Men, would you be OK with your SO doing this?

In My Humble Opinion
61

[QUOTE=wasson]
This may sound snarky, but it’s not meant to.

So you trust your girlfriend to shower with a friend, but you do not trust her to shower with a random guy from the bar? Why not, what’s the difference? Trust is trust, right?

And then you mention this “few times a year”. What if she slept with him once a month? Once a week? Or every single night you didn’t sleep with her? Would you still keep saying you trust her, or at some point would you be bothered with the situation?

Listen, I don’t think any of us are saying there’s absolutely no reason, ever, ever, EVER to sleep in the same bed as a member of the opposite sex, but I think it should be avoided out of respect for your partner.
[/QUOTE]

I don’t recall saying I would mind if she showered with a random guy from a bar - I am 100% certain that she wouldn’t want to do that herself. However, if she was do do it anyway we would probably have a serious talk about it. We have what I consider a pretty normal relationship, and I find it hard to imagine that the situation should ever appear. It has never been necessary for me to consider that scenario until right now, and while it is interesting to discuss the limits of trust and behaviour in a relationship, the scenario we are debating is just hypothetical. I am sure that there are limits to my trust and acceptance of my GF’s behaviour, but until she does something that transgresses them, how can I know what they are? It is, after all, about emotions and therefore not at all easy to rationalize. If you take these things to their limits you are bound to end up with inconsistencies - I’ll happily admit that my idea of “trust” isn’t valid always and forever.

And I made the point about the other person being a *friend *because some posters seem to forget that the OP is talking about a friend - a gay friend of the opposite sex, even - and that situation is well within the boundaries of my tolerance.

62

I’m starting to think we need Sampiro and swampbear here…

63

I’m perfectly comfortable with this idea. I trust my wife’s judgement; I don’t think she would put herself in that situation if she believed there was going to be anything other than snoozing going on in that bed. I wouldn’t lose sleep over this. Same applies if the male in question was straight.

I tried to imagine reversing the roles, but I’m so into my privacy that I can’t really imagine sharing a bed with anyone but my wife. Hopefully she’ll pass through here and post what she would think in the reverse situation.

64

Nope. Sharing a bed, even just for sleeping, is intimate enough that it should be reserved for your spouse.

65

Here’s another angle that should be brought up when it comes to trust.

If you would allow your wife to engage in the scenario as laid out in the OP do you think your wife would think that you didn’t care as much as she thought you did, therefore reducing her willingness to be as trustworthy as she otherwise might have been??

66

A king size bed is HUGE! I mean, it’s like two twin beds pushed together. You can spend the entire night in a king-sized bed with someone else and never know they’re there (unless they steal the sheets like I do). Just because you can have sex it in doesn’t mean you’re going to. Should I forbid my husband from sitting on a couch watching TV with a female friend because that can lead to sex too?

Go camping or stay in a hostel for a while, then tell me that sleeping is intimate and sacred.

67

Guess my husband is right-- people really do care about this and would say it’s not Ok. Can’t wait to tell him he won this one.

Couple of questions from the thread I’d like to answer:

  1. The friend is gay. He doesn’t do girls, period. We’ve been friends since 1989, and there’s never been sexual weirdness or anything. I’ve been going down to visit him summer for about 10 years, so this sleeping arrangement happened at least that many times. I feel 100% safe saying that there is no chance of any sort of hanky panky. I’d bet my house on it.

  2. Of course we wear clothes! Pajamas. It’s a big bed. We don’t touch. It’s as intimate as two cots in the same room.

  3. I haven’t slept in a bed with anyone besides my husband and wouldn’t do it if the situation arose now that I know it bothers him. I still think his objections are kind of weird, and can’t see how it’s anything other than a function of his insecurity, but we all have those things that bother us.

  4. I don’t see how sleeping in a king sized bed, fully clothed, is the same as showering with someone, naked with soap in a very small area. That metaphor just doesn’t work for me; it obsures the issue and makes it seem much more intimate than it is.

68

[QUOTE=Uncommon Sense]
Here’s another angle that should be brought up when it comes to trust.

If you would allow your wife to engage in the scenario as laid out in the OP do you think your wife would think that you didn’t care as much as she thought you did, therefore reducing her willingness to be as trustworthy as she otherwise might have been??
[/QUOTE]
Can’t speak for others, but in my case, not at all. The whole point of this is that we understand each other well enough that there wouldn’t be any second-guessing about what the other was thinking.

The easiest way to sum up our relationship in terms of trust when we’re apart is probably to mention that she just got back from a month in the UK without me. She shared rooms with multiple people (male and female), met lots of folks (including other Dopers), and not once in that month, no matter how much I missed her, did it ever occur to me that she might be out there trying to get some action on the side.

As someone else pointed out up-thread, no matter which side of this argument you fall on, what matters is that you and your spouse are on the same page. For my wife and me, mutual trust and mutual respect mean that we each have the ability to do what is necessary or convenient or just plain fun without worrying about the other spouse breaking the wedding vows.

69

[QUOTE=Rubystreak]

  1. I haven’t slept in a bed with anyone besides my husband and wouldn’t do it if the situation arose now that I know it bothers him. I still think his objections are kind of weird, and can’t see how it’s anything other than a function of his insecurity, but we all have those things that bother us.

[/QUOTE]

We had an issue like this come up not too long ago. I am not going to get into the details. But suffice it to say I didn’t feel it was a big deal at all; he did. I thought he was fairly insecure to be bothered. But as you said, i respect him and love him, so I won’t do it again.

70

[QUOTE=Rubystreak]
4. I don’t see how sleeping in a king sized bed, fully clothed, is the same as showering with someone, naked with soap in a very small area. That metaphor just doesn’t work for me; it obsures the issue and makes it seem much more intimate than it is.
[/QUOTE]

I didn’t mean to make it a metaphor… I meant to stretch the issue of “I trust my spouse” and figure out exactly where that “trust” ends and insecurities begin. But I guess I wasn’t that far off the mark, since in this very thread someone said how showering with a member of the opposite sex wouldn’t bother them. It would bother me to the point of breaking up with my girlfriend in a split second and never looking back.

71

I’m single, so I can only speak to hypotheticals. It would depend entirely upon who the other person was and what the circumstances were.

Business trip with a person I’ve never heard about or met and all the other rooms are taken? Not great, and I’d prefer if my SO ordered up a folding bed, as those are available at most hotels. If I know the person and have a feel for their character, then it’s decided on that. A woman who treats me disrespectfully and shows no concern for my relationship? I’m going to request that my SO figure out some other sleeping arrangements. A woman I’ve chatted with at company functions and have established some basic acquaintance? I’ll probably sympathize with her about my SO snoring or hogging the covers.

As for wasson’s comparison between sleeping and showering together, well, my response is mostly emotional. For the most part, I wouldn’t have a noticeable problem with my SO sharing a bed to sleep. I would have a large problem with him showering with a straight woman in the average hotel bathroom shower. I’ll try to break it down into something a little more logical:

Everyone has to sleep. It’s a biological function. In the company of others, with few exceptions, we wear clothing when we sleep, and that clothing acts as a physical and social shield. Sleep lasts around eight hours, so it’s unreasonable to expect two people to take turns sleeping. During sleep, the person is unconscious, so no matter what their nefarious purposes, it’s unlikely they’ll act on it.

No one has to shower, though it’s certainly socially preferable. It is not a mandatory biological function. Reasonably, one has to be nude to shower, and that means that is an instant level of intimacy not found in other circumstances. Considering the small space available in an average hotel shower, there is nudity and close proximity. A shower can be completed in ten minutes, so it’s reasonable to expect people to take turns. If two people are sharing a shower, there are limbs and touching and soap, and it would be extremely easy for someone to cross lines of accepted behavior and pass it off as a slip.

As for myself, I expect my SO to be accepting if I choose to spend a night out with the girls, and we happen to crash at one woman’s place, and I share a bed with one of my friends. I can completely understand any discomfort he might feel at the idea of me sharing a bed with a man other than a close relative or gay friend, regardless of sexual orientation. I would respect his feelings and arrange other sleeping quarters. If that weren’t possible, I would come up with something - a bolster placed between us, separate blankets, asking the man in question to speak with my SO (or perhaps the man’s SO?), something - to ease my SO’s worries.

He’d know any good male friends of mine, straight or gay, so I just don’t see him having a reasonable objection. If he had a problem with me, say, taking a nap beside my brother or father, then he’s just going to have to grab his tits and deal.

72

[QUOTE=wasson]
I didn’t mean to make it a metaphor… I meant to stretch the issue of “I trust my spouse” and figure out exactly where that “trust” ends and insecurities begin. But I guess I wasn’t that far off the mark, since in this very thread someone said how showering with a member of the opposite sex wouldn’t bother them. It would bother me to the point of breaking up with my girlfriend in a split second and never looking back.
[/QUOTE]

There’s no circumstances I can think of where I’d have to shower with another person that couldn’t be avoided. I would not want to be naked with someone other than my husband, even my gay friend, not because it’s a trust issue, but because of my personal modesty and feelings of privacy and intimacy about it. I don’t have those same feelings about sleep.

Sleep, unlike showering, is not optional, and when it’s 90 degrees and there’s only one AC and a king sized bed in the only room with a sleepable surface in it… and the other person is gay as the cast of Queer Eye… I hardly see how trust is the issue. There is no sexual anything whatsoever.

I don’t see what the objection is, really. I don’t think he is worried about me cheating on him. He says, “It’s not right. It’s disrespectful. It’s NOT DONE. I wish you wouldn’t.” I wish it were parsed out better into more articulate reasons, so if anyone can explain it, I’d love to hear it. If it’s not jealousy or lack of trust, what is it? It must be something else. I’ll try to get him to explain it better when I tell him about this thread.

73

[QUOTE=Anaamika]
We had an issue like this come up not too long ago. I am not going to get into the details. But suffice it to say I didn’t feel it was a big deal at all; he did. I thought he was fairly insecure to be bothered. But as you said, i respect him and love him, so I won’t do it again.
[/QUOTE]

:dubious:

74

[QUOTE=Zebra]
:dubious:
[/QUOTE]

:dubious: Right back at ya. Was there something?

75

[QUOTE=wasson]
I like my showering example. Do you trust your partner enough to let them shower with someone else? Why or why not? Is “trust” still a big issue when nudity and slipperiness is involved but sex is not?
[/QUOTE]
That’s an odd comparison, though. I can see the argument about sleeping together out of necessity if there’s just one bed, or even changing in the same room if there’s just one room. But one shower?

Her: “We had to shower together. There was only one shower.”

Me: “You had to shower together? Just how big of a hurry were you in?”

76

[QUOTE=Brain Wreck]
As a married man, my fear would be the old cliche that they keep telling us there is no “absolute” sexuality, it’s all a continuum. Absolutely every gay man I know is a total whore given the opportunity, has had sex with women in the past, and a number of them claim they enjoyed it at least minimally. How would I know that the alleged gay guy is not secretly bisexual and has just been waiting for the right opportunity with the right gal?
[/QUOTE]

On behalf of my friend, I have to object to this. I cannot endorse the statement “every gay man is a total whore” who, if he had the opportunity, would fuck absolutely anybody. Nope, I don’t think gay man are any more whorish or indiscriminate than straight men, which is to say, generalizations of this sort are useless and somewhat inflammatory.

This is my friend of almost 2 decades. He is not a total whore and is definitely not into girls. This idea that gay men have no sexual morals whatsoever (which is what I’m getting from your post) just does not ring true to me; definitely not true enough to think for one second that this particular gay man would be as indiscriminate, sleazy, and well, downright evil, as you indicate.

77

[QUOTE=pravnik]
That’s an odd comparison, though. I can see the argument about sleeping together out of necessity if there’s just one bed, or even changing in the same room if there’s just one room. But one shower?

Her: “We had to shower together. There was only one shower.”

Me: “You had to shower together? Just how big of a hurry were you in?”
[/QUOTE]
That was sort of my point… everyone was saying “I TRUST my partner, so you must not!” I was just trying to figure out when “trust” stopped being an issue. I think showering is a good example of something that could be innocent, but most people are not comfortable with.

Personally, even if there’s just 1 bed, I can’t see myself thinking it would be appropriate to share it with a woman that wasn’t my wife or girlfriend, or with a woman that had a husband or boyfriend. I’d sleep on the floor.

78

Where are all these gay guys who are just waiting for an opportunity to pounce on their female friends? Is there some sort of fag hag fetish I don’t know about? Should we be jealous about adult siblings sharing a bed just in case?

I didn’t think there’d be so many negative responses to the OP’s question. My SO wouldn’t bat an eye if I slept in the same bed as a gay guy friend or girlfriend of whatever orientation (there’d probably be some pouting over a straight guy friend). In fact, I sleep much better with my best girlfriend than I do with him (we must have perfected a system throughout high school – and no hanky panky with her, ever). If he wants (or has) to sleep with a straight guy or gay girl, what am I going to tell him? That he should have slept on the floor? Bed’s aren’t sacred to me – good sleep is.

79

[QUOTE=Rubystreak]
On behalf of my friend, I have to object to this. I cannot endorse the statement “every gay man is a total whore” who, if he had the opportunity, would fuck absolutely anybody. Nope, I don’t think gay man are any more whorish or indiscriminate than straight men, which is to say, generalizations of this sort are useless and somewhat inflammatory.
[/quote]

You asked for perspective, I offered insight into my thought processes and indicated that it wasn’t entirely rational anyway. Among my circle of friends, all the gay men are certified unapologetic sluts. I’m not making any judgements on that, so do not project your judgements upon me. And you shouldn’t ask for comments on your anecdotal stories unless you are willing to accept that others have their own entirely true anecdotal stories. Nowhere in your OP did you ask anyone to filter their response to match your preconceived notion of things, if that’s what you want, you should say it up front.

80

[QUOTE=Anaamika]
Hmm. Am I the only female who wouldn’t do it? Unless there was really no choice, I guess, and that would be a one-time only event. It wouldn’t even come up because I would automatically be all :dubious: and politely refuse. Then again, I don’t have much problem sleeping on the floor unless it’s too many nights in a row.
[/QUOTE]

I wouldn’t do it either. I’m pretty strict about my personal bubble and hate, hate, hate when people touch me when I don’t want them to. Pretty much the only person I want touching me- particularly when I’m sleeping- is my boyfriend. I can’t imagine sleeping in the same bed with one of my friends, unless it were absolutely necessary. I guess it’s just an intimate thing for me.

And on that note, why wouldn’t your friend offer to sleep on the floor or on his couch? It seems rude to tell a guest they need to sleep in the bed with you, when it’s your job as the host to accommodate them. If someone was at my house, I’d give up my bed and spend a night on the couch to be polite. I figured that’s how these things work.

Also, **Cat Fight **, it’s purely anecdotal, of course, but literally every single one of my gay male friends have banged their closet female friend (or in some cases, friends) to see if they like it. Perhaps I’m just friends with sluts (entirely possible), but because it’s just sex, neither party really thinks much of it.