Quote of the Day
Thirteen years ago, I wrote a blog post claiming that if someone in a monogamous relationship offers me sex, it’s not my responsibility to turn them down because they made a foolish promise to someone else. That’s between them, and I don’t think it’s my job to enforce their promises that had nothing to do with me. Predictably, I did not get a lot of support. Even in sex-positive communities, that sort of thing is frowned upon. Polyamorous communities, in particular, engage in a kind of respectability politics where everyone goes out of their way to talk about how great monogamy is and how we’re no threat to it at all, mostly as a bid for acceptance. So it was no surprise when, this morning, I asked the following question on Twitter:
A married couple has both agreed to strict monogamy. Idk why. Wife comes to me and asks me to give her oral sex, and not to tell Husband. I do it (and also encourage her to tell Husband). What I’ve done is:
The choices were very bad, kinda bad, not bad, and good. Over 80% said very or kinda bad. Less than 5% said good. When I’ve discussed this in the past, I’ve argued that people react this way because, even in nonmonogamous communities, we can’t shake the idea that monogamy is sacred. We give it a special privilege in our society, even though I think, for most couples, strict monogamy is outdated and harmful. A lot of people disagree with that as well, and claim that no no no, it’s not that monogamy is important, it’s that any agreements between couples are important, and we should respect and support all of them. I think that’s bullshit, so Last week, I asked Twitter the exact same question, but with one detail changed:
A married couple has both agreed that neither will give to charity. Idk why. Wife comes to me and hands me $1,000 cash, and says please send it to the Against Malaria Foundation, and not to tell Husband. I do it (and also encourage her to tell Husband).
The responses were reversed. Less than 30% said it was bad. 36% said it was actively good, and another 36% said not bad. These results strongly reinforce my view that most people’s discomfort with being, as they say, an “accomplice to cheating,” has little to do with holding all agreements sacred and everything to do with holding monogamy sacred.
Look, I have no problem with your monogamy agreement. Your kink is not my kind and that’s ok. I want you to make whatever agreements you want between yourself and any partners who are into it. But I am not in charge of enforcement. If you have a trad relationship and your wife isn’t supposed to be alone in a room with another man, I’m not going to leave the room if she walks in and strikes up a conversation. If you have a power exchange kink, and your wife isn’t allowed to earn money, I don’t recognize your authority to tell me I can’t hire her as my babysitter. So if your particular brand of power exchange involves giving each other control over your sexuality, that’s great for you! But I, personally, don’t value monogamy. I think it’s a mistake for most couples. And I think it’s a huge mistake to embrace it on a society-wide level. So I’m not going to take responsibility for enforcing an agreement that I don’t have positive feelings about.
If you disagree, that’s great, and I’m happy to talk about it. But I’m guessing your disagreement is about the value of monogamy, not about whether third parties should be expected to enforce relationship agreements in general. So let’s talk about the actual disagreement.
Wes, the Dadliest Catch @wfenza
Posted on X, July 15, 2025
I find this absolutely fascinating!
It points out a bias in people’s thinking that, for people with relatively similar world views, cannot see.
People cannot imagine they have a bias. But biases do exist. They are just blind to them. And it takes something akin to someone from an alternate reality to see them.
I have sort of a back log of alternate reality things I want to post about, and this is a perfect introduction to that. Here is a quick overview of what I have in mind.
For people who have been to Boomershoot, it is an alternate reality to anti-gun people living is a big city. Even most people who live in the city. Out in the middle of nowhere where the nearest stop sign is two miles away and the nearest stop light is 40 miles away there are bunch of people using KitchenAid mixers to create, literally, a ton of explosives. Then a bunch more people all start shooting at hundreds of boxes each filled with explosives.
A typical USPSA or other action shooting match is composed of dozens of people with guns strapped and tons of ammo on their belt running around and shooting at targets at insane speeds. The anti-gun people must have trouble even envisioning this in the abstract. And what are their thoughts on this? Do they imagine anything than these must be terrorists in training? Or perhaps next week’s active shooters?
Once you sort of have your mind around the concept, here is the twist. What can we do with this information?
In the cyber security world, we are constantly taught to beware of biases. What does some unusual network traffic mean? Is it just a year end upload of reports to the parent company? Or is it exfiltration of sensitive financial information to the dark web?
The fresh out of school analyst may have a bias toward hitting the big red button for the klaxon. After being on the job for a few months and being embarrassed a few time by the false alarms they may have a bias toward assuming it just something normal they have seen before.
When accounts payable gets an invoice, their natural instinct is to pay it just like the other thousand invoices they got in the last year. They have a bias toward normalcy.
The bad guys are aware of and exploit biases. The highly skilled good guys also are aware of and take advantage of biases in the bad guy thinking. I will not be giving examples of that.
Similar things happen in the engineering world. Something common place in one domain can be used to solve problems in a different domain because the people in the second domain have been doing things “the way we have always done them.” They cannot see what is blindingly obvious to someone from the first domain.
What about the photon versus wave properties of light? Only knowing one domain, how would you get your mind around the other property?
I have lots and lots of examples. I look forward to sharing them with you. Of course, you will probably end up thinking I’m even weirder and geekier than you already think I am.
S’arright, Joe; you have a useful kind of weird.
I say as I drink the first of the last camp coffee and harangue Scouts to get up and pack so we can go home.
Considering I’ve been reading you daily for something like 20+ years, no, I don’t think your pursuit of this line would affect my perception of your nature.
The cross-domain issue is an interesting counterpoint to the cognitive bias / fallacy, wherein those with authority / knowledge / fame in one area perceive themselves, and are perceived, as having expertise in another area. An example which comes to mind is Mark Ruffalo expounding about pretty much anything regarding economics or foreign policy. Closer to home, sometimes Bruce Schneier goes off the reservation.
In re. the question about biases, I’ve rejected advances from married women. I can’t think of a time when I’ve been confronted with the re-framed situation. What comes to mind is that the decision-making process, even when it seems simple on its face, is more complex than we perceive. Now I’m trying to remember the title of a good book on the subject.
I agree with the thinking of the “it’s not my responsibility to police or enforce your marriage vows” guy in general, but I think that’s an oversimplification that discounts human nature.
Jealousy is a thing and it can cause otherwise rational people to do irrational things. In the example given, it’s obvious that the husband in the monogamous relationship is committed to the relationship and considers the wife to be “his and his alone”. That usually is borne of love (or obsession, depending on your point of view).
So, when she cheats, he’s going to be hurt, angry and possibly looking to take that out on someone else. Is he likely to take it out on the person who he loves (or is obsessed with)?. Maybe, he’s certainly going to be angry with her, but in my experience, he’s way more likely to transfer any reaction to that anger to the unknown quantity for whom he has no personal feelings…except the anger and resentment caused by the “betrayal”.
So…my point is, although the unmarried man in this scenario may have no “moral” reason to feel guilt or remorse for assisting the wife in breaking her vows, he should have a real concern with what the fallout is going to be.
Personally, I don’t think the possibility of getting shot, or run off the road, or even having my tires slashed or my house vandalized, is worth the benefit of a quickie.
As they say, that’s the purpose of hookers…you pay them to go away afterword.
” he should have a real concern with . . the fallout ”
Simple mitigation of risk.
Hmmm, have most jurisdictions stopped prosecuting adultery? UCMJ has not.
UCMJ has a practical purpose for prosecuting adultery: as a secret, it becomes a blackmailable element, which compromises your security clearance. Works the same way as having off-the-book debts, or excessive on-the-book debts.
Generally, shows evidence of poor judgement and general inability to keep commitments.
Almost ready to leave camp.
” it becomes a blackmailable element ” if it remains a violation. Homosexuals used the same argument. You and I know how that played out.
Chesterton’s fence is asking why it was put up.
That’s only a small reason it’s banned under the UCMJ. Remember that the basis of the UCMJ isn’t “the Peace,” as in “an offence against the Peace” like civilian law. The UCMJ offenses are “against good order and discipline.”
If you bang a woman married to another soldier, that soldier may try to kill you. Sure, that’s a crime, but that’s not going to prevent it from happening. Your participation in infidelity has damaged good order and discipline. In order to give the soldier trying to kill you an option that doesn’t involve damaging good order and discipline, the UCMJ allows commanders to provide a form of justice and retribution short of people fighting and killing each other.
It’s the reverse of the argument for shooting deserters in the heat of battle. Ordinarily it would be murder to shoot your fellow soldiers. But if one of your soldiers starts to desert he could start a mass desertion, losing a battle. Good order and discipline means the soldiers remain obedient to lawful orders, so shooting the deserter to prevent a mass refusal to follow orders (mutiny) and a mass desertion is not a crime because it promotes rather than destroys good order and discipline.
exactly. And that’s why adultery is discouraged in overall society, at least in earlier times when prosperity wasn’t the default state.
“A married couple has both agreed that neither will eat ground beef. Idk why. Husband comes to me and hands me $20 cash, and says please get me a burger, and not to tell Wife. I do it (and also encourage him to tell Wife).”
Happens every day.
Reminds me of an old joke:
How do you keep the Mormon you invited to the barbeque from drinking all your beer?
Invite another Mormon.
Even the legal world acknowledges Tortious Interference. It is when you commit a tort (a wrongful act) that causes the breach of a contract you are aware of but aren’t a part of.
This is tortious interference with the monogamy agreement by fraud. No one should be friends with someone who holds the agreements of others in such contempt. This sounds more like the behavior of a selfish sociopath.
^^^ This.
Agreed. It is pure selfishness and willful blindness to not see the obvious problem. An analogy:
You are cheap, so you keep using your chewing gum for a month. You take it out every night, stick it to a spoon on your nightstand, and pop it back in the chew the next morning, repeat for 30 days. Yeah, strange, but not really gross, and it doesn’t affect anyone else.
Compare that to chewing a wad of gum that has been chewed by a different person every day for a month, not all of which are guaranteed to be disease-free or have perfect oral hygiene. Yeah, now that’s gross and potentially a major health problem.
Assisting someone in breaking the most foundational life contracts they will ever makes with a third party is a major violation against civil order, and should be subject to both social and legal sanctions IMHO. Contract-breaking should only be condoned under the narrowest of circumstances.
The comparison to charity isn’t taking into account the WHY they have agreed to not give to charity; there may be good reasons for it at that time, and doing so will cause major domestic chaos.
The guy who wrote the multi-paragraph essay attempting to justify his desire to fuck everyone’s wives is a douche. I wouldn’t trust him to watch my dog, much less to be in the same room with any woman. He should probably get checked for psychopathy.
“My husband must never know I’m banging you.”
Then get the fuck away from me. Unsubscribe me from your issues.
He sounds like a fence trying to justify his possession of stolen goods by saying “I wasn’t the one who stole this stuff, why are you bothering me?”
Regarding the adultery – I’ve always figured that the person who ‘owes’ some version of loyalty would have liability for violating it. Hence the partner who cheats has violated the trust. The stranger they cheat with had no trust to violate. The non stranger – i.e. a friend – who they cheated with is another thing. As a friend they had some level of trust that they then violated.
Re: Differing points of bias. I see this often when people from areas with limited water supplies think that level of water conservation is the norm and need be applied to areas where the majority of water simply flows to the sea. Nope. You live in a desert, other people don’t need to dry wash their car.
Here’s an example of someone that respects the compact of another, even though he is the “stranger” that has no obligation.
Sorry, HTML image tags don’t embed, or I did it wrong.
Dude went above and beyond there.
And just to be clear – my reasoning wasn’t thought through so I could justify my own acts.
In actuality, I reasoned that through as a means to talk myself out of visiting violence upon a ‘stranger’ who didn’t owe me anything.
Dude was a bro.
Dump the ho, take the bro out to the bar.
Respect.
Why is monomamy the cultural norm in most of the world, and has been for centuries? “Momma’s baby, Daddy’s maybe”. Even in cultures where monogomy isn’t practiced, fidelity of the female partner is culturaly mandated for that reason. It’s not a “kink” or a “power exchange”, it’s the male trying to ensure that the children he is using his limited resources to raise are biologically his.
So it’s not really a bias, just as valuing the ability to own the best weapon to protect yourself that you can have. Neither are a “bias”, they’re survival traits.
Now…as who is to blame if one partner in a monogomous relationship cheats on the other? Absolutely the cheating partner, and possibly the person they cheated with IF that person had ANY relationship with the other partner/spouse. If they don’t, then they didn’t betray anyones trust.
Does that mean the “third party” is a wonderfull and morally upstanding person? No.
People are not generally rational. And few things make people as IRRATIONAL as sex.
People sure will go through a lot of mental gymnastics to justify/rationalize doing what they WANT, as opposed to doing what they know is right.
It occurs to me that if you knew the missing thousand dollars from their joint account would likely lead to a domino effect destroying the couple’s life and/or marriage, you’d be a lot less likely to think accepting the money was ‘good.’ It also occurs to me that this is a much closer analogy.
This has been a really good comment thread.
Some people brought up some good points I’d not thought of, or thought through.
Thanks.
I don’t think it’s your responsibility to enforce someone else’s vows/relationship parameters.
I do think you have some responsibility for knowingly inserting yourself (no pun intended) into the situation.
I would also say this. If you’re ever in that situation, you will probably be told a lot of things. Those may not be true, or to the extent they are true, they are most likely a heavily distorted (and one-sided) version of whatever is really going on.
The situation is also inherently unstable so you’d better not catch feelings because sooner or later she’s going to pick one or the other & that might not be you.
Depending on the exact situation, it might not be the absolute worst thing in the world. There are a lot of valuable lessons to be gleaned from it. Still, no matter how you slice it, in the end it sucks for everyone and there’s a better-that-even chance she’s using you.
Not that I would have any experience with this. Ahem.
In love with your own thoughts is what you sound like.