That’s certainly possible. Like I said, it’s possible that I’m being too generous to Lemur866 in my interpretation of it.
I appreciate your good sportsmanship, and decline to opine on this point.
Well, again, we have a problem of definition. I would argue that it probably would be primarily because of negative consequences to themselves, chiefly a desire to avoid an internal crisis of morality, philosophy and/or self-worth (“I’m a worthless cuckolder”). That’s if I give all of your male friends the benefit of the doubt, which I’m willing to do, since you seem to have high confidence in them. They would probably think you’d lost your mind because that kind of behavior is extremely non-normative in our society. OTOH, it has been my experience that the majority of people cheat or are cheated on (or both), so there are enough people out there who don’t think it’s such a crazy idea. Are you really so positive that not one of your straight male friends is in that pool?
That’s just the thing. In our society, even women who are not slaves to Dworkinism have a lot more cultural baggage to get through before they can choose to have sex with a man, than most men do before they can choose to have sex with a woman. “Would like to have sex with” and “would have sex with” are, I would contend, very different for straight women vs. straight men.
I generally choose to refrain from speaking on behalf of the 50% of the world’s population which comprises my gender, but for me personally, the difference between “would like to have sex with” and “would have sex with” is about pragmatism, not “baggage”.
And since the issue of not wanting to fuck up your relationship with your SO is pretty pragmatic, I think that most men, even ones who aren’t slaves to Maxim, would refrain as well.
I hope you didn’t take that personally, but are you so sure that there is absolutely no effect of our society’s sexual norms on your decisions? None? Not even a tiny bit? I’m not known for being humble, but even I’m not conceited enough to claim that societal mores have absolutely no effect on my romantic and sexual decisions.
That’s actually exactly what I’m saying. (To the whole Rubystreak/Lemur thing, that is.)
OK, if that’s your definition of “negative consequences to self,” then I can agree that might be the reason they wouldn’t. I can’t say beyond that because I don’t know what’s inside their minds.
It’s not that it’s non-normative for society, since as you point out, plenty of people cheat, have sex with people who are cheating with them, or have been cheated on. It’s that it would be non-normative for ME. I think, even if they wanted to have sex with me, they’d at least do a sanity check with me before they did anything.
Without getting into the realm of extreme personal disclosure, I think I’m pretty unburdened by worries about having sex with men I find attractive enough to have sex with, when I’m single and available and so is the guy. I do have strong ethics about cheating AND about screwing up friendships with sex. My friends share similar ethics, so I think there’d be a lot of inherent barriers.
Maybe I’m being naive. But I think, with people who really are friends, who care about each other genuinely, sex takes a back seat. While it’s normal for people who are friends with someone they find at all attractive to think about it at some point, if you’ve contemplated it and decided against it, and/or the other person definitely isn’t interested, don’t you just… let it go?
I think the point is just to be aware that all your single male friends aren’t eunuchs who would never think of you that way - they do. They just don’t act on it (usually). I think you get a lot further dealing with the reality of a situation than convincing yourself it is different than what it actually is and making your decisions based on incorrect perceptions. Do I think all my single male friends want to have sex with me? Don’t know, don’t care - don’t put myself in situations where I’ll ever find out.
I haven’t read the thread in entirety, but I can say that 90% of my girlfriends, lovers… engagements, whatever… have been seduced or otherwise “stolen” from me by one of their male friends. I don’t know if this says more about me, or them.
But on principal, I’ve got nothing against opposite sex friends. I’ve had many. My girlfriends have had many. I don’t blame the infidelity on male friends. I just didn’t make the cut. Better sooner then than later.
Basically, I have my boundaries (and they’re fairly close in), and I don’t go beyond them. I understand it’s a fine line to walk, between protecting yourself and your relationship and being trusting of other people who have never been untrustworthy, but the stakes being what they are, I’m fully prepared to err on the side of protecting my relationship.
Speaking to the issue for straight people, IMO there’s a reason why old opposite sex friends are “grandfathered” in. If Alice and Bob are friends, and Bob meets Carol and starts dating her, Carol doesn’t have to worry about Alice being a rival. During the time Alice and Bob have been friends, they’ve undoubtedly considered and rejected the notion of dating. They reflected on this separately and maybe they actually discussed it, but they already rejected it. If dating were a viable, appealing alternative they would be dating already and Carol wouldn’t be in the picture in the first place.
So when other posters say that they have a friendship with someone of the opposite sex that goes back decades or back to childhood, it isn’t a threat to the new person they’re dating and IMO doesn’t apply. Occasionally people might be friends for twenty years before realizing they’re in love, but I think that’s rare.
The threat is new friends of the opposite sex, those people you meet after starting the dating relationship with another. There’s no history in place that assures the SO that it’s been considered and rejected.
In another vein, in this economy I’m sure a lot of people who already have satisfactory jobs are keeping their antennae out for other opportunities. I.e. “If I go into work tomorrow and my job has been cut, where could I go?”
I would extend that analogy to relationships. You can be happily married or in a deeply committed relationship but that doesn’t mean you’re home free. If nothing else, people do up and die—say, in a car accident. And people do come home one day and announce they’re having an affair and/or have fallen in love with someone else etc.
Even if you’re content with the relationship you’re in, keeping contact with the opposite sex is necessary. There are boundaries to be set and observed, but it’s part of a contingency plan.
Relationship contingency plan, really? I don’t know how many people feel that way, but it certainly doesn’t apply to me.
I didn’t get married because I needed to be married to someone. I got married because I fell in love with the person whom I believed (and still believe many years later) to be someone who enhanced my life in such a tremendous way that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. If she passed away or left me for some reason, the last thing on my mind would be jumping into another relationship. I don’t need to be romantically involved in general to be happy with my life.
My friends – male and female alike – are friends, not prospects.
I find that really strange. Since they’re still friends they obviously thought about dating and decided not to? Is this really the way it works for straight people? I can’t imagine only having friends because we decided not to date.
I think I’m pretty safe. I’m unattractive, extremely shy when it comes to letting someone know I’m attracted to them (in college, I mooned over a guy from afar for four years, never got up the courage to say anything to him), and oblivious to nonverbal signals, so I wouldn’t know if someone were interested in me unless they said so in so many words. Oh, and I know I would probably feel bad enough about having an affair that I would be in serious danger of killing myself- once in college, I dated a guy who was in the process of getting a divorce from his wife. When I found out, I briefly thought of staying with him anyway (though in the end I never spoke to him again). I felt like I was a terrible person for, literally, ten years after, for feeling that way. I still feel guilty when I think about it, 13 years later.
This is very fortunate for me, since I majored in male-dominated fields in college and now work in a very male-dominated field, and my friends tend to be people I met at school or meet at work. I don’t socialize much outside of work- I’m tired when I get home, and I’m an introvert, so I find socializing rather exhausting. Even if I did have the energy to socialize after work, my interests (computer games, astronomy, physics, and medieval history) aren’t exactly common among women. I strongly suspect I would have no friends if Mr Neville insisted that I not socialize with guys.
My “relationship contingency plan” is to pretty much do a Queen Victoria and live in relative seclusion for the rest of my life if Mr Neville were to die or divorce me (I don’t think I’ll lay out clothes for him every day, though, as she supposedly did for Albert). I would get some more cats and a dog or two to keep me company. I hated dating, anyway (I hate any activity where making a good first impression is important, since I well and truly suck at that), and I’m hugely relieved that that chapter of my life is over.
You single people should keep this in mind- this is one of the advantages if you are willing to date or marry unattractive socially awkward people…
Are you sure you’re a representative sample of men? There are way more women I turned down than women I agreed to have sex with, and it’s definitely not because my sex life was already so awesome that I had no use for a lover.
Even though it could be true for you, your depiction of men is a caricature. IOW, you’re a living caricature.