Okay guys, if your woman sleeps with another man, behind your back, I'm guessing you'd find it totally unacceptable and get quite upset over it.
However, if your SO went behind your back and slept with another woman, would you still class it as cheating, and would you still get upset over it?
I ask because my boyfriend is perfectly happy to let me go and sleep with another woman when I feel ready to/if I want to, but NEVER another man.
So fellas, why are there two sets of rules here?
Are women less intimidating, imposing etc? Or is it purely because of the fact that its a turn on?
I think your boyfriend might only be agreeable with your having sex with another woman within the realm of his sexual imagination, where of course everything happens EXACTLY the way he wants it to, and messy things like emotions and possessiveness don't factor in. What happens if you truly find the sex with this woman to be better (on the whole) than sex with him (which by the way, is at least 50% likely, especially at first)? These aren't the kind of things that will stay under-wraps...if he knows you at all, he will pick up on the interference, and the universe that the two of you occupy for each other will get tilted off axis.
I think us guys tend to equate cheating (at least at the basest sexual level) with another guy's dick inside (or at least applied in various ways to) our gf/wives/significant others....but in truth it's not gender-specific. I think deep down both men and women fear losing the heart of the other, they fear that their partner will no longer feel that they're singularly special and all that they'll ever need. If a woman has sex with a man other than her 'significant other', it's not the physical act that matters most, it's what that act represents. Cheating is upsetting mostly because it's an unmistakeable symbol of a broken relationship (usually accompanied by the utter shock of he/she who got cheated on). How could this not be true for sex with women as well as men? On the surface clearly it's not the same, but once things happen, I'm hard-pressed to imagine that it doesn't.
I know couples that swing this way, so it's not like it can't be done happily...but beware. It smacks of 'fool's paradise' for your significant other to brazenly espouse this double standard as if you having sex with a woman is radically different from that with a man. Maybe it is for him, everyone's different, but most of the time I think it's probably not...only by the time he figures that out, it's too late.
Oh yeah, and yes, guys love lesbian sex, so that almost surely factors in and clouds his judgement further.
Good luck finding your balance.
Surely cheating is CHEATING--whether its a man or a woman, makes no diff!!!!!!!!
agree with longjohn, having been the cheater and the cheatee before in relationships, it makes no difference to sex
Have to agree with William.....
possibly your boyfriend is hoping that there will be a threesome opportunity somewhere down the line
Think it all depends on the individual guy whether he sees it as a turn on or cheating
Hmmmm.. a simple question made complicated by the inconsistencies of human nature.. men are territorial.. and most of us picture ourselves as Alpha Dogs.. a man can sit on the sidelines and watch a group of women by themselves.. but let another man enter the picture and the competition begins.. we don't have a choice.. it's how we are made.. we like to think of ourselves as open and honest and sensual and sexual and more importantly.. confident in our ability to satisfy our women sexually.. when Alpha Dogs enter a room the first things that enter our minds is.. "what if he is better than me in bed?" and "God.. those are great shoes.. I wonder where he got 'em?"... needless to say we don't have the same things in our minds when another woman walks into the room.. we think "Whoa.. she digs me!" and "God what I wouldn't give to have her in bed with me and pumpkin tonight!".. by our standards that portion of your body beyond the length of a tongue belongs to us.. therefore another man is trespassing without permission.. which sets up a a whole laundry list of questions which amount to a salvaging of our egos.. "Is he bigger than me?".. "Did he make you cum more than me?".. "Do you want to see him again?".. "Where did he get his shoes?".. our minds are like a funnel.. you throw crap in at the top and it circles around and oozes out at the bottom.. no heavy machinery involved.. just a set of genes that have morphed throughout the evolutionary process and the best you can say is.. we're still a work in progress.. so given the prospect that as carbon-based lifeforms whose sole focus is on the level of pleasure we can feel with our sexual organs.. and the fact that humans are given 5 senses for the purpose of facilitating responses designed for attraction to other humans.. I would suggest this simple rule.. "There are people you make love to.. and people you just fuck.. don't confuse them"... 'nuff said..
Its all very simple, guys start to mind when their 'territory' gets threatened, he probably doesn't see other women as a threat.
For me, it's a matter of openness. If she's hiding it, I have a problem with it. But if she let's me know as soon as possible after it happens, then it's not a problem.
i totally agree with everything that WillinBK has said, i felt the same as your boyfriend yer no problem, untill my partner did. (cheated)
I can almost garantee he wont feel the same way when he knows, its exactley as WillinBK explains it. Its the hurt not the act itself.
Some great answers guys, thank you all for your input.
I think most men would be ok with their girl cheating with another girl. In fact, most wouldn't even consider it cheating. I had a GF that hooked up with other girls all the time. I loved it. However, she had one friend that I did not want her messing around with, and she did anyway. I considered that cheating.
if you believe in gay rights then you'd have to count it as cheating. True, many men embrace the idea of two women being together, but if emotion is involved then it should be classified as a man's woman being with someone else, especially if its behind his back, but it all depends on how he chooses to look at it... maybe its a happy accident? lol
My ex-bf used to like the idea of me fooling around with girls, or kissing girls and seemed to encourage the idea. One night at a massive club party, a hot friend of mine (primarily straight, she just liked to play with girls on the side), made out with me in front of him. He got pissed off. I had another friend who also would come onto me during girls nights or if our group of friends was out and partying. This also pissed him off.
He then told me that if any of my friends tries to come onto me in the future, I should just say that "I am not allowed".
I didn't understand the difference at the time, because he otherwise was encouraging of it, but it seemed like it had to be on his terms, and only with girls that he "okayed", and preferably in his presence... otherwise he viewed it as "cheating".
I also realized that it was probably more based on him being able to be turned on, imagining he might have a shot at a threesome... which with my friends (who were the girlfriends of his buddies) was never going to happen. He may have also disliked the possible emotional element involved... that these were girls I was already attached to on a friendship basis... which maybe made a sexual interaction more threatening than erotic to him.
my husband is in the "its all cheating" camp. which i find very annoying ;-)
I have to agree with who ever said cheating is cheating! And what makes it cheating is going behind someones else back and doing it. If he has given you permission to be with another woman, were there terms to that? Me and my wife have fairly open relationship, I do not mind her having sex and she does not mind me having sex as long as we both know about it, and usually the other is always there. It becomes about us and not someone else. I do not mind her playing with her girls friends if they are out together, but she comes home and tells me all about it and we have wild crazy sex, I do not even mind if she has sex with another man as long as i know about it. Cheating is not that, Cheating is sneaking around behind someones back and doing something you know is wrong.