fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2482 ]

[ SECRET POST #2482 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2482 ⌋

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I don't care about it in fiction or real life. I'll never understand why someone would care what other people do with their genitals, assuming all partners are consenting.

But why go behind your partner's back? If you don't think "only have sex with me" is a term worth abiding by, why not say that? The worst thing that can happen is that you'll lose that partner, and if you're going to trust one person enough to make them your partner in the first place, it's important that you be able to be honest with them. (Or forget about the whole "partner" thing, keep a stockpile of condoms, and just have yourself some casual sex with whoever's willing.)

If your partner is okay with you having sex with someone else, it isn't cheating.

If it is cheating, then all partners aren't consenting - all sexual partners are, but not all emotional partners, not everyone involved.

Even all sexual partners aren't if the cheater is having unprotected sex with both partners.

...did you just say that unprotected sex = cheating even if all parties consent to the sex?

DA

No, they're saying that if if Cheater has unprotected sex with Non-Partner and then unprotected sex with Partner, then Partner isn't fully consenting to their part of the sexual activities because they aren't aware that they are having unprotected sex with someone who has recently had unprotected sex with someone else. Presumably this works the other way for that anon, too, where Non-Partner isn't fully consenting if Cheater didn't tell them that they have recently had unprotected sex with Partner.

Basically, anon believes that having had recently had unprotected sex with someone else changes enough of the sexual situation (probably because of STDs) that the partner who isn't aware of the other unprotected sex isn't able to consent to actual risks of the situation at hand because they aren't aware of them.

This. I know an arsehole who gave his wife an STD when she was 6 months pregnant. Not only was it bad enough he didn't think about his wife or family but to play roulette with your unborn baby's health- fucking disgusting

All sexual partners aren't fully consenting if either of the cheater's partners agreed to intercourse based on the impression that the cheater was being monogamous with them.

Tbh, for all that cheating tends to be linked to sex, it's really more about disrespecting boundaries that both parties agreed to within the relationship. So, if it was expected to be monogamous? Then sleeping around is cheating, but if that was something both parties agreed they didn't want, then sleeping around wouldn't be cheating.

In fiction, I think people get upset over it either because past experiences, or because it hurts a character - usually involving character[s] they relate to.

I mostly get upset over it because there's often a moral dissonance where I'm supposed to accept this major lying and violating of boundaries as an ok thing because ~heat of the moment~, which is an excuse that just really doesn't fly any more after the age of 15 or so.

In fiction, I just think it's a lazy way to interject drama and the consequences are very trite, because the perpetrator always expects to be forgiven and considers it deeply unfair when they're not. So your first paragraph is correct, but it's not necessarily about how the character who's been cheated on feels.

Right? This is happening right now on one of my shows and it just pisses me off. I was a big fan of the cheater pre-cheating incident, and not such a fan of her wife, and I'm pretty angry that they made me sympathetic to the character I previously didn't like while making me lose any respect for a character I did like.

Outside of any emotional stuff, STD risks are a big reason.

A lot of people have unprotected/less protected sex with a long term partner because they know that if both of them came in without STDs and aren't having sex with anyone else (or anyone else that they haven't vetted) then there isn't much likelihood of any STD being passed between them. If one of them is cheating, then the other person is suddenly being put at a risk they have no way of knowing about and dealing with. If you don't know they are having sex, how are you supposed to know if they are having safe sex?

Not just STDs. In het relationships at least, there's also the possibility of conceiving extra-pair children. There's a situation in my best friend's extended family where a wife found out her husband had been keeping a whole other family on the side that she had no idea even existed. He had like four kids with her and three kids with the other woman. It was a huge clusterfuck all around. Everyone was traumatized (except for him, he refused to acknowledge he'd even done anything wrong, the creep) but especially the children. Just a total mess every which way.

Holy shit. That sounds horrifying.

It's not the sex, it's the "breaking of the contract".

In short, relationships are effectively emotional contracts. If/when you assume that one of the terms of the contract is that you only engage in sexual activity with each other, then if someone goes and has sex with someone else behind your back, then it's breaking the agreed terms.

As crude as the analogy is, it's a lot like how certain corporate contracts work. You can only do X business practice with Y company, and if you go and do X with Z company, either you pay serious penalties or the contract is nullified.

As others have pointed out, if your partner has agreed to you seeing others/sleeping with them/etc it's not considered cheating. And the idea that a relationship excludes sex with anyone outside of the relationship is very much a cultural construct, and not inherent to human relationships in general (i.e. in some parts of Japan, affairs are seen as acceptable as long as you continue your duties to your family at home). In both cases, there is effectively a "non-exclusionary practices clause" in the relationship "contract" - your first 'duty' is to your main partner, but as long as you keep that up respectably then whatever else you do apart from that isn't an issue.

Even in a lot of societies where it's socially acceptable for (some) people (usually men) to have extramarital relationships, jealousy and anger on the part of wives often still exists. They just don't have any power to do anything about it so they have to live with it. Hell, there's even a Roman epigram about it, and Roman men certainly were not expected to be faithful (can't remember who, maybe Juvenal?): "If a husband turns his back on his wife in bed, his slave suffers for it."

Oh, I don't doubt that at all - hell, the difference between "happily open relationship" vs "tolerating adultery" is basically half my parents' marriage in a nutshell. I just mean that the cheating is less about the sex and more about the perceptions of what a relationship entails. If you view exclusivity as a de facto component of a relationship, as opposed to viewing a relationship as a completion of certain 'duties' that then leaves you open to other possibilities, then sex with someone else isn't "just" sex with someone else, but a violation of the 'established' agreement.

Personally, I have the attitude that if I am dating someone, then as long as it doesn't compromise my bodily integrity or my time with them, then they can have all the other relationships they want. So as long they practice safe sex and don't forget me/leave me behind in their efforts to spend time with the other person, I'm find. But obviously this is not a popular standpoint (which is part of why I just don't do relationships anymore).

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2482 ]

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