ChineseGhost
Junior Member
French Fried Frog Legs & Chopsticks
Posts: 195 
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Post by ChineseGhost on Oct 6, 2010 3:14:14 GMT -5
me 'bit ol' fashioned... I wouldn't stand for it.  Would never do it. I admit i'd "look" at the menu ;D , but i'll never place an order.  |
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Post by Pushnpull on Oct 6, 2010 7:55:18 GMT -5
Let's say you marry the love of your life...and then..sex just stops. Or you get it once a month.
Yes, yes the one you are with should be your friend as well as your lover.
It's not PC i guess to say that sex important. It's always about the "Friendship".
In my experience...sex is very very important.
In that case...stay friends. People who are asexual need companionship...yes. But don't seek it with another man or woman that wants and desires sexual intimacy.
If I have to beg you to be with me, to touch me, to kiss me...
and I don't get it...
I will seek it somewhere else.
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ChineseGhost
Junior Member
French Fried Frog Legs & Chopsticks
Posts: 195
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Post by ChineseGhost on Oct 6, 2010 11:07:59 GMT -5
Let's say you marry the love of your life...and then..sex just stops. Or you get it once a month. Yes, yes the one you are with should be your friend as well as your lover. It's not PC i guess to say that sex important. It's always about the "Friendship". In my experience...sex is very very important. In that case...stay friends. People who are asexual need companionship...yes. But don't seek it with another man or woman that wants and desires sexual intimacy. If I have to beg you to be with me, to touch me, to kiss me... and I don't get it... I will seek it somewhere else. "cheating" ain't ok in me book. But I concur, between the sheets activity is very important and throughout marriage. If the partner's not up to it, up to us to tickle'em, arouse 'em...  Before even considering "ok, he/she doesn't satify me, gotta look at the menu & place an order", keep comm. channels open. VERY very important in a couple.  |
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Post by koreanhalfie on Oct 6, 2010 12:25:36 GMT -5
I'm with Push'n'Pull. Sex is fundamental for a couple to last. Once passion has waned the only things keeping people together are:
a) children if they exist
b) the mortgage if there is one
c) a comfortable daily routine
d) parental disapprobation or a decent relationship with the inlaws
Essentially superficial reasons to stay with someone.
Then again I'm partial, my father got an affair with an Asian women and now I have got a younger half-brother I love even more than my 'real' brothers.
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Post by Pushnpull on Oct 6, 2010 12:43:51 GMT -5
Just don't be quick to judge on cheaters. Sure I wish I did things differently. I wish I had noticed the downward spiral of my marriage and ended things before I cheated.
Did I try to entice him? Yes. Of course.
Usually it went nowhere and I was only in my early 30's. I couldn't think to stay in a marriage where I was so so very unhappy. Did we have a child. Yes. A Mortgage. Yes.
Still...it couldn't keep me.
The desire for intimacy is not wrong. I believe that for better or for worse..if you aint' in the mood...you better get in the mood whether you are male or female because if you aren't...don't cry when someone snatches up your significant other.
I believe, and still do , that my ex loved me...
And I loved him...
But 4 years into our marriage we started to sleep together like brother and sister. The passion had fizzled out and if I am honest...we never really connected in that area(not for my lack of trying). We were best friends and I figured that would rise above all and other areas would improve.
Not true.
Did I cheat? yes.
Am I happier to be out of that marriage.
YES! YES! YES!
Am I an evil witch?
Just know that life isn't black/white. Maybe I should have taken the high road and stayed in my sexless marriage until death did us part...but I could not.
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Post by betahat on Oct 6, 2010 13:40:43 GMT -5
I guess my question to you would be why you didn't get a divorce first and then find someone to share sexual intimacy with? That's always been my issue with cheating - in the old days it was too difficult legally and there was too much social stigma to divorce, and cheating might even have been more socially sanctioned. But I don't know if that's true anymore.
Certainly cheating is a surefire way to end a marriage in most cases, or it could serve as a wake-up call and get the other person to recognize how serious the gulf between you has grown and change their ways. But it strikes me as quite an inefficient and hurtful way to go about ending a relationship as opposed to, say, having an open conversation, even yelling and screaming if you have to, delivering an ultimatum, and then separating (if not divorcing) after letting the other person know you are fundamentally unhappy and this will not continue.
Then it's not cheating at all, it's just life.
But I certainly don't want to judge people who cheat, I'm sure the whole thing is an emotional mess in many ways. Maybe cheating doesn't enter your mind until you meet someone else, and there's just so many sparks you can't wait to work things out (or terminate) the marriage. I'm just stressing my own belief that divorce/separation is an option before cheating for many people, and would be the outcome if you hadn't lost all your open communication channels already. I would just declare to my wife that if our marriage continues sexless I will go beyond internet porn and seek sex elsewhere, and see where the chips fall. Though I pray it never comes to that.
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palavore
Full Member
I put my pants on just like the rest of you -- one leg at a time. Except, once my pants are on, I make gold posts.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Posts: 298
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Post by palavore on Oct 6, 2010 15:35:57 GMT -5
If that question needs consideration, then cheating is the least of your sins. Cheating is ok if the marriage is ok. No love lost from no love gained. |
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Post by admin on Oct 6, 2010 19:15:00 GMT -5
There's cheating as in violating the trust of exclusivity - that the common one we think of.
There's another kind of cheating, though, which is what pushnpull experienced - that is, being cheated out of physical intimacy by a spouse who refuses to put out. Getting married means supporting your spouse in all kinds of ways. Certainly, attending to one of their two primary drives should qualify. Should anyone be cheated out of a lifetime of intimacy because they marry someone who decides to turn platonic? I don't think so.
Your point that a person should divorce before cheating is valid, however, it should be noted that he 'cheated' her, if not ON her, first. How much of a marriage was there left to preserve, really?
I don't mean this to be an exploration of her marriage, so, sorry, breaking it down to the generic...you need to take care of your spouse - emotionally, physically, financially, and in whatever new ways the heavens invent while you are married.
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Post by betahat on Oct 7, 2010 1:35:40 GMT -5
Good points. I suppose in many cases "marriage" is just a hollow shell or formality anyway. I'm trying not to be judgmental - usually when a relationship doesn't work out both parties are to blame but maybe not always.
I guess I'm just a bit puzzled (or disappointed) why in so many cases it's the cheating AFTER all the love left the marriage that causes the (hollow) marriage to end. I know there are always lots of reasons why couples stay together in loveless marriages - usually the kids or financial consideration (espcially health insurance in America) and of course there's always closeted homosexuality - but it seems like if both parties really acknowledged that it is just a relationship of convenience, you could agree on an open relationship or something like that.
I just can't see why you would cheat on someone that you still loved without their consent.
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Post by admin on Oct 7, 2010 1:54:42 GMT -5
In an earlier post, you mention that marriage and cheating were dealt with differently. I don't know how far back you want to go, but for many generations before ours marriages were loveless arranged matters that joined families for strategic or wealth-preservation considerations. Romance and true love was to be found outside marriage (think courtly love or The Romance of the Rose).
Your question is good, however, as to why people cheat and then divorce instead of divorce and then do whatever they want. My guess would be that people need a certain amount of 'escape velocity' to end a marriage, some giant emotional upheaval, and really only cheating rises to that level. I suppose something like, oh, your husband being a serial killer (like the Craigslist killer, although he was merely engaged) would also be enough, but that's a bit extreme compare to the crime free and easy nature of cheating.
I would guess that some people cheat not really for the sex, the romance, the excitement, the revenge, the boredom, etc., but rather to force the end of the marriage, probably more subconscious than by design. Just a guess.
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Post by TeeHee on Oct 12, 2010 5:37:10 GMT -5
Pushnpull, I could understand your previous dilemma, and don't think you(or people in similar circumstances) are evil for it.
That said, there is a certain type of cheating scenario that I fail to see any sympathy for, and that is when people go sleeping around(usually unprotected) behind their spouse's backs even though they're still actively having sex with their spouse, typically resulting in the cheated spouse contracting an STD that they had no idea would be something they should have had to worry about. I've heard one too many stories of women living with HIV because their husbands were on "the Down Low", contracted the virus in the process, then spread it to their trusting wives. One case I knew about...the woman was (as she thought) happily married to her then-husband, actively sexual with him, then later on she noticed that they were experiencing weird unusual symptoms. When she had herself checked out, she discovered that they both had HIV. Originally, she was told that she had the virus and spread it to him, but it was in fact the other way around and she later found out that he'd been sleeping around with other men who he knew were infected. He'd been telling all his friends and family that it was she who spread it to him, and she'd been living with that shame the whole time. It was disgusting. So basically, my issue with cheating is people sleeping around unprotected, but still actively having sex with their significant other who trusts/assumes that they're in a monogamous union(relationship, marriage etc), then the cheated person contracting an STD as a result. For example, even though the swinging lifestyle is totally not my type of thing, I don't have such judgment on swinging couples; although they're having sex with multiple partners, I don't consider it cheating since both of them are aware of and consenting to it.
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Post by betahat on Oct 12, 2010 22:29:43 GMT -5
If he really knew that the men he had sex with were infected and/or that he was, he should go to jail for that. What a sad world we live in.
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Post by jefe on Oct 13, 2010 1:51:15 GMT -5
What is the crime? Having unprotected sex with multiple partners? However, morally wrong it might seem, I don't know where it would be a crime, esp. for men. In fact, some religious beliefs make it morally wrong to use protection.
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Post by TeeHee on Oct 13, 2010 2:23:23 GMT -5
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Post by betahat on Oct 13, 2010 13:27:14 GMT -5
How is having sex with someone, knowing you're HIV positive, any different than jabbing them with a needle?
I'm not saying it's first degree murder, but it's verging on manslaughter. I think it would be hard to prove in a court of law as you would have to prove knowledge - i.e. there is proof the person had a positive test and received the results. In many places they actually go further and you have to prove INTENT - not just that you knew you were positive, but that you were deliberately trying to infect the other person. Of course that's even harder to prove, but that seems to be the case with many of the legal cases.
We could probably all agree that intending to infect someone with a deadly disease should be illegal. The non-intentional case is obviously trickier, I draw a parallel with drunk driving since both are forms of reckless endangerment. The parallel breaks down in part because the partner is also being reckless by engaging in unprotected sex. If you're in the car with a drunk person they probably won't be liable if you crash and die. However, if you didn't know that the person was drunk, or you had a reasonable expectation that they weren't drunk (i.e. you were married to them), or they deceived you that they weren't drunk, then the parallel is restored in my opinion and negligence becomes criminal.
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