The problem I have is that I agree you shouldn’t “need” titillation from another person. I do think that if your partner has a problem with you viewing people of the opposite sex nude be it live, on video or in a magazine, then it IS disrespectful to do it anyway. But I find that to be a far cry from “cheating”. That is unless the terms of what you have agreed to include “I will not look at other people naked.” If you make that agreement and break it, you are cheating. but I don’t feel that becoming sexually aroused by viewing something that should be a turn on to you as a human being, be it intentional or unintentional is the same as cheating. Cheating is “not playing by the rules”, and unless you set up rules that say “what is normal human sexual response is to be repressed” then it doesn’t meet the definition of “cheating”. I believe you can “repress” anything, but I think “not being run by your sexual desires” is a completely different thing from not even having them. Even you, @Kokoro say, “when I’m in a relationship I do not even allow myself to be turned on by anyone else”...you say it’s like a switch, that just turns off, but you’re basically saying you’re not allowing yourself to “go there”. It seems to me that by saying you forget about it after a few minutes, you’re saying much the same thing that I am…it’s not as if you no longer possess a natural human sexual response, you simply choose to repress it when you notice it.
It seems to me the only difference then between someone who represses the urges to ACT on one’s natural human desires, and someone who represses the actual thought process which occurs when one’s natural sexual response is activated is somewhat academic. It seems to me that if neither you nor your significant other believes that intellectually acknowledging one’s instincts is not the same as putting one’s instincts into action, then one is still playing by the rules if one watches strippers at one’s bachelor(ette) party as it’s not breaking the rules.
In short, it’s cheating if your SO thinks it’s cheating. So if you were dating @Dibley, @bigboss, @Kokoro, @stranger_in_a_strange_land, @faye, @Facade, @Morgan1 or @hungryhungryhortence, then it WOULD be cheating, but if you were dating me, @augustlan, @TheJoker, @gemiwing, @Jewel, @essieness, @Simone_De_Beauvoir, or @jonsblond, then it would NOT be cheating, because for the former group it would breaking the established rules but for the later it would not, and cheating = breaking rules, that’s the definition.
