As promised, back to the good ol' sex topic. Sex is one of our favourite things, and so it definitely should be talked about as often as possible. For women, the ability to talk about sex has often been in the abstract - for example, in discussing the characters sex lives on Sex and the City, or chatting about their own friends sex lives while carefully leaving their own out of it. For men, they are more than happy to talk about the physical aspects of it, especially involving themselves; but rarely put it in any other context: i.e, what does it mean?
So today, I am going to talk about sex from a purely relationship standpoint, and what exactly constitutes sex for it to be considered cheating. I will leave out concepts of emotional cheating, but I do hope to address them in the future. I will also assume that cheating in the context of a relationship is a bad thing and I am not considering people who may have "alternative" lifestyles: i.e. swingers, polygamous, multiamourous, and others.
Everything of a physical sexual nature is cheating: This school of thought flows from the current cultural view that your spouse should be your one and only and that said spouse should be able to meet your sexual needs. It means that while, say, fantasizing about kissing someone is OK, actually kissing someone is not.
This line is very easy to define, which may be why it is popular. Hugging someone is OK. Kissing them on the cheek is OK. Kissing them on the mouth is not, groping someone is not, any oral, vaginal, anal, digital sex is not OK. Talking dirty on the phone is cheating. Talking dirty on the computer (to someone else) is cheating. Paying for a prostitute is cheating. Going to watch strippers is inappropriate and shouldn't be done, but as long as you are just going with your friends for a pre-wedding party or boys/girls night out party and you sit in the back, it's not cheating.
Flirting, in this line of thought, is cheating. If you are in a committed relationship, then you should not be flirting with others. the only real grey areas in this package are things like one on one non-physical contact with others. This means that some people may consider it cheating to go for supper with someone of the opposite sex cheating, regardless of purpose (that is to say, if it is a business supper, there should be more than 2 people there). This can be grey because there are some work situations where those situations are unavoidable; but the main thought is that the person should not be putting themselves in the position where something could happen.
Only genital penetrative sex is cheating: At the other extreme, we have people who genuinely believe that only if a penis goes into a vagina (or, if gay, a penis goes into an anus; if lesbian, if a finger or tongue goes into a vagina) can it be considered cheating. Everything else, while it may not be appropriate, is not cheating. Instead, it's comparable to using the partner's credit card without asking.
This line is also clear, and may be why some people like it. Reference has to be given to Bill Clinton and his " I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky", comment, and how he justified it later by saying that oral sex is not sex. This attitude was expounded by articles published in Oprah's magazine, among others, maintaining that kids today have oral sex all the time and do not consider it sex. (Here, I will take leave to point out that I really think those articles were flawed and inaccurate, at best).
This line of thought is held often because people who hold it believe that it is an accurate depiction of human sexual behaviour. People flirt all the time, they may kiss, they feel each other up, but it is not sex. They may still feel that such behaviour is inappropriate, but not wrong, not cheating. Cheating is a breakupable offense; those other actions are not. Getting or giving a blow job or eating or being eaten is not cheating, and hand job or getting fingered (if straight) is not cheating, phone sex is not cheating, cybersex is not cheating.
What I think: The thing that always strikes me about this topic is that people always seem to have two sets of rules. One set for themselves and one set for their partners. They may think, for themselves, that oral sex with someone is not sex; but for their partners, kissing someone is. I have also noticed that the men and women have different definitions for men and women. As an example, men tend to consider receiving oral sex not cheating for men, but women giving it is cheating. Women tend to see it the other way: a man getting oral sex is cheating but women giving it is not. The best definition that I have come up with, for men and women, is pants. If the pants stay on, done up, and nothing outside goes in them, then it's not cheating. Inappropriate and still worthy of a good discussion, yes, but not cheating. On the other hand, oral sex of any kind is cheating, anal sex of any kind is cheating, digital sex is cheating, but kissing someone, rubbing them outside their clothes, or sucking on nipples is not sex. Cyber sex I don't really think is cheating because you really don't know who is out there; phone sex is because you do know who you are talking to (but probably not that big a deal). Strippers, male or female, whatever happens there (subject to the aforementioned pants rule in place) is not cheating. Any financial transaction related to the action lessens the "cheating" impact. It does not remove it: paying for sex is still cheating.
How I relate: My wife and I talk about this often, because it is a fun thing to talk about; and that was where I really noticed the different rules for men and women. From conversations with my own friends (and some people would even consider talking about sex like that to be inappropriate) I noticed it more. I haven't has a chance to talk as much with my gay friends about it, but I have thought that because it is so difficult for some people to come out of the closet that their rules must be different.
The other part of how I relate is, of course, personal actions. I have kissed other people since I've been with my wife, and so has she; we've both been in some "touchy" situations. What is important about those things is that we have talked about them - communicated and dealt with why we both did what we did. I truly believe alcohol lessens the impact of the actions, because many people do things that they wouldn't do when sober - present company included, but I try to watch that more now. Like any situation, it is important to set ground rules out. communicate them, and recognize that things change over time. Maybe when you were 18 you had one idea of what cheating was, but when you were 60 you had a different idea altogether.
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