[ SECRET POST #2482 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2482 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Friending Meme is below!

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 065 secrets from Secret Submission Post #355.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

People don't like broken contracts

[nyxelestia]

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.

Re: People don't like broken contracts

[(Anonymous)]

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."

Re: People don't like broken contracts

[nyxelestia]

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).