Glory

I can honestly tell you that I would be very upset if my husband wanted to spend time with another woman. What they did while together is not as important as how he feels about being with her. If he had sex with her but that was it, I think I'd get over it. If he was cuddling with her or making dinner for her, or rubbing her feet, that would piss me off. His body is just a body. I want his mind. I want his love and I am much more jealous of that than I am his body. In fact I am very jealous of his love. I need to be the one he wants to curl up on the couch with and watch a movie. I need to be the one he wants to call first when he has good news and I need to be the one he turns to when he's having a bad day. I need to share his life. His penis is far less important.

Of course, sex with him is important to me and don't want him to go have sex with other women. It's just that there are worse ways to cheat on me.

Glory

luvluv

I think it's true that most lovers would consider emotional infidelity more of a betrayal than purely physical infidelity, but any of those activities could be without emotional involvement just as easily as sex could. He could, after all, rub a woman's feet or curl up on a couch with her without any emotional involvement as well.

But if we take all actions a person is capable of, and remove them of any emotional involvement, what is the one physical action you would least want your significant other to engage in? If there were no emotions involved in the act, would you rather your husband rubbed another woman's feet or had sex with her?

In other words, which acts are you intrinsically more emotional about, if your partner's emotional state is removed from the argument?

luvluv

Jamie-L:

That's only true if the people who can engage in sex-without-love are having sex with other people who can ALSO engage in sex-without-love, and both parties understand that no emotional involvement is intended.

Further, if this sex-without-love ability is a genetic or biological product, are these persons capable of having emotional involvement intertwined with the sex act?

[ November 16, 2002: Message edited by: luvluv ]</p>

Glory

That's what I have been trying to tell you. There is no one activity to which I attach greater emotional signifigance. I attach signifgance to the emotions which lead to behaviour. If the behaviour is the result of lust, my reaction is going to be milder than my reaction to behaviour which is the result of affection. The behaviours themselves are not signifigant in their own right.

Glory

luvluv

So as long as no emotions were involved, you wouldn't care if your husband had sex with your sister or he had dinner with her?

Glory

Why is it so hard for you to entertain the notion that all people are different? There is no hard and fast rule that applies to everyone. Also, you have again discounted individual experience as part of the forces which make up one's sexual identity. Not everything is determined by genes and biological responses can be caused by external forces. The recipe is different for each of us hence there is no universal rule governing sexual emotional response. I respond how I respond and do not expect others to respond simmilarly or think that they should do.

You seem to think I put the cart before the horse. That I go about deciding how I will respond to each and every thing I encounter. That is not the case. I cannot control my emotions. I can control my actions. I try to make decisions which maximise the probability of my encountering things and situations which will make me happy. I don't decide how I will respond to each sexual encounter I have. I decide to which sexual encounters I am likely to respond well, and pursue those.

Glory

Glory

I suppose not. I think the likely hood of there being no emotions involved in that scenario are very slim, but under that stipulation, no, it wouldn't bother me, provided there was birth control involved. Why should it?

Glory

luvluv

Glory:

That's because I was talking to Jamie L., and she (he?) said that he(she?) thought that the ability to have sex without emotional involvement was probably mostly genetic.

luvluv

Glory:

So your husband is free to have sex with anyone he wants, so long as no emotions are involved? Does he know this?

Glory

Yes. He also knows just how important that stipulation of emotional detachment is.

Glory