ve never had too much to worry about when it comes to cheating. Maybe there’s a link between the cheating gene and the attractiveness gene. But it doesn’t take a scientist or a fancy laboratory to know when something is wrong. And no matter what excuse you give, it doesn’t help the fact that damage has been done.

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