Home > ConTuesday > ConTuesday! Then we invented cheating.
08 Jan

ConTuesday! Then we invented cheating.

It’s a rare person who pair-bonds only once in their entire life, and probably even rarer to have only one sexual partner. This is probably somehow connected to the fact that we’re more closely related to apes than birds.

But we’ve built a social structure where being faithful to one partner is almost universally considered virtuous, and cheating is almost universally condemned. I totally get how lying to people is a sucky thing to do, but sometimes I wonder why we’ve agreed to direct so much ire toward people who cheat. There are worse things you could do to a partner than touch someone who is not them, aren’t there?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: humans are weird. Other animals too. You should see what my dog’s doing right now.

I have secrets that no one knows about. I lost my virginity at 14 and have been a sex addict ever since. I’m in a monogamous marriage but I go and see my playmate every month (not necessarily the same playmate each time). I love sucking cock and can’t get enough of it, how can I tell you how much I love them…

How much you love cocks or your playmates? Or all of the above?

Part of me wants to put a preachy thing here that says I hope you’re getting tested for STIs and that it’s kind of weird to say you’re in a monogamous marriage when it only, at best, appears that way to half the people in it. But you know what? You’re presumably a grown up and I’m in no mood to be preachy. I have no emotions related to this aside from a dim echo of happiness thinking that cock sucking really is kind of boss.

Next week I will try to be more judgmental.

I went to a New Year’s party with my boyfriend and some friends who we go out with sometimes. It was a great party, everyone was having fun and there was no drama. A friend of my boyfriend was there, a guy I knew from pub nights. We had talked lots before, but never so much as flirted with each other. He recently got married, I am happy enough with my boyfriend- there wasn’t even a question of something happening between us.

I went out with him and a group of people for a smoke which is something I usually do. But as they were going back up the stairs we made eye contact and just… lingered. I don’t even remember what we were talking about or how it happened… we were on the stairs to go back up and then his lips were on mine and his hands were up my skirt and it was pure, electric passion- for about 3 minutes, and then I lead him back to the party. We were making knowing eyes at each other from across the room all night after that, and he’d secretly grope my ass, or just innocuously put his hand on my waist as we talked. We had another brief encounter shortly after during a smoke break- hot whispering in my ear and hands everywhere. He tried to get me to go outside with him alone… I said no without hesitation. I was very clear that I wasn’t going to have sex with him, no matter how badly I wanted to, it wasn’t even a question.

I am not sure why it happened, or how. I will think on it. Usually that very clear “no” comes through before lips meet, and doesn’t wait around for the opportunity for actual sex to kick in. I think part of it was the permissiveness of the holiday- new years is when you get to kiss all those people you want to kiss the rest of the year. Most of it was drunkeness- but then, I have been drunk before and have never cheated on anyone, ever. And also, the fact that it was completely, utterly harmless helped. It meant nothing. It was just spontaneous sexual energy colliding in a stairwell. My best friend thinks it happened because I have been really unhappy with my relationship this past year (we’ve been together for 5). I trust her, but I don’t even want to think about what leaving my boyfriend would entail- I am entirely dependent on him financially and socially. I don’t want to be a cheater, but I worry that that’s the closest I can get to happiness.

This confession was actually really hot and then it was kind of sad. Conflicted.

repeat customer here. I’m the woman in love with a man who is asexual, not attracted to me, or gay. We are in a relationship, but I deem that if there ever was a covenant here, he has broken faith with me by denying the sex I have repeatedly begged for. At best, I get a single-event pity fuck and that’s it until the next time I break down crying because of lack of sex– usually 3 months later. Covenant broken= I’m not obliged to exclusivity here. A sexy man in town is pursuing me hotly and wants to give me the proper (and regular) fucking I so richly deserve, and with no strings attached. I think I’ll let him, and I don’t consider this cheating and I don’t feel guilty. Have (my own naturally abundant) lube. Will stray.

I condone nothing, but what is someone reasonably supposed to do in a situation like this? Actually, I probably do condone stuff like this. Or at least I can understand it. How is life not too short for relationships like this?

I have been in a polyamorous relationship for a few years now. Recently, that’s changed and I’m only with one of my partners; we’re very happy and may even get hitched soon. The thing is, I’m not really poly. I know I was with multiple people for a long time (and I thought it’d be longer; it was supposed to be a forever thing), but I never considered myself, nor do I now, polyamorous. It just sort of…happened? And now, I can’t even imagine thinking about pursuing other relationships. Not that I think anything’s wrong with that. But I just can’t fathom getting there. So I’m sort of stuck between two groups. I met a lot of people when I was in a poly relationship and therefore considered part of the ”poly community”, and it took a toll on the people I know/knew who had to adjust to something they didn’t know before I was doing it. But now poly people get all pissy about me posing as poly just because my experience was individual rather than something I feel like committing my life to for sure. And some of the people I lost over choosing that relationship still won’t talk to me, and the ones who will, I don’t want to talk to. They’re very “I told you so” about it and that’s just stupid. I’m just so tired of people needing to fucking label everything. I have been in several successful relationships in varying degrees of deep, weird, or out of the norm. I’ve been happy, I’ve been sad. I’ve had new-relationship tingly feelings. And I’ve gone through horrible heartbreak. Just because in at least one of those cases it happened to involve multiple partners, why the fuck does that have to change anything? I see all sorts of fucked up things in relationships between two people; and a whole bunch of fucked up things in triads or groups or whatever. Fucked up things between a mom and son. Fucked up things in a friendship. I’ve gone through many of these things. So fuck the hypocrites who want acceptance for being in some outside the social norm relationship, but then don’t even see what the fuck they’re doing when they criticize others. I just wish people would fucking leave other people alone and pay attention to themselves. Who I choose to fuck, for how long, and in what context are my own business. As is my choice to not put a fucking label on myself. I will respect your label if it means that much to you, but I have never felt it necessary to define someone by their label (or even know what it was) to have respect for that person or to like them. In a world with so many awesome people, I’m pretty tired of people en masse.

So essentially, a bunch of poly people are getting into a snit because you’re not, and were never 100% committed to defining yourself as poly. Like you’re not being monogamous enough with that fucking label AHAHAHAHA excuse me. Ha. Jackasses.

Seriously. Jackasses.

So I have the best girl friend in the world. We match up so wonderfully and together we will be able to withstand the hell that will be unleashed by my mom when I start poking out that closet door. Of this I have no doubt.

I wish that this thanksgiving could have been spent with her instead of at ‘home’. She was up at Hollins our school for the brake, I was down in Texas. Well I wasn’t really that involved with the family for a number of reasons but I did enjoy the diner. Good food and good thoughts. I spent the meal coming up with lovely fantasy list of things to do to her when I dom her things I want done when I sub and things that would be nice when we just roll around.

And then over skyp that night I had her tie herself a gag and then she did exactly what I told her to. (She was feeling sub and I was feeling dom). God she was so beautiful and sexy and such a good girl, doing exactly as she was told. Even if I couldn’t be there to do exactly what I was describing I’d do to her, it was wonderful watching her fucker her self with taylor (That’s what we named our dildo). I think I got her off about three times before she flopped back and was too exhausted to move in that “Fucking good sexiness just happened” kinda way.

I go home to her on sunday and then the door shall be locked as we make up for lost time. Till then, I have that wonderfully tired smile to think about.

Very sweet. I vote we all get carte blanche to cheat on our families every holiday and spend it with people who are awesome and sexy. That’s what birds do, you know.

She’s a good lady.
Of course, she won’t shave her bush, not even once. (She did for someone else, but not me.) She won’t do anal. (She did a couple of times, years ago. Never again.) She won’t have sex more often than, say, a couple of times a month. And then, it’s quick, because she tells me that she has other things to do.
Additional people in our bed are not permitted. Additional bed partners out of our bed would go against the monogamy that we have in our marriage.*

I know women who: LOVE to explore in sex. They like to play with their pubic hair shapes, colours, etc. They like or adore anal, and don’t mind exploring beyond a single bed partner. They enjoy sex several times a week. Sex is a banquet for them.

I’m going to die in a few dozen years. Likely, I’ll still be married to this same woman. So is this all that there is, for me?

I question the shit out of monogamy, right now.

Playing ape’s advocate here: I don’t think you should cheat on your wife, but I also don’t think that someone being a “good lady” is reason enough to stay in a monogamous romantic relationship with them.

I see so many people who seem to feel trapped in their relationships, and sometimes that has to do with monogamy and sometimes it has more to do with people just not working well together anymore. Remember how like a minute ago I said that life’s too short? I think it’s too short.

This isn’t a sex confession, but:
Sometimes (read: once a week or more), I get myself convinced that your website ends in .net, and then spend a good ten minutes horrified that something happened to cause you to take down your site… until I realize no, I’m just an idiot.
The moral of the story here: Love your site, QP, and glad I’m always wrong.

I have never been a cheater, and wouldn’t start by cheating on my .com with a .net. But right now the idea that there’s something I add to the world that, if absent, would cause horror and dismay to anyone on the planet is exactly what I need to hear right now. So thanks.

Confessional

  1. Orphan
    January 8th, 2013 at 15:08 | #1

    Back when I thought I was asexual, I regarded it a necessary thing that, if I dated, the person I dated would have to be free to have sex with other people. It was this big important thing in other people’s lives, sex. I didn’t need to understand the attraction to know that it existed – I knew this at ten, when I had hit puberty hard, and skyrocketed in height over my peers. I held it as a firm belief at eighteen.

    Why grown adults can’t figure this out is beyond me. Your partner needs to be satisfied – not in the trivial sense, not every moment of every day, but as a matter of well-being. Even religion, as repressive of sex as it is, forbids pervasive denial, at least within the context of marriage.

    Both parties need to be honest about their needs – and they need to be willing to negotiate to keep both partners satisfied. That said. Cheating is a huge deal. Even more so when it comes to unprotected sex. I don’t think it’s exaggerating to call it a form of violence against your partner. You’re opening them up to serious, potentially fatal physical harm they never agreed to.

  2. Orphan
    January 8th, 2013 at 15:20 | #2

    (And on a separate note, with child support laws the way they are, I think women have a bigger obligation than men not to cheat while unprotected, at least within the context of marriage, common law or certified, and within most jurisdictions. Assumed paternity laws are a grave miscarriage of justice. It doesn’t even matter if the woman is honorable about the matter, the state can sue for child support payments against her wishes.)

  3. Commodore Schmidlap
    January 8th, 2013 at 19:10 | #3

    I experienced a loss of my favourite links a few months ago and had a moment of angst until I found you again. Like the last confessor, you’re a part of my reading life I wouldn’t like to give up.

  4. G
    January 9th, 2013 at 01:01 | #4

    You know what’s so awesome about ConTuesday? (Okay, that’s a loaded question. Lots of answers.)

    I love that, if there’s even the tiniest sliver of a real chance that a persons’ confession could be realistically understood, you will see their side of it and be their advocate. You have sometimes said “I’m not down with that,” but those were cases where things were not excusable, and doubtless the confessor knew that, too. You are a lovely person to have on one’s team, QP.

  5. linworth
    January 9th, 2013 at 09:34 | #5

    Love this book:
    Sex at Dawn; Ryan, Christopher and Cecilda Jethá.

    I find it slightly depressing that I still remember MLA bibliography format, despite having been out of college for four years. Just sayin’.

  6. quizzical pussy
    January 9th, 2013 at 11:19 | #6

    @linworth It’s only depressing because not everybody can boast that kind of awesomely nerdy streak.

  7. January 10th, 2013 at 04:41 | #7

    I think cheating is the ugliest thing you could to do a human being!

  8. Sixth poster
    January 10th, 2013 at 09:20 | #8

    As the author of the sixth post, above, leUK, I guess that I don’t completely disagree. But I question why we feel that way.

    When you have made clear how important the expression of physical affection is to you, and your monogamous partner refuses to reciprocate, or even to permit you to simply give it to them, what are you to do? For some of us, sex is not just a nice thing to do on occasion– it’s a real need. I believe in being loyal to your chosen partner. I have not strayed. But is my partner being loyal to me, when denying me?

    If it matters so little, why does should it matter so much?

  9. quizzical pussy
    January 10th, 2013 at 09:32 | #9

    @leUK I understand that cheating is bad news bears, but seriously? I think rape is uglier. I think physical and emotional abuse are uglier. I think manipulation and neglect can often be uglier. I think there’s a very long list of things that are or can be uglier and more vile than kissing or fucking or emotionally bonding with someone despite agreeing not to. Yes, it’s a mistake and it sucks, and can do massive damage to a relationship, but the ugliest thing we can do to each other? I actually really want to live in that world.

  10. Sixth poster
    January 10th, 2013 at 22:58 | #10

    I could not have said it better, QP. You summed it up neatly.

  11. January 11th, 2013 at 05:20 | #11

    You’re right, point taken :) .. but the thing is you trust a person, too much, and when they “betray” you, you are “dead”..

  12. randompants
    January 15th, 2013 at 22:05 | #12

    QP, I love everything about your blog. This whole bit about birds and monogamy is kind of ridiculous though. Such a stereotype! Now, if you had said albatross, you’d be right about monogamy. If you had said swans, you’d be way off – their ‘divorce rate’ (partner swap during breeding season or year-to-year) is close to 40% which is hardly monogamous. Phalarope females are quite promiscuous as are African Grey Parrots* (females solicit food from every male in the flock, but eventually pick one), but they’re as diverse as the 10,000 color box of crayons. If that exists.

    My job here is done. Back to geeking out over the rest of the content!

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