dunno man, I think that's assuming a pretty liberated view of how "most" people view relationships. I suspect your views - & those of people likely to post here in general - might suffer from a selection bias, i.e. younger (raver dad phenomenon aside) and more liberal (or radical, as the case may be) in terms of social outlook or cultural values or whatever you want to call it. like, lots of the people I know have likely participated in open or at least are pretty open to the idea (both in a hooking up sense &/or in a more explicit rejecting monogamy sense), as well as to more nuanced outlooks on sexuality, gender, etc. but I would hardly extrapolate from that to the population at large.
Well yeah, maybe - but then, I'm talking about the people I know and the people I'm likely to meet through those people. Young(ish), mainly educated, people, in London, in 2010. If you want to start talking about *everyone*, well hell, plenty of people think marriage is a sacred covenant sworn before God and that sexual activity outside that context is a heinous sin. Too bad for them, I guess. I was just trying to counter nomad's assertion that all straight men (or "most men" or "a lot of men", or whatever, since I pulled her up on "men [period]") secretly think they have the God-given right to go around sticking their cock here, there and everywhere but would throw a fit if they thought their gf/wife was so much as looking at another man. I mean sure, there are still some sexist old-fashioned dickheads who think like that, but I hardly think it's indicative of the prevailing attitude these days.
the idea of a contract, I dunno, surely that's not how relationships work, they're so sticky and tangled up. there are all kinds of complicating factors that prevent people from "just walking out".
Well yes, of course there are! These are the emotional ties that are the
sine qua non of any long-term relationship - even an open one - aren't they? The kind of ties that generally aren't present, by definition, in a casual short-term fling, no matter how much 'chemistry' and great sex there may be. That's the difference I was talking about above; the difference nomad, for reasons best known to herself, would like to pretend doesn't exist. The kind of ties that, most of the time, mean you don't dump your partner of however many years because they did something that slightly annoyed you, because (shock horror) there is more to the relationship than having someone you can fuck at your convenience.
(To be clear, I'm talking still about young (for some value of 'young') people here, so I don't mean "complicating factors" like kids or shared ownership of a house.)
I do agree that women can be just as jealous as men when fidelity is expected. however, there are still enormous double standards for cheating. when men do it, it's always about betraying the family, or possibly being a jerk, but there's also a kind of admiration, as in that dude can pull or whatever. when women do it they're, yunno, sluts or whatever analogous term you want to toss in there. that double standard is much mored distasteful than (healthy) monogomous relationships.
Again, I think that would depend on what kind of social milieu you're talking about. Among people I know, I don't think a guy doing this would get any more of a lenient treatment than a woman doing the same thing, and I certainly can't imagine there being much "admiration" for the "achievement" of cheating on his girlfriend. Though you're probably right that there are still plenty of people who think like that, I guess.
