lock thread please

[Lufia Erim]

Keyword: Socially acceptable.

People cheat on their boyfriends/Girlfriends. All the time.Hell there is a very succesful website dedicated to married people what want to cheat. Chances are you've met someone who cheated at one point of another, maybe you've done it yourself , maybe someone cheated on you.

To me it seems counterproductive, being in a monogamous relationship only to cheat on your partner. Sure it's often not planned but still. I'm surprised polyamory is not more popular. That lead me to thinking. Is it more socially acceptable to cheat than it is to be polyamourous? .

People held in high regard have been caugh cheating in the past, presidents, politicians, movie stars, community figureheads. Most were forgiven . But i wonder if they would have attained those positions if they were known to be polygamous? Or is polyamory a big no no in the eyes of society?

Note when i say polyamory i don't mean Married to several people, as far as i am aware that is illegal in most if not all 1st world countries. But in love or dating more that one person in addition to their legally married spouse. While their spouse is also free to do the same.

What do you think?

Edit: im not talking about the moral/ethical side of things. But the social side.

 

[sky14kemea]

That's a tough one... I'd say no as well, simply because cheating is usually viewed as pretty bad by most people.

I think it's mostly because either not as many people know how polyamory actually works (as in, all the partners know about each other and are all okay with it before a relationship is establish. As least that's how I think it's meant to be), or people just find it too weird to date more than one person at a time, since that tends to be the social norm.

IMO cheating is the worst by far. It hurts people far more than polyamory ever has. (That I know of?)

 

[Lufia Erim]

You can say that cheating is worse then polyamory, as the first involves outright lying to your partner. But socially, cheating is considered "normal behaviour" and can have explanation while the other is just polygamy by any other name.

Of course, why cheating is considered quite normal today is because any concept of "boundary" to modern western is equal to fascism.

Yeah that is kind of what i was getting at.

That's a tough one... I'd say no as well, simply because cheating is usually viewed as pretty bad by most people.

I think it's mostly because either not as many people know how polyamory actually works (as in, all the partners know about each other and are all okay with it before a relationship is establish. As least that's how I think it's meant to be), or people just find it too weird to date more than one person at a time, since that tends to be the social norm.

IMO cheating is the worst by far. It hurts people far more than polyamory ever has. (That I know of?)

Oh i agree. I wasn't talking about the moral or ethical side of cheating. I was talking mostly about the social side of being pokyamorous.

Because obvious morally/ethically cheating is terrible. However i get the feeling that socially, admiting to be polyamorous is career and social suicide.

 

[DefunctTheory]

I'm going to go against the grain and say yes, it is.

What you'll find, quite often, is that a lot of people have a rather selfish sense of morality - They only care about things enough to do something about it when it happens to them. Someone cheats on them? End of the world. A friend cheats on their significant other? 'Oh, you.' The world is covered in friends who don't even care enough to stop being friends with the cheating piece of shit, let alone do any serious judging.

But polyamory? That's just weird. Awkward. 'Unnatural.' In a strange twist of socially constructed protocol, people often seem more inclined to judge things that are weird, then things that are common but douchie.

 

[manic_depressive13]

I don't know, people seem to get super fucking mad about cheating. I think the reason people hold polyamory in such low regard is because to them, it is cheating. You can only have one partner, and if you cheat on them you have to apologise to them, the public, and their cat. You can't try to legitimise it by preying on someone too desperate and insecure to leave you, even though you're publicly and shamelessly cheating on them.

 

[Lufia Erim]

I don't know, people seem to get super fucking mad about cheating. I think the reason people hold polyamory in such low regard is because to them, it is cheating. You can only have one partner, and if you cheat on them you have to apologise to them, the public, and their cat. You can't try to legitimise it by preying on someone too desperate and insecure to leave you, even though you're publicly and shamelessly cheating on them.

I dont know from what i gathered polyamoury isn't just one partner that has multiple lovers but both partners. I don't see how anyone can consider that cheating unless they think both partners are openly cheating on each others.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I think most people make no distinction between the two.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

As always it's contextual. Neither one is "socially acceptable", but some of the responses in this thread go a long way to demonstrate that society in general feels very comfortable standing in judgment of what other people are doing in their personal lives, even when they lack any and all information with which to make that judgment. Cheating in particular sends a lot of people on this site into a green-eyed frenzy, replete with frothing insults and grandiose declarations of that person's ethical collapse.

If you want to know which is "worse"...polyamory without genuine consent would be pretty awful, as it would be ongoing. Comparable would be long term/repeated cheating with meager motivation in which the partner was aware, or was deliberately made aware out of malice or simple lack of consideration. As the latter situation is pretty rare (yet always assumed), and polygamy without genuine consent happens fairly frequently (even among people entering into it in good faith...people tend to be more possessive/jealous of their sexual partners than they realize or are prepared to admit), I'd say...impressionistically...that polyamory is "worse".

But it's always contextual.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Hmmm...while cheating should be worse than polyamory, society seems to be a bit vague on what the latter is.

OTOH, "friends with benefits" is a widely understood concept.

 

[The Lunatic]

I think cheating is regarded as more accepting by the general public.

Personally, I find cheating repugnant, and inexcusable, however I see little issue with consensual polygamy.

 

[Something Amyss]

That's a tough one... I'd say no as well, simply because cheating is usually viewed as pretty bad by most people.

While it's ostensibly scorned, cheating is fairly common. Or maybe this is influenced by my region, since I grew up with a lot of Catholic families where it was more acceptable to cheat than divorce. Still, while we don't approve of cheating, we tend to turn a blind eye to it.

Polyamory? I'm not so sure. It seems to be shunned in both theory and practice.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Hmmm...while cheating should be worse than polyamory, society seems to be a bit vague on what the latter is.

OTOH, "friends with benefits" is a widely understood concept.

Is it? Well, I guess that's an awkward grey area, even if it's well understood.

the key word in 'friends with benefits' is 'friends'. It's perfectly normal to have more than one friend. Unfortunately, when you combine that with sexl what you get is some weird middle ground that isn't quite a relationship, but is somehow more than just a friendship.

Still, here too, you get confusion. While maybe not technically a relationship in itself, fairly sure you can't be in a relationship while doing the 'freinds with benefits' stuff with someone else.
Because that's still cheating...

And even though 'friends with benefits' implies something less committed than being in a relationship with someone, I do wonder... Does it... Actually work on the level where it's OK to do that with multiple people at once?
I'm not entirely sure it does.

Gah! weird!

Then again, why do I find myself having to ask myself that on a personal level?
Because I have run headlong into this exact mess.
And the confusion really messes with me...
I seriously have no idea what I can and can't do in this situation, nor what I can or cannot expect from the other person...

It's so... Ambiguous. -sigh-

Anyway, is cheating better or worse than polyamory? I'm... I have no idea.
I am useless at judging social norms, and attitudes, nor understanding them when I do figure them out.
The 'normal' response often seems crazy and nonsensical to me, so...
I don't... Know?

 

[Katherine Kerensky]

I was in a polyamorous relationship for a year or two, a year back. I'd probably say that, yes, cheating is more "socially acceptable". People tend to see it a lot more often, so they become desensitised to it, I suppose. Whereas relationships with more than just the normal couple... well, it's not the norm, so it raises eyebrows. Don't think I ever heard a negative comment directed towards me because of it, but it's different enough to make some people ask questions.
Oh, and just to be clear, all three of us in the relationship was aware of it, agreed to it, and spent time together. Still do, though I'm not in the relationship anymore.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Everyone understands fucking cheaters.

Everyone thinks they understand cheaters. Or at least, people who feel comfortable issuing moral condemnations think they understand cheaters.

I watched a documentary a month or two ago with the GF, one we got from the library. A filmmaker had decided to make a documentary about his parents and their relationship after their 50th anniversary. He was super close to his Mom, never very close to his Dad. A month or so after he started, his Mom passed away suddenly. Barely a month later, his Dad was re-marrying a secretary he'd had 30+ years previously. Everyone in the family was scandalized. My GF's immediate reaction was "Don Draper syndrome", referring to Mad Men's primary character and his predilection for infidelity.

Over the course of the film and an exploration of his mother's diaries, a picture is painted of an unhappy marriage between two very different people, one in which he felt ignored and unloved and she felt misunderstood and constrained. He had an emotional connection with a secretary he worked with and helped her get out of an unhappy marriage of her own. She had an affair, and fell in love with her therapist. They stayed together for the kids, but the father described their relationship as "a business partnership". When she finally passed, he felt free to be with the woman he'd clearly been in love with all along.

Both of them were guilty of "cheating", in both the physical and emotional senses. Neither one of them was a bad person. Yet everyone, including their immediate family, felt justified in making snap decisions before knowing any of the details.

So, yeah. Everyone THINKS they understand cheaters. If we had fewer people who think they have everyone and everything sussed out and felt comfortable condemning people they don't know based on information they don't have, the internet would probably be a far more hospitable place.

And for context...I've never cheated. I've been cheated on, twice.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

For every touching and conflicted story like the one you told, there are a million one night stands.

And other than your imagination, what data are you using to substantiate this argument?

 

[OldNewNewOld]

I would go with yes.
When the topic is cheating. people will go all "oh, that's so bad" and then go to another topic. They don't actually care unless it's them who is cheated on. Society tries to find a million excuses for cheating. Moment of weakness, he/she didn't want sex and she/he needs to get it, that's just how he/she is, etc.
Cheating is considered something bad, but people won't really shun you or look down on you unless you cheated on them. Cheated on your GF? Doesn't matter, your friends will comment a bit and that's it. Neighbors will gossip a bit and that's it.

But polyamory is really looked down on. Even the idea of having two love interests, to partners is shunned. People don't look at you and see an asshole. They look at you and see a deviant. Someone really immoral. A lot of people consider polyamory to be even worse than cheating. Your "friends" look at you as deviant. Your neighbor look at you as a deviant. Everyone does.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Data on cheating is notoriously difficult to find, but the data on prostitution arrests is not. If we're going by anecdotes, one episode of "COPS" with a sting to rope in customers for female prostitutes trumps your touching tale.

Prostitution and serving of same is a criminal activity. How is it relevant to the topic? I mean, I'm sure a certain degree of infidelity is motivated by marital abuse. That doesn't mean all infidelity is noble, any more than a certain demographic of adult males frequenting prostitutes makes it all ignoble.

Putting bars and Ashley Madison, Tinder, and everything else aside, that's a big block of data to work with. Compared to your story.

Ashley Madison, bars, and Tinder are methods people use to meet other people. They demonstrate nothing intrinsically about the nature of the relationships that they are in, or their reasons for cheating. That's entirely your projection.

 

[DementedSheep]

Possibly but I think that's partially because when people think of polygamy they usually think of it in a one sided abusive way, the guy with 5 wives who treats them like crap and would flip his shit if any of them had another guy as oppose to an open relationship where everyone is happy with it. They assume one of them is only putting it up with it for the sake of the other. If you bring up the idea of an open relationship to people, rather than just saying polygamy, the usual response seems to be a dislike of the idea and not wanting to be in a relationship like that but not hate of the people in one.

Not that cheating is considered socially acceptable but people will justify cheating to some extent. Cheating on someone because a relationship is falling apart and they haven't taken the step to cut it off properly is more socially acceptable than just sleeping around and if someone was being malicious about it and rubbing it in their partners face I think they would get just as much shit if not more than someone in a true polygamous relationship (I have the misfortune of knowing someone who did do that and people who know about it despise them because of it).

 

[Azure23]

Wait what? Really? What a silly question. Is breaking the rules of your relationship more socially acceptable than following rules that were mutually consented to? I don't get it, how could people view polyamory as cheating? You can't decide what constitutes cheating for other people, that's fucked.

Maybe I'm just hanging out with the right people but I've never felt judged or anything, and people know about what my fiancé and I get up to.

 

[vallorn]

True polyamory requires the parties involved to know about what's going on. Aside from that it can take multiple forms from 'Swingers' to open relationships to "harem" style abusive messes of people.

Cheating requires lies and is an abuse of trust. People take it hard because someone who you trusted and were close to has lied to you and done so in a big way, sometimes there can be explanations for it but it's pretty much always bad to some degree, that's why it's so heavily frowned on by modern societies.