SuspeckTed knocks away the shards of glass and debris from the "break in case of emergency blog topic" case and grabs can of worms and quickly rips open the top and out comes his latest discussion topic: Heterosexual relationships and homosexual cheating. I may have posed this question before
I've always found it interesting to ponder hypotheticals on cheating in relationships. I will begin with a disclaimer that I myself have never cheated on anyone I've been in a committed relationship nor (to my knowledge) have any of my partners ever cheated on me. I feel it's important to point this out because I have no way of knowing how I'd really feel if I was cheated on so I can only speculate my reactions.
The scenario is this: I contend that in my current relationship with a woman (I am a man) that if I was cheated on by her I wouldn't feel as betrayed if she cheated on me with another woman verses another man. I've questioned many of my friends on this topic and have received some very mixed reactions. Some couples even began arguing about how they each felt believing that there is a right and wrong answer to such a question, so I figure it's probably safer to discuss this in JU where people can answer as individuals.
My reasoning is this. Because I am a man, I don't feel that i can be replaced by a woman, in that, if my partner really wanted to be with a woman then there's really very little I can do to fill that gap as a man. I can't be a woman (well, without costly and painful surgery) for my partner so I don't find it particularly threatening that she may have another sexual encounter with a woman, at least in comparison to what I beleive my reaction would be if I had found out she had cheated on me with another man. Some friends raised the issue of what if your partner was bi-sexual and equally attracted to each sex. While I have my own questions about whether I even believe in true bi-sexuality, I still contend that I wouldn't feel as betrayed. Much in the same way most heterosexual couples don't feel threatened if their partners spend a lot of time with friends of the same sex but often do when they spend a lot of time with friends of the opposite sex.
More disclaimer's - clearly i would be concerned about things like disease, emotional attachments, and the fact that my partner did something to betray my trust (to my partner if she's reading this, I'm not giving her the green flag to sleep with other women with my blessing). But I don't think I would feel the same sting of betrayal if I found out that my partner got drunk and had an anonymous romp with a woman vs. another man. and NO it's not because of the frat boy fantasy of girl on girl action.
Okay that should be enough to get things started even though I know I left out a number of details to the scenario. thoughts?
