I’ve never participated in it simply because I’m convinced the other person will be a) a guy, b) ugly or c) both… not that there is anything wrong with that…
Anyway, I just don’t get the entire deal and have not been curious enough about it to try it.
However, my sister-in-law just caught her husband (a real piece of work) at it and threw him out. Well, to be honest, their relationship has been on the skids for a while now and this was simply the last straw.
My wife and I got to talking about this and she was quite adamant about the fact that she considered this form of computer use equivalent to cheating. I reserved my opinion because, put simply, I’ve always considered anything along that vein nothing more than adult conversation. What’s the difference between that and some XXX web site or even adult films. It’s engaging in adult fantasy taken to an interactive level. I believe there are CD games aimed at adults that effectively accomplish the same thing.
Was he really cheating? Keep in mind, the person he interacted with lived on the other side of the continent and this jerk-off brother-in-law of mine can’t afford a bus ticket to the next town let alone an actual trip to consumate his cyber-relationship.
I’ve debated the terminology of “cheating” before.
The key is, is it something you wouldn’t want your partner to know about? If you’re doing something that would probably end the relationship, then does it really matter what you call it?
If you’re climaxing with someone else instead of your partner, then what would you call it?
For a fairly accurate comparison, how would you feel if you caught your spouse talking on the phone with a “friend” and masturbating? Would you consider it just “adult entertainment”? Maybe you would, I don’t know you. However, I see it as cheating, regardless of if the medium used it text or voice. Perhaps not in the same vein as physically going at it, but at a much higher level than XXX movies or skin magazines.
“I guess one person can make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”
Well, yes, since you put it that way - climaxing with someone else other than your partner without his/her knowledge or approval is cheating.
However, many a men and women do fantasize daily about people (real or imagined) other than their partner while masturbating. Is that cheating? How about going to strip clubs? You may not be having sex or climaxing with the entertainers but you are physically closer to them than you would be on some adult chat site or email dialogue.
I’m not sure I know the answer myself … I’m just playing devil’s advocate for the moment - until I get my head around the subject and decide how I feel about it.
I guess that I’ve never considered that type of adult play (i.e. phone sex, e-chat sex) as a personal turn on. For this reason, I’ve never given the subject much thought - that is of course, until the latest round of insanity from my out-laws.
Trust me, since the internet brought faceless sex to the masses without 900 number surcharges, many people have grappled with the same question. In my own opinion, which is just mine - do what you will, anything sexual that involves two active people falls under cheating. I’d give clubs a grey area in that I don’t know if it’s really cheating, but if my s.o. was going to them behind my back and I found out, I’d be plenty pissed.
“I guess one person can make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”
IMHO I do not think that cybersex is the same as cheating on your spouse, but is in the same ballpark. This reminds me of the foot massage conversation in pulp fiction. I wouldn’t be enraged with my girl…but I sure as hell wouldnt be happy if I caught her having cybersex. It may not be sex but it is a sexual act. Because of this some people consider it cheating. It really is going to come down to each persons idea of intimacy. Either you talk with you spouse and set clear guidlines or you risk being thrown out of the house .
Openfist
"Don’t be tellin’ me about foot massages-- I’m the fuckin’ foot master.
Given a lot of 'em?
Shit yeah. I got my technique down man, I don’t tickle or nothin’.
So why give adult clubs a yellow card while internet sex gets you thrown out of the game?
It’s pretty clear why people go to adult clubs. It’s not a secret that most people who frequent them do so for sexual stimulation if not complete gratification.
I’ve been to a strip bar exactly twice in my life. Both times on an occasion of a bachelor party (not mine). Plenty of guys attending were either engaged or married or in long term relationships. Not one of them got divorced or separated because of attending. As far as I know, every one of them got a charge out of being there. I’d bet quite a few dollars that later, each one climaxed with their partner (or on their own) within a few short hours of leaving the club because they were turned on by the entertainment. It’s only human.
As far as I know, most people would not call these types of outings as cheating though the stimulus was deffinately someone other than their respective S.O.
So why classify a similar act with a faceless, perhaps even nameless person on the other end of the keyboard as cheating when you can openly get away with so much more by simply attending a bachelor party?
Is it perhaps that people, in general, are not yet used to the medium of the internet in this type of application while strip clubs have been a well established and accepted form of adult entertainment for many years?
From those I’ve discussed this with, more women than men are likely to considers cybersex ‘cheating’. What follows are my opinions; if you think they’re sexist, you’re probably right, but I don’t care.
Women, in general, do not separate physical intercourse from emotional intimacy. A husband engaging in cybersex is, to them, sharing emotional intimacy with another, which they find every bit as offensive as catching the old man in bed with the babysitter.
Men, on the other hand, put sex and intimacy in different categories. While the two often go together, one can exist without the other. Thus, to a man, as long as he isn’t actually getting his wick wet, it’s no big deal.
So, I don’t consider cybersex cheating, so long as it’s a little casual fling. A prolonged cybersexual relationship that goes on for weeks, though, is another story; that implies that your SO is getting something from the cyberpartner that they’re not getting from you. In that case, you have more grounds to be concerned.
Anyway. My opinions only, grain of salt, yadda yadda yadda.
Anywho, my adult club logic was that watching people prance around in their undies – or even without them – isn’t a world apart from watching it on video. Now if someone was getting lapdances or something… well, maybe I’d feel differently. Of course, I haven’t been in the situation, so I won’t have a definitive answer about my response until it happens.
Cybersex, on the other hand, strikes me as a “takes two to tango” situation. Both parties are actively going at it, neither of them is doing it as their chosen profession, and presumably both are getting something out of it. While going to the strip joint and getting turned on to a night of wild lemur sex with your spouse is one thing, ignoring your spouse so you can interactively get it on with someone else is quite another.
“I guess one person can make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”
IMHO, it’s the one-on-one nature of cybersex that makes it much closer to infidelity than Penthouse, strip clubs (excluding personal services such as lap dances), or even looking at dirty pix on Web sites.
All of these other forms of erotic entertainment aren’t going anywhere: the customer isn’t really interacting with that babe up on stage, or in the magazine. When you’re getting lewd with a particular person on the Web, that’s intimacy. And sexual intimacy with someone other than your spouse, when you have one, is infidelity, IMO.
Like I said, that’s an opinion; YMMV. But I think about things like this when I’m in some of the more flirtatious threads in MPSIMS, and try to keep things from getting too out of hand.
But at times, things make my curent sig line apt!
“Living in this complex world of the future is not unlike having bees live inside your head.” - F. Scott Firesign
Person A cybers, but it’s all in fun, and his SO knows about it. It’s basically extra flirting, but in a silly way, not unlike some of the threads on this board.
Person B goes to strip clubs, spending hundreds of dollars on dancers that he never actually “does” anything with. He does it on the sly, and would never tell his SO.
Who’s cheating?
If you’re doing something that could end the relationship, it mught not be cheating, but it certainly Bad Idea Jeans ™.
Let’s just say, YES, there are a lot of married people who find someone on the net & they go & live with them. Take the subject down a notch to meeting people on the Internet as a form of cheating.
My opinion is YES and my husband’s is also YES. Our response is strong for a reason. We met online. Not in a cybersex chat but in a how’s your day chat that quickly lead to more meaningful conversations that lead to us getting married. Distance had nothing to do with it we lived over 2000 miles apart, but we were both single at the time. So we feel that if an innocent “how’s it going” can lead to marriage so can “Im hot for you now baby”. Trust me my husbands reaction would be the same if he found me having cybersex or in bed with the pool guy. Of course our history factors into this and depending on your view of what makes a relationship will too. But if you have to hid it or wouldn’t like your spouse doing then I would say yes its cheating.
I think this is possibly GD material, and I started a thread many moons ago asking if cyber-relationships were healthy/wrong. I spun it by saying that developing a relationship w/out the physical interaction and unquantifiable reaction one gets through voice inflections, body language, and actual contact is a unhealthy way to go about it, and offers a higher degree of risk.
While some of that conversation is completely irrelavent, parts comparing online chatting and such to fantasy versus comparing it to actual contact and personal interaction are a point of contension.
I’m not sure how I feel about cybersex, but I can say that I’d be upset to find out my ficticous SO were doing it, but I would not be very hesitant to do it myself. That said, I have never had cybersex per se, but I do enjoy the occasional titliating sexual conversation.
Joph compared it to having phone sex with a friend. Well, I’d say a more accurate comparison is calling a 900 number and having phone sex. I think a large enough percentage of people feel that calling 900 number is not cheating, nor is having a stripper over, or going to a club. The line seems to be drawn between doing things with a professional or a stranger, opposed to doing it with a friend or close aquaintance. For example it seems OK to get a lap dance from a stripper, but it would become wrong if that stripper was a friend, or if a non-professional friend stripped for you.
This brings us to classifying cybersex. Is it cheating to have cybersex with some random person you trolled into in some chat room, and in comparison is it cheating if you maintained a sustained online friendship with this person and repeatedly sought out that person for cybersex exclusively.
Adultery is a relative thing. Each couple has to set its own standards.
There are some rare couples who genuinely don’t mind if one (or both) of them has sex with another person. Admittedly I’ve never met any such people and I’m not one myself, but they do exist.
On the other extreme, there are couples where one (or both) of them would become upset if the other had dinner in a restaurant with a co-worker of the opposite sex.
In between there are all kinds of other situations which might be adultery for some couples and not for others. Going on a date with another person, going to a strip club, watching a porno movie, masturbating while watching a porno movie, having a cyber-sex chat with another person, or giving your boss’s wife a foot massage are all activities that might (or might not) be adultery.
So the bottom line is, adultery is whatever your mate thinks it is. And if you don’t know your mate well enough to know what he or she thinks is adultery, you need to be working on the relationship.
The main reason why I said phone sex with a friend is that 900 girls are paid to do what they do and after you’re done, go on to the next person…etc. Presumably, the person you’re cybering with isn’t running a timer and then hopping on the the next person, but rather having some sort of “relationship” with you, however vague. I suppose there are people who do just hop from one cyber companion to the next. If nothing else, I think we’ve all learned and agree that there really aren’t any definitive answers here on what’s what.
“I guess one person can make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”
A woman needs four animals in her life: A mink in the closet, a Jaguar in the garage, a tiger in the bedroom, and an ass to pay for it all.
—Zsa Zsa Gabor
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