Warning for all men: Beware of this woman!

Great Debates
61

I am with Shayna here. No, maybe I’m not quite on edge as much as she is - I haven’t been through what she has been through.

But, condoms or not, there is always that small risk of catching something. Hey, even if he used a condom, maybe it slipped, or broke. IF he even used one. These doubts and worries can really eat someone up when they discover they’ve been exposed to more than they bargained for. Even a small, small risk can be enough to drive a person crazy with worry.

I am also a little amazed that people act as if they guy should get away with a “slap on the wrist”. So he was a “bad boy”. But what she did was soooo much worse. Well, what she did was psycho, and horrible. Well, sure, what she did was really over the top. But I doubt what she did kept him up worrying at night, wondering, fussing, stressing out over “what if I caught something?” and planning to get tests done at the clinic. And yet what he did to her more than likely had that effect on her.

So, no sympathy to him, the lying weasel. And no, what she did was over the top, innapropriate. But he was no helpless victim, either.

Polydactyl Cats Unlimited
“A Cat Cannot Have Too Many Toes”

62

Oh My Gawd! Please educate yourself. Just what kind of fatal disease can I pick up from a doorknob, pray tell? And just how the he!! does that have anything to do with maliciously deceiving the person you are supposed to be committed to?

And if you are willing to concede (as you did) that condoms are not 100% effective, just how much risk are YOU willing to put YOUR partner in by screwing around behind their back even WITH one? Sheesh!

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank

63

My comments were “hateful”? Where did I talk about cutting off anyone’s “pee-pee”, running over someone with a truck, stating that anyone on this board isn’t fit to breathe the same air, or calling anybody an “@$$hole”? When I made the “S.O. leaving” comment, it was a general statement- I did not know anything about your past relationship(s).

But you’re not reading this, right?

64

You’re right Mojo, I am quite the hateful little wench.

You continue to quote my words regarding my friends situation as well as my chopping off pee pee comment. Had it been me, there would have been tire skidmarks on more than just his belongings and yes, given the chance, he would have lost a certain body part in the most tortuous and slow way possible. But then again, I would tend to go a wee bit psycho if my 7 year old son started pooping blood and trying to slit his wrist with a hanger only to find out from the counselor at the hospital that the man I was with just happened to get his jollies from butt raping little boys.

Any man I am with had damn well be aware of the very real possibility of harm if they even consider harming my kids.

So yeah, I guess I am pretty hateful.

Pardon me while I burst into flames.

65

[This is a friend of mine using my account just for this post]

For every single person saying that he is an asshole (guys especially!) you guys are way off of your mark…

listen…

I know he was banging 2 chicks but hey haven’t most of us guys at one time or another done that?

The difference is the smart ones don’t get caught…and the others…well …what’s your favorite paint color?

And for women, honestly, how many times have you dated more than 1 guy at a time, or maybe had that “innocent” one nite stand?

Getting to the point…that doesn’t mean that anyone, for any reason, should be able to trash your personal belongings…

Think about it…that favorite pair of jeans you wore for years… the sweater your grandmother made for you before she passed away…personal belongings that meant alot…

DOES CASH TAKE CARE OF THOSE ISSUES… 1 thousand…50 thousand…100 grand…what can take the place of momentos that mean so much us…

Listen, you condone these actions and maybe one day you get in the same spot…think about all of your personal belongings… if you feel she was ok to trash all of it, then don’t be upset when it happens to you

Ninja

66

I haven’t said anything until now, but I felt like someone should make it clear that not all women think like Shayna, Diane, etc.

I agree with all of you that what this man did was disgusting, criminal, “psychotic”, and probably one of the worst things one person could do to another. This still does not excuse the woman’s behavior. This is vigilantism and there’s a reason this is illegal. If someone shot you in the leg, would it be okay to go over to her house a week later and destroy everything she owned? No. Take this out of the male/female relationship context and it’s clear that what she did was NOT okay. There are other, LEGAL ways to address this sort of situation.

Phouka, I’m sorry for what happened to you. I can’t imagine the hurt you must have felt (not to mention the physical pain), but did you ever feel that your best option (or even the right option) would have been to commit an illegal act on your ex-SO?

Shayna, are you talking about cervical dysplasia? If you are, I wouldn’t be too quick to blaim your ex. This is something that you may have been carrying for a long time and it wouldn’t have shown up in your regular pap until it was “active”. Also, severe dysplasia has a 50% chance, if untreated, of turning into cancer. It’s a serious condition, but not exactly a death sentence. It just seems like you may have been leaving some facts about it out to bolster your argument (if indeed, that is the condition you had).

67

OK, please no one take this the wrong way, but I have a serious question:

Is it your (Shayna, Diana and others that agree with you) point of view that if person A is dating person B, and person A secretly has sex with person C, then person A has committed an offense that is on par with attempted murder?

If not attempted murder, then what would you compare it to?

Do you contend that anyone having sex with anyone else these days needs to let their partner know of all their other partners prior to having sex?

I’m not saying this is wrong, I just want to understand your point of view.

PeeQueue

68

Oops, sorry for the misspelling - I meant Diane, not Diana.

PeeQueue

69

Shayna wrote:

Since this is the Straight Dope, shouldn’t we see some figures on {A} what the chances are that a randomly-selected sex partner is carrying a life-threatening STD (e.g. is HIV-positive); {B} what the actual chances of picking up this STD are after, say, one year of regular sexual contact, with consistent condom use; and {C} what the chances would be of spreading it to another regular sex partner are, without condom use.

To arrive at the chance of catching a life-threatening STD from a cheating partner, we’d need to multiply these 3 factors together. If the resulting odds are on par with getting struck by lightning or winning the lottery, then in all honesty, I ain’t gonna worry about it. If the odds are significant, however, then yes, this is a legitimate beef. But let’s see some real numbers here.

70

Good point tracer. It seems to me that if you cheat, but use a condom, then the odds of you getting a disease AND passing it to someone else should be slight. Therefore the deed should hardly qualify as something to be physically/monetarily punished for. Of course, the more often you do it, the more chance there is that this will happen. But, as you said, it would be good to see some numbers.

PeeQueue

71

I’d like to see some numbers too, information is always good. But I think there is another point to all of this:

Granted, this woman’s extreme and destructive overreaction was waaaay out of line. Granted, conceded, agreed upon. I agree with that. She was out of line, way out of line.

But this guy put her through something quite destructive also. So, let’s say he used a condom, used it right. Condoms are not foolproof. And, why would she believe him, or trust him if/when he told her he used condoms? He’s already proven himself to be a liar, he could be just glossing over the fact that he forgot to use a condom sometimes, and won’t mention the time it broke…I think most women’s faith in such a man’s word would be nil. And, even if she believed him, that he was extremely careful - the fact remains that HE decided that she didn’t need to know that he was putting her at risk, even if that risk was miniscule. HE decided - he didn’t tell her, consult her, ask her about if she’d mind if he screwed another woman, as long as he was “careful”. She had no informed choice. She was not in on the decision. This is the epitome of arrogance, of presumption, of crappy cruel behavior. The bastard.

No, what she did in retaliation in no way was warranted. For one thing, all it does it make him look like a put-upon innocent victim, when he is anything but. And, she will probably have to face charges, or have to be punished in some other way. She should have never done it, for herself, if nothing else. She will now have to deal with all the consequences of that rash act. So, yes, it was a totally unglued thing to do.

Polydactyl Cats Unlimited
“A Cat Cannot Have Too Many Toes”

72

Ninja, I don’t even want to guess how old you are. Your comments frighten me. “Banging 2 chicks”? {{shiver}}.

For the record, yes, I’ve dated more than one guy at a time. But I have never been in a committed relationship and slept with other guys behind someone’s back.

The smart ones don’t get caught? Good grief, I just don’t even know what to say to that.

“What can take the place of momentos that mean so much us?” Are you seriously trying to tell me that things are more valuable than a person’s life? Don’t bother to answer that. It’s clear that that’s exactly what you’re saying. How sad.

“Then don’t be upset when it happens to you.” It won’t ever happen to me because I would never dream of doing something so despicable to someone I cared about that might incite them to do that to me.

C3, again, I never said what she did was OK. OK? Got that now?

And as far as your even suggesting that I have misrepresented the source of my medical condition, you are insulting. You have no idea how long I was with that man, or how many times I’d been checked before and during our relationship. And to attempt to minimize it by saying I only have a 50% chance of getting cancer is just absurd. A 50% chance is not minimal! Not to mention that I still won’t know for another year whether or not he infected me with HIV.

PeeQueue, if someone knows that they are exposing me to a risk of death by their behavior without my consent, then YES, I put them on par with an attempted murderer. It’s malicious and reckless endangerment of my person at the very least.

tracer, I’m stunned. Utterly stunned. And sickened. I am not going to bother wasting my time getting you numbers. The numbers are completely irrelevant. I will say this one last time…

If someone leads me to believe that I am the only woman with whom they are having a sexual relationship, and they knowingly expose me to ANY risk WITHOUT MY CONSENT, then they are EVIL.

That you would say that “if the resulting odds are on par with getting struck by lightning or winning the lottery, then in all honesty, I ain’t gonna worry about it,” is so reprehensible to me that it makes me want to throw up.

If I stand out in an open field with a big metal rod in my hand in the middle of a lightning storm, then I deserve to be struck by lightning if it happens, even if the odds are small. But you cannot blindfold me, drag me out to that field, tie me to a metal pole without my permission and tell me I should think that’s no big deal because the odds of lightning actually striking me are so small.

The point here is not about statistics, it’s about consent.

I think I’ve made myself exceedingly clear about where I stand on the issues of infidelity and this woman’s reaction to it when it happened to her (one last time - she was not right). And I flat out refuse to continue to sujbect myself to continued personal attacks for daring to hold myself to higher morals than your average alley cat. There’s really nothing further I can add to this thread, so I am done here.

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank

73

At what point do you consider yourself “committed”? Were the guys you were dating aware that you were seeing other people at the time?

74

Even though Shayna will probably not respond to this, I want to make some of the things I said clearer.

First, yes, we all agree with you that what the guy did was wrong and I think some of us (me included) would agree with you that what he did was “evil”. What I am NOT agreeing with you about is the implication that what this woman did was in ANY way understandable. I get that you don’t think it was “right”, but I think it was much worse that not right. What she did was illegal, disgusting, violent, and probably more outright agressive than what he did. Not only should she get zero sympathy, she should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Finally, about the dysplasia thing. If you talk to your doctor, you will find out that unless this guy was the only guy you’ve ever slept with, there’s no way you can tell what you got was from him. HPV can remain dormant for years before it turns into anything that comes up positive on tests. If you slept with someone when you were 18, you could have gotten normal pap results every year, then had an abnormal one showing the dysplasia when you were 30. Since you still haven’t said this is what you had, I’m going to assume it was because you didn’t say otherwise. There is no possible way you can know that your most recent ex was the one who gave this to you.
Like I think I said before, although dysplasia is a serious condition that needs to be treated, I don’t think that something that CAN be treated, quite easily, that only has a 50% chance turning into cancer with NO treatment falls into the realm of life threatening. If this is what you had, you know that all it took was a simple doctor’s visit lasting about 10-15 minutes, some follow up visits, and that’s about it. Hardly a death sentence.
HIV is another story. If you’re going to make your argument, use that…it’s less hyperbolic.

75

yosemitebabe:
I think we’re mostly in agreement here. We both agree that the woman was out of line and that what the man did was very wrong. What I am wondering is how wrong? Is Shayna right that anyone that cheats on someone else is doing the equivalent of committing attempted murder?

Remember, this is an every day occurrence. Men and women cheat on each other all the time, which leads me to believe that society doesn’t see it as big a crime as Shayna is saying it is. But maybe it should be seen that way.

Maybe if a woman goes out with me for a few months, then sleeps with someone behind my back, she should go to jail for a few years, just as someone who tried to kill me would. Is this what you are getting at Shayna?

But, then, what is the point of marriage? People can end a marriage just as they can end a relationship; is it only a difference in that it requires more paperwork to get in and out of marriage?

Personally, I don’t think I can agree with this line of thinking. The person that does the cheating is certainly not looking to kill his/her partner. I’m sure it would never occur to them that they had contracted a deadly disease and that they might pass it on. I’m also sure that there is many other things that people do that could lead others to die.

One thing that might change my mind is if the likelihood of this happening was greater than the likelihood of me getting hit by a car while walking a few blocks. That’s why I thought having some stats might be a good idea.

PeeQueue

76

Shayna wrote:

Shayna, you are not going to get me to change my mind by yelling at me.

But you might be able to get me to change my mind by showing me whether your fears are statistically justified. With, say, useful figures from the U.S. Center for Disease Control.

From my current perspective, getting involved with someone puts you at much greater risk of picking up any communicable disease, sexually transmittable or not. If your partner comes home carrying a cold, or the flu, or antibiotic-resistant pneumonia, you have a pretty good chance of picking it up yourself. If your partner picked up Ebola from his/her vacation overseas, you’ll probably die from it yourself. But you take that small risk anyway, in exchange for the benefit of having a partner. You also probably do some simple things that carry tiny non-disease-related risks with them, too, such as driving over to your partner’s house, going out together to places you might not have been willing to go to alone, etc…

I say again, if (if!!) the risk of picking up a fatal STD from a cheating partner is insignificant next to these other partner-associated risks, I do not feel it is worth worrying about.

So, Shayna, I challenge you. Prove me wrong. Not with your rhetoric, not with your opinions, with real statistics. I dare you to prove me wrong.

77

I think some of us are missing the point here…

It’s about informed choice. CHOICE. If someone wants to sleep with someone, knowing that they are going to possibly not be monogamous, they are making an informed choice. They are taking their chances. If someone wants to sleep with someone, they obviously make the informed choice of risking picking up the flu, or some other random illness of that nature. It comes with the territory.

However, when a person is sleeping with someone, and they are given every reason to believe that the relationship is monogamous, then they make their choices based on that information. When they are being lied to, and not told all the facts (like they are not, after all, in a monogamous relationship) then their INFORMED choice is being taken away. I assume it is agreed upon by everyone here that we all deserve an INFORMED choice. This slimeball guy decided that this woman did not need to know that he was putting her at risk. Even if this risk was really, really really small (and we don’t really know how small or large the risk was - we don’t even know how “careful” he was) do you think she was not allowed that choice? Do you think that he gets to decide for her? Do you get to decide whether it was important or not for her to know? Of course not. I think it is amazingly arrogant for any of us to decide that the risk was “too small” and “not a big deal” - no one gets to decide that for someone else.

And, so when this woman finds out that she possibly was put at risk, how do you think she’s going to feel? Do you think she’s going to feel secure that this lying bastard really was “safe” all the time? Will she ever really know, or feel confident that he didn’t possibly spread something to her? Do you think you are entitled to decide that she shouldn’t be worried, or how worried or upset she should be?

This is all seperate from the issue of her trashing his stuff. A totally rash thing to do, didn’t help anything, makes him look like a victim. Totally wrong.

But, why are so many of you here trying to minimize the stress and scariness of possibly being put at risk? This woman was put at risk wtihout her knowledge, even if it was a small risk. The amount of risk is not the point.

Even if the odds are incredibly small that a person will catch something, we are all entitled to be told all the details about what risks we are taking. And this guy took that choice away from her. Would any of us want that done to us?

Please, someone tell me I am wrong, but I am starting to get the feeling that this debate is being divided across gender lines. If I’m correct about that…scary.

Polydactyl Cats Unlimited
“A Cat Cannot Have Too Many Toes”

78

yosemitebabe, I agree with that completely. I’m confused, though…exactly what are we debating? I thought it was whether or not those feelings of fear, betrayal and anger justified the actions of the woman. I think you’re absolutely right that she had every reason to have those feelings, though.

79

What are really debating?

To me it sounds (and no offense to some of my fellow women) but it seems to be a debate whether or not she is justified in trashing his entire life, his home. Some of you think that destroying his apartment to the tune of $50,000 is justifiable, you are so sadly mistaken. From what I read and heard, this was breaking and entering! The web site doesn’t tell the whole tale.

Back to the facts as they are given, they lived together for 6 years, she moved out and this happened after two months…this is a big clue that things aren’t working here folks…if in fact this is the situation, then she should have had her bearings together to realize that this was not a relationship that was working.

Gimme a freakin break…I so want to turn this into a Pit topic because so many woman here are making this into “it’s the man’s fault”. Sorry ladies, it goes both ways, you can’t have it that way…if a man were to do this, his ass would be in jail, no questions asked.

Granted we don’t know her story, but face some facts here.

She has a felony conviction possibly against her. HELLO, does this make you think twice about doing something like this? If not, then you need to see a therapist.

He has a restraining order on her. HELLO, clearly, this woman is unstable.

There is little debate here.

He slept around, so what, we women do it to and any woman that says there aren’t any woman out there that does this is fooling themselves.

Screw the STDs, I believe that for every man cheating on his wife or S.O. there is a woman doing the same damn thing. So ladies, don’t you even sit there and think any different, we are in an equal opportunity world here. If you want to dispute that, then let’s start another thread.

As for this guy and his site…damn straight, I am glad he did it. I don’t know the other side of the story, but if this can be proven via the courts and her conviction, then I will raise my hands and say “ladies, what now?”

I can’t stress enough that if a man did the same thing he would be in jail for some form of abuse…

I am sorry that some women in here went through some horrible relationships…but I concede there is never, ever an appropriate occasion for this behavior.

As I stated before, a friend of mine with through an extremely abusive relationship, and you bet your sweet ass she probably could have killed him and gotten away with it, but she didn’t. She took the higher road.

I can’t see any man that is worth this, I would have flipped him off at the most and said, “never fucking call me again.”

And I have been through the cheating thing…so fuck this “whoa is me” attitude, get on with your lives.

There is never a time or a place where violence of any kind is appropriate. If you doubt me then lets talk one on one.

80

In rereading the guy’s web site, I don’t see anything to show exactly why the chick was so upset. (It would be helpful to hear her side.) Was she upset mainly because of the threat of disease, or mainly because he’d cheated on her?

When a person finds out that their SO of several years has been cheating, the initial reaction is usually one of anger at being rejected, jealousy, grief, etc. The initial reaction isn’t “Oh my God, did he give me a disease?!?”

This girl trashed the apartment in that initial phase, when she’d just found out the guy was cheating and after she’d had just enough time to work up a really good head of steam. The violence and spontaneity of her actions leads me to believe she was reacting out of pure jealous rage, not anger over being exposed to potential disease.

Therefore, to say he deserved what she did because he was risking her life isn’t a good excuse for her actions; that’s not why she was punishing him. (AFAIK; obviously I’m guessing a little because we don’t know her side.)

Pee Queue:

Exactly. Cheating is hardly rare. We all know people (or have been people) who thought the relationship was rock solid and later discovered that wasn’t the case. The statistics I’ve seen estimate that 86% married men cheat at least once. (These are married men, supposedly a bit more committed than the boyfriend in the story, who was not married to the girl and in fact wasn’t even living with her at the time.)

If that statistic is anywhere near true, women would be safer to assume that their SO WILL cheat. It’s simply naive to assume otherwise, no matter how committed the guy leads you to believe he is.