My husband and I were having a debate and he (not a Doper) said I should ask you guys this, for a general opinion. So here goes:
Men, how would you feel if your wife went to visit a friend, who was a gay man, and slept in his bed with him for lack of somewhere else to sleep? My husband said it’s never, ever acceptable for married people to sleep in bed with anyone else, period, except maybe your sister or mother if you are a woman. He wouldn’t like it if the bed partner in question was a straight woman friend either, but another man, though gay, is just unacceptable.
The reason it came up is because my best friend is gay and when I used visit him every summer (before I was with Mike), we’d sleep in his king-sized bed together because a) that’s the only room that had an air conditioner in his stuffy apartment, and b) he literally had no couch nor any other sleeping surface, and I have a back problem, so sleeping on floors is murder, and there wasn’t enough floor space for a blow up mattress. It never was a problem with his SOs or mine, and obviously it was totally platonic and not weird for us at all. The point is moot anyway; my best friend now lives with his partner and has a guest room with a bed in it, but the theoretical question remains.
It never occurred to me that it would be a problem until I told Mike about the past practice and he expressed his strong view that it was unacceptable and disrespectful to him if I were to sleep in bed with my friend in the future. He’s not typically a jealous, possessive type person, nor one to make demands on my behavior, so this attitude was surprising to me. He claims that most men would feel this way, and asked me to poll you guys for a wider scope, objective opinion. (“Go ask those people you talk to on that message board, see what they tell you!”)
I guess you could also reverse the situation and ask if women would be OK with their husband sleeping in bed with his lesbian platonic best friend under the same circumstances.
I think I would be slightly weirded out if my wife told me she routinely slept in a bed with a straight male friend. Because even if she’s not thinking about doing something wrong, how do I know what this other guy is thinking?
But if there’s literally no chance of hanky panky, what’s the harm?
If the guy is gay, I see no problem. My wife has a lot of gay friends, and I don’t feel any jealously about her spending time with them. I don’t think I’d be weirded out about them sleeping in a bed together, as described.
I’ll ask my wife what she would think about the reverse. She’s more jealous than I am, so she may object.
The shit would be hitting the proverbial fan, as I would put it on the grounds of ‘cheating’ and completely unacceptable. You do not get in intimate quarters with a member of the opposite sex without your SO. You just don’t put yourself in the position.
Now if I was going to the sleepover also, that would be another matter.
I think it would be fine as long as all involved were grown-ups. If everyone was in their late teens/early twenties, I would probably be more bothered, as people tend to be more flexible in their orientation at that sort of age (and people are more untrustworthy generally in my bitter experience…).
I don’t think that it would have ever come up for us, but as long as there was no possible way for either to be getting action (both are not interested) and I knew the friend well, I wouldn’t say anything. Of course, when we travel, it’s almost always together - and my wife loves her space. I think she’d have her own bed if we had the room for it, just to have the bigger space to roll around in.
To be honest, it might bother me a little bit in the back of my mind, but not enough for me to say anything about it. It certainly wouldn’t warrant making an issue out of it.
Can I amend my answer to include this idea? The more I think about it, if I were age 40 or so I probably wouldn’t care. However, I am a 23 year old male and am fully aware what thoughts would be going through my head if the roles were reversed and I were sleeping next to someone else.
Myself, considering the roles reversed, I would not have a problem with my Hub sleeping in the same bed with a lesbian friend.
OTOH, he is very old fashioned and would raise nine yards of hell if I even stayed in the same room with another man (not a family member) even if it were the Pope.
I think opionions will vary with the Hubby in question.
As a 23yo male, I’d definitely mind, but it wouldn’t be out of any logical concern, just a vague uneasy feeling caused by my own emotional insecurities (that I still hope you’d be willing to accommodate). It’d be like “Yeah, you’re right, he’s gay and neither of you are interested…” but in my mind I’d still be wondering, “What if he’s not really gay? What if he’s bi? And even if he’s not, the bed’s still a pretty intimate place, even without the sex, and I don’t want you sharing that intimacy with any other male. Or do you maybe secretly want him even though he’s gay?” Etc.
Or it MIGHT be a biological or subconscious thing for some people, something that’s so instinctive or deeply ingrained that no amount of logical persuasion could change. Jealousy doesn’t have to be logical.
Maybe I’m part of the forgotten patriarchy, but you lost me at “wife goes on a trip without the husband and spends the night somewhere else.” That would never happen in my marriage. That’s what marriage is - a partnership, and you do everything together. The idea of taking separate trips is unthinkable.
My parents have a very healthy marriage. Going on 30 years now. They take both trips together and seperately. I think that’s a great arrangement and they enjoy the time to themselves as well.
As far as sharing the same bed with someone of the opposite sex though, I don’t care about the sexual preference, it sounds odd to me.
Your husband is right. For adults at least, whether you like it or not a bed is an intimate emotional space as well as a place to sleep. Beds are deeply private places, and regardless of whether any sex occurs - or even has the potential to occur - the fact that two adults are sharing a personal space charged with such psychological intimacy carries strong overtones of a closer emotional attachment to another person than most marriages would permit. I wouldn’t be as disturbed by the sexual angle - aw, who am I kidding? Yes, I bloody would! - as the fact that my wife was admitting herself - or being invited into - a deeply private place which carries such strong connotations of an emotional intimacy that ought to be reserved for one’s closest partner. Once you get married, you give up the right to sleep with anyone else.
One of my greatest complaints about the current tendency to use “sleep” to mean “fuck” is that when you want to say “sleep”… what the hell do you say?
So long as it’s “sleep,” I don’t care if they’re sharing the bed with three dogs, a lesbian mare and two cats - assuming nobody has ticks or lice.
I’ve had friends who would get worked over about their bf sleeping with three other guys - in a tent, during high school summer camp, as part of a group of 40+ people of both genders (including a couple priests and one nun). Didn’t understand their hangup back then, don’t understand it now.
What about if the wife slept - platonically - in the same bed as a lesbian female friend? I’m trying to figure out why “opposite sex” is the deal-killer.
Oh, OK. So when I’ve got business trips a few times a year, I guess I’ll just have to force my husband to come along, even if his workplace forbids him to have the time off. After all, it’s a partnership, and that’s just the way it works, even if he gets fired from his job for it. Or wait - that whole “patriarchy” thing, I guess I should be the one to refuse to travel without him, and thus get fired? I’m new at this “joined at the hip” thing.
Whether or not this would bother me would totally depend on who the bed-sharing is occuring with. I’ve shared a bed with many friends, male and female, gay and straight, without incident. And of course, occasionally *with * incident.
I don’t buy this whole “bed as sacred place” argument. Sometimes it’s just a surface for sleeping on.
The patriarchy is delighted that you remember it, and sends its regards. Although I’m not sure what it has to do with anything, assuming that you’re also not allowed to travel without your wife. If I’m assuming incorrectly, then that’s a whole separate disturbing issue. If not, then what you’re describing is not partnership, it’s co-dependency. I wish you luck finding someone equally inclined toward enjoying that sort of thing.
“In bed” is such a personal, letting-it-all-hang-out place to be.
I would not find myself “in bed” with anyone but the husband.
I would however, happily be ON the bed, with at least comfy boxers and a teeshirt on. No problem sharing a comforter with Platonic Friend, but being under sheets + blanket together - you know, with the edges tucked in and all - would feel weird. Not sex-weird, but too much like touching someone else’s underwear, ew. There would be no entangling of limbs, merely juxtaposition of bodies. Big deal!
I’d feel the same about Husband in the same circumstances - big deal! Would the freaked out people feel much different about siblings?
For me, it’s probably because I believe that people are generally more intimate with the opposite sex than they are with their own. I’m not gay and if my SO isn’t either, I would probably believe (or at least “feel”) that there’s less of a chance of stolen intimacy. You can’t be “more than friends” with a lesbian female friend because you wouldn’t be driven to seek that degree of intimacy with her unless you were gay or bisexual, so I don’t see it as a threat to our relationship. I’d trust your biology more than I trust your reasoning ability.
And if you were gay or bisexual, well I’d just get too much of a kick imagining the two of you in bed together to worry our relationship Yeah, it’ll probably end up as the first warning sign that you’ll leave me for her two years later, but at that particular point, I would’ve been having way too much fun to care…
Yeah, it’ll probably end up as the first warning sign that you’ll leave me for her two years later, but at that particular point, I would’ve been having way too much fun to care…