phouka-
How do you determine that two people were in a committed, monogamous relationship. He said/she said? Should people start writing out contracts? Would it only apply to married couples? Even if they were married, what do you do when he (most likely he) says, “but, we had an open relationship–we talked about it”. Do you go back to enforcing the criminality of adultery?
I agree with you (assuming you meant this) that cheating while in a monogamous relationship represents a betrayal of trust and puts the other partner at unnecessary risk of disease, and that those things are unacceptable (to me, anyway). I just don’t see any real way that you could criminalize it without a debacle.
Think about the possible extensions of your position. Two people are in a committed, manogamous relationship as you described above. One partner has a romantic liason with another person which does not involve sex, but does involve, say, kissing. While he/she does not contract an STD, he does contract a virus of another sort (say, a bad flu) that he then passes on to his partner. She freakishly dies from it. Was he negligent?
That, of course, is an extreme distortion of your point. I guess what I’m getting at is that you are attempting to criminalize risk-taking. How could the injured party prove, for instance, that they were not the ones to cheat and contract the disease themselves, and aren’t trying to pass the blame off onto their partner? Disease is predatory. Some inevitably fall into its path while others do not. I’m not sure that you could criminilize the act of putting yourself at risk (or, by extension, your partner) unless–like I said before–it was done with forethought and intent.