Nicely said.
I’m not currently in a relationship, but I can answer theoretically:
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because in order to have sex with another person, you have to invest time and energy in pursuing that relationship, whether it’s merely physical or physical and emotional. That is energy I expect to be invested in our relationship. I doubt there’s a relationship in the world that wouldn’t benefit from a little more time and effort.
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I don’t want to have to worry about catching (another) sexually transmitted disease. Guess what? In a monogamous relationship, once risks are assessed and minimized, condoms can be done without. Besides, condoms don’t protect you from herpes or genital warts even if they remain intact and are used consistently. I can protect my partner from my own herpes infection by taking anti-viral medication and watching for any prodrome symptoms. I can’t protect myself if he’s taking risks in other sexual relationships.
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I don’t want to worry about my partner fathering a child outside of our relationship. I also, Og forbid, don’t want to have to worry about him transmitting herpes to another person if he does happen to catch it from me.
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I take the idea of my partner ‘stepping out’ on me to imply that there’s a problem in our relationship. Either he’s not getting what he wants from me (and I take Dan Savage’s GGG philosophy to heart), or he’s avoiding giving to me. Either way, it’s something we should work out or break up over, not something that should ignored and left to fester.
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I don’t want any of his, our, or my friends who suspect anything to be put under that pressure of deciding whether to stay quiet or tell.
I understand there are people who manage very well in polyamorous relationships. I have no problem with their choice, so long as everyone involved has given informed consent. However, I am not one of those people. I know what I need in a relationship. I know what I am capable of giving. I know what makes me happy. Knowing my partner is in a sexual relationship, emotionally intimate or not, doesn’t make me happy.
Some individuals are susceptible to the floods of oxytocin that surge through the mind upon orgasm (and kissing for males). I know my husband to be one such individual and I’ve no desire to see him bond with anyone else.
B.
It may seem selfish, but the idea of being together with someone that is physically intimate with others is so against my idea of a relationship that their views on it don’t really come into it. I know I can’t be in such a relationship.
And yes, I’ve had a relationship with someone that apart from that was amazing fall apart precisely because of this.
Take all the components of a significan relationship: emotional bonding, shared values and goals, compatability, sex, shared experiences, etc. etc. You can look at them each as a separate gift or as one big package. That is, you can say, “he’s a lousy provider, but the sex is great,” or you can say, “I don’t care how good the sex is, he’s a losy provider.”
I want my relationship to be one big package, not a bunch of little ones.
So, what you’re saying is, it IS all about the package size after all!
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I’ve always suspected . . .
That would be C, if I’m understanding you right.
This seems question begging. But maybe you have a particular technical definition of “significant” in mind.
Well, I’m female, so I have it relatively easy to know who’s fathered any kids of mine. My problem is with the health issues. The one time I got mad at an SO who was having sex with other people behind my back it was the following items, in ascending order of importance:
1.- he was expecting me to be monogamous, yet was not extending the same courtesy…
2.- he kept talking about wanting me to be the mother of his children; he specifically wanted to stop using a condom, among other things because he wanted to get started on trying for a kid (which I was very much not interested in yet)…
2.- and the /&&/%%/%")TQR PO(&QW/%V &R hijo de la gran puta and I say this even though I do like his mother was doing it without even a condom! Thus endangering not just me (fuck that, I’m a grown woman and I can choose my risks), but any children we happened to make.
So with my apologies to anybody who’s bored of hearing it, yeah, I broke up with him right there, and it was “because of how it affects my health and the health of those children which (yeepe ye yay) we have not made but which you kept wanting to make”. I don’t think I’d have a problem with my SO getting some sex on the side if it was from approved sources and in appropriate hygienic conditions, but from any hole which stands still long enough and without even a rubber, hell no.
You mean my wife and I should have been sleeping around with anybody we wanted with no repercussions since I had that vasectomy 10 years ago? Damn, if only I’d known.
Oh wait, I guess she only gets to sleep with other guys who’ve also had vasectomies, while I can nail anybody. Unless she wants to get her tubes tied, in which case she’ll be good to go too.
Or, your “only really good reason” isn’t really.
B and C, and if you need more explanation than that, I’m sorry.
You know what it means to you, and you know what it means to your SO, and so you value his/her abstention. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. I’m not sure why you would think anyone here needs more explanation than that.
Why did you suspect so, though?
Other: I care because badly failed relationships can be very painful, so I don’t want my SO to get into a relationship with someone who’d likely to hurt her. She’s generally shown good judgment on that front, so I don’t worry about it too much any more.
“She’s not my special lady friend, she’s my fucking lady!”
Same answer, similar reasoning.
If the other party is physically attractive it’s easier to categorize as “just sex” and can be a bit of an ego buff, too… and maybe, you know, everyone can play.
Note: Ex-wife was not down for anything remotely that interesting due to jealousy issues.
Someone could be significant without “banging” being involved at all just like someone can still be significant without excluding all others from “banging”.
Did you not read the post he was responding to? It said that insuring paternity was the only good reason. He clearly found that offensive.
Yeah, I guess I didn’t read it right. Or something. Weird way of writing it if you ask me.
I don’t think the “you” in the last line of the post was referring to the person he’d quoted at the beginning of the post. In other words, I think he intended his last line to be an aside, separate from the rest of his post.
The definition most normal-ish people use to refer to a relationship with someone they have an emotional connection with.
Frankly, your question is a little bizarre.
Then they would be a “friend”, not your significant other.
You’re kind of both right. I was a bit flabbergasted by Martian Bigfoot’s post and probably overreacted to it. The “you” in the last line was essentially directed to MB and anybody else who might agree with his assertion, which I found somewhat questionable.
A day later, I realize better that this is something of an “it takes all kinds” discussion, and I probably didn’t need to get so riled up.