SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I know creative and virtuous people who write but there also is a strong thread of “exuberant defiance” or whatever Perel says, in that sort of crowd.

Which pretty much means they want to fuck around yet want to spin it to some starving artist romantic bullshit because it sounds prettier. A turd is a turd.

[This message edited by Zugzwang at 6:32 AM, March 11th (Wednesday)]

Yes - a turd is a turd 💩

“exuberant defiance”

The lexicon inflation and air-quotes perfectly encapsulate the attitude being described, but not how they want.

[This message edited by Skadu at 11:14 AM, March 11th (Wednesday)]

I did have a question from this article.

Do women really fear/dislike being titled as hyper sexual?

I just ask because I think feminism (European and American) it has gotten to the same point any minority has where they just don't want a label at all, which is kind of the silly tipping point, but whatever.

I am just curious if I missed that part.

Side point: I see more ageism than anything else lately. Wait until a kid (All genders and races) calls you a boomer.

Do women really fear/dislike being titled as hyper sexual?

Yes. Because we are damned if we do, damned if we don't. There are significant generalizations about women and their sexuality that comes down to a very narrow view of "frigid" or "slutty". There really is very little about a female's sexuality that is safe from judgment. And, it doesn't just happen from males, there are females that perpetuate those things as well. The females who do this, I think often are judgmental of their opposite.

[This message edited by hikingout at 10:51 AM, March 12th (Thursday)]

Doesn't that duality apply to everything?

Just how I see it. Guys straight or gay also fall into those 2 categories. There isn't a baby bear rule of thumb for any of that.

Kind of why I wondered this.

I am not sure what you mean. I am certain that men have their own judgments and issues to deal with but they aren't the same. Women are judged harshly for those things. For a man to be slutty, it's usually in a "boys will be boys" nod rather than the more serious judgment that a female would incur and the shaming surrounding it. Sure there are people who would just promiscuity on both sexes, but not as widely as imposed on women. Men who aren't overtly sexual, I am sure there are stigmas there, but there isn't all the labeling of the sexual gatekeeping. I do not claim that I know what stigmas and societal conditioning are there for men or what that is like. But I don't think men can do that for women either. It's kind of how you are now experiencing age-ism, until you get there you can't be as sensitive to it as someone who is there.

[This message edited by hikingout at 12:51 PM, March 12th (Thursday)]

Proverbs 30:20 describes the author of the piece perfectly.

I am certain that men have their own judgments and issues to deal with but they aren't the same

Why?

Do you think men like being called players if they cheat with a woman any different than a woman doesn't like being called a slut or whore?

I don't know what women think. I can say that I refuse to say my labels as a male is worse. We just both have labels. To continue to go down that road, if you aren't a male you wouldn't know what it is like. If you have a son you soon will. Just like we don't know a woman's struggle. I would imagine we all have our own equivalency. Just neither is worse. I can point out another....most men are just classified as wanting to get into a woman's pants. Not so. You of all people know there have been many men here that cheated because they just wanted attention and started EA before they ever became physical.

I know I wasn't a player. Wouldn't stop anyone from saying I was, afterall I had to APs. They both chased me and other men when they were out with me. Many BH come on saying their WW's APs were players. Truth is that with digging they might find they aren't and their own wives did the chasing. Yet, it bothers me that it is labeled as such and the wives are labeled more as "victims" of players taking ownership and responsibility from the wayward wives. When I first came here that term bothered me personally because I was labeled that. Doesn't anymore because I know the truth and what they think of me matters not, just that they put blame where blame should lay.

[This message edited by Zugzwang at 9:58 PM, March 12th (Thursday)]

I guess what I am saying is men are judged harshly too.

Yes men can be and are, in fact judged harshly as well.

I spent years as a musician and several former band mates had no qualms about bedding anything and everything that moved and the way they were described was at least as bad as a woman being called a slut. And that was by other guys and the women who had no desire to sleep with them.

That said, as someone who's never slept with anyone one else if I was dating some one, I lived with some nasty names because I wouldn't do one night stands,

and never slept with a groupie either. I was never called a stand up, trustworthy guy. What I heard ran the gamut from "Whats wrong with you?" to "Are you gay?".

There is a key statement in the very beginning of that article that immediately tells me it’s written by someone lacking in understanding of infidelity and relationships. It’s a shame, because the first two statements are spot-on:

Infidelity is no accident. To me this has always been a key-issue regarding infidelity. I don’t thing personal nor relationship recovery is possible unless we acknowledge that the infidelity didn’t just “happen”.

It is a choice, See above. At some point – no matter how unhappy, drunk, misguided… whatever… - the WS DECIDES to go that one step further than is allowed. The WS decides to cross that border, that line that the WS knows is there.

The two above statements are so KEY to recovery. It’s accepting total responsibility and accountability. For the WS it’s the key to personal recovery. For the BS it’s the key in accepting (without condoning) what the WS did and – if reconciliation is the goal – creating a base to work from.

Then the author adds this one:

and rarely a healthy one.

“rarely”???

Is infidelity EVER a “healthy” decision?

It’s like stating someone recovered from a successful autopsy. It’s an excuse – a justification. And once we hang on to excuses and justifications we are no longer capable of being fully accountable. The KEY to both personal and relationship recovery.

No matter how bad your spouse. No matter how bad your marriage. The correct response is to create change or demand change. Both within the boundaries of the marriage. That boundary includes the demand that the marriage end. Although a threat should not be used as a reason to stay married, then a key-issue is that we value the marriage and think the benefits we are getting outweigh the compromises we unavoidably make.

But then… IMHO infidelity is never because of or due to the betrayed spouse. The moment we start saying “I cheated because my wife/husband didn’t turn me on” we are creating excuses and justification. The real issue should be “why did I need outside verification?”

Other than that;

I don’t care if someone is hypersexual, frigid or is into being wrapped in bacon and mayonnaise and whipped with weasels. Each his own. As long as the spouse is in acceptance. If one needs more intimacy than the other the solutions is to create change or demand change. As with a lot in marriage people compromise. That’s perfectly fine and something we do all the time.

I didn't say men were not judged.

I didn't say judgment of women was worse. I said it was different and that neither could understand the other's experience without the exposure. There are lots of things you can't understand until you experience them.

In fact, what you say here is exactly what I said or at least exactly what I was trying to get across:

To continue to go down that road, if you aren't a male you wouldn't know what it is like. If you have a son you soon will. Just like we don't know a woman's struggle. I would imagine we all have our own equivalency. Just neither is worse.

But, I was answering a question about women:

Do women really fear/dislike being titled as hyper sexual?

Think about where your social conditioning about your sexuality started - it started at a time of immaturity, not what is happening in our adult lives today.

Women are told from the time they are menstrating - all sorts of messaging. Your parents condition you to believe one thing, your peers another. Boys are taught to be "manly" - and the definitions of that are very rigid and I could see how they would be constricting. But, in school if you were sexually active noone was shaming you. You may have experienced shaming if you were a virgin, and while girls get that too in school, that isn't as condemning most of the time. It was expected, at least in my day and age.

I worry for the girls today. They feel they do have to be hypersexual, they feel they do have to send boys pictures and be little vixens. Their social conditioning on these matters will be much different than the conditioning of my generation.

Anyway, until you have dealt with the slurs and the shaming of what happened in those days, it's hard for a man to understand why that label is difficult. Yet, as a husband I am sure Doinbetter would love it if his wife is hypersexual, and I think that's where some of the misconceptions come from. Women are taught from a young age to suppress their sexuality, but when they get to marriage their spouse really would like the opposite. And, not all women have the same reaction to the social conditioning, there are a lot of other factors that can lead to the same results of suppression, in the fact there are more women than not that have had past sexual trauma of some sort.

No, we can't understand each other's differences in those regards, but yes we all have those things that we are working around. Different but I do believe equivalent is fair. I thought doinbetter's example of ageism was very apt, because until you fit into an age where that starts becoming true you would probably not understand the struggle of someone telling you about it.

No stop sign...

Kairos

Someone should invite Rachel Vorona Cote to this forum. No sarcasm intended; she would benefit from relational and realistic feedback not water down by pedantic drivel.

Not really wanting to bring politics here, but I don't think this woman is strong enough to stand up to ANY of the heavy hitter ladies on this side. I don't think she has the character to take the honesty that they'd give her. I'll go back to lurking.

Well, I do think women are judged for their own sexuality by society--and this very often includes other women. And perhaps the judgment is more intense for women, or maybe they just feel it/internalize it more.

That said, the author Rachel Verona Cote is mistakenly conflating infidelity with throwing off the yoke of society's judgment. As discussed on here already, these are simply not the same.

I did find RV Cote's article to be an eye-opening read though, because sad to say, I don't think the author's viewpoint is that rare at all amongst the WWs out in the world. (No, not amongst the posters here, but this is a small, self-selecting group. The poster who does come in with the attitude that Cote exhibited in her article is whacked pretty hard with 2x4s not only from the Betrayeds but also by the other Waywards on here.)

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 3:26 PM, March 17th (Tuesday)]

ALSO - I don’t see a modern narrative that pathologists adulterous women. I feel like we kind of celebrate them nowadays for their “ journey”.

Thank you for saying that. The "society narrative" has just completely changed here. Years ago, men cheating was excused because "he just needs it (sex) more, boys will be boys". And, unsurprisingly, men did plenty of cheating and exhibited all sorts of bad behaviors. Now, the script is flipped, a man cheating is a "man child without any self control" where a woman cheating is "finding herself" and "because of her husband". Of course, this isn't present everywhere (here, thank goodness, it's almost entirely absent) but, society still has an impact. You tell people (in so many words), "He cheats, his fault; she cheats, his fault" guess what? You get a lot of crappy behavior. Shocker, right?

Boys are taught to be "manly" - and the definitions of that are very rigid and I could see how they would be constricting. But, in school if you were sexually active noone was shaming you. You may have experienced shaming if you were a virgin, and while girls get that too in school, that isn't as condemning most of the time. It was expected, at least in my day and age.

And I think it will be the general story until there's some massive change in society. It's not sexism at work, it's not trying to "shame women" or "force men" or some other grand plan. It's simply biology at work, and it's been the case for pretty much all of recorded history. Sex is difficult to attain for many men (especially young men) and therefore valuable. Sex is difficult to resist (laughably easy to obtain) for many women and therefore the LACK of it is valuable. If that situation changes (sex is easy to get for men, hard for women) the narrative will change, and chaste men will be valued and experienced women will get "high fives".

Want to see this in practice? Obesity used to be highly valued because food was hard to come by. Those who could get enough food to become obese were "high status" people and were greatly desired. Now, the situation is reversed, food is abundant and the thing that's "hard to do" is resist the temptation to eat to much. Now, thin is the "status symbol" and desired. Want another? Being tan, in the past, was highly off putting to the opposite sex. It meant you worked in the fields and were "low class". So much so, that for a period of time, people powdered/painted their faces white to appear as "unblemished by the sun" as possible. Because, of course, it was rare to not have to work in the sun, therefore the lack of a tan was valuable and showed your status. Now, the situation is reversed, most of us work inside all day, and having a tan shows the world that you have the time to "work" on a tan in addition to your day job. It's showing the same thing, "status", it's just that status now is having the leisure time to get a tan rather than the being able to stay inside/out of the sun (which most of us can easily do now because work has changed so drastically).

It's not a conspiracy, it's supply and demand. The moment there's more "supply" of sex from women than "demand" for sex from men, the equation will reverse and then promiscuous women/chaste men will be valued because those will be the "rare" items that convey status.

That said.. Don't hold your breath. There are biological differences in sex drive, and, I just don't think we'll ever get to the point where the above situation plays out in practice. Who knows, I could be wrong, but from all history I've ever read, it's never been different. The easiest way to see this is by looking at sex for money; who's paying and who's paid. With very limited exception, it's always been men paying and women being paid (outside, of course, of same sex transactions). But that's your leading indicator, if you start to see that ratio go 50/50, or slanting towards women, you'll also start to see promiscuity valued in women and chastity valued in men.