Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex - Is it Cheating? Depends.

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

What defines cheating, and where do we draw the line? In this episode, we unzip the nuanced world of relationships, exploring how communication, honesty, and personal boundaries shape our understanding of fidelity. From flirting and emotional connections to the impact of technology and dating apps, we dissect the complex dynamics that influence trust and transparency between partners. You'll hear insights on identifying emotional baggage, the pitfalls of lying by omission, and why "calibration conversations" (a phrase Charlie coins) can help couples navigate evolving expectations. Whether it's tackling the challenges of meeting up with an ex or the ethical use of non-monogamy labels, this episode offers practical advice for fostering healthier, more honest relationships. Tune in for a candid discussion that blends real-life scenarios with expert guidance—and learn how to create a stronger foundation of trust with your partner. Have your own question or a topic idea for the show? Submit them via the links below, and join the movement to unzip taboos around sex and sexuality! If you have a story, thoughts and/or a topic or question for Dr. Sue and Charlie please share your ideas here:  ⁠Show suggestions If you want to ask Dr Sue a sex question for the weekly Q&A you can submit it here: Ask a question

Hey everyone, welcome to Unzipping Taboos, candid conversations about sex with Dr. Sue and Charlie. We're here to dive into the topics of sex and sexuality that you might be curious about, but don't always feel comfortable talking about. No judgment, just open, honest conversations. So zip down and let's get candid today. I'm excited about today's episode. Today we're going to talk about, we're going to unzip what is cheating. So, but before we do that and all those nuances, I'm here with Dr. Sue. Hey, Dr. Sue. Hey, Charlie. I don't think we're supposed to be laughing this early into the show but hey charlie hi would you like to tell our listeners a little bit about

yourself before we get started sure so um i have a phd in human sexuality education and for a good chunk of my career i've been teaching in academia and actually this ties into a class that i used to teach about the graduate and undergraduate level on sex and technology because cheating comes up a lot there. So I primarily worked in academia, but I've also been working for a good stretch of time out in, I'm going to call it the real world. I didn't realize how much I refer to academia as the non-real world, but I work in the real world. So I do live events, I do presentations, I do all sorts of stuff, trainings for healthcare workers. But this issue of cheating is definitely that one that comes up just about everywhere even when I don't plan on

it coming up a lot of times it's come up um but I've also done some posts on this in the past we're not going to link to it because that'd be way too many links um but this is this is not a new topic and it's also not technology dependent and I feel like I want to say that because I am I think we are both old enough to remember the time before technology and this was still an issue. It just presents a little differently with technology. But yeah, so that's me. For those of you who are not familiar with Charlie, and you should be if you've heard the show before, and if you haven't, if today's your first time, welcome. But Charlie is our curious co-host who is always ready to explore the ins and outs of sex, relationships, and all those other taboo

topics that we very rarely talk about, but talk about all the time on the show. Charlie, you want to tell us a little bit more about yourself? Sure. Dr. Sue and I have been friends for many years and we talk about all sorts of subjects. And by virtue of her career, a lot of them center around sex and relationships and sexuality. So I also am someone who enjoys challenging taboos and what society and communities kind of expect of me being a woman in in this world. and i also find human behavior fascinating so this kind of this today is going to be fun for me who would have thought that the subject of cheating would be described as fun right it'll at least be interesting that that we can almost guarantee yes and by fun i mean fascinating

and the nuances of it all yeah because we are talking about human behavior yeah and for those of you who are waiting for an answer of like this is cheating and this is not it's probably not gonna happen so let me burst that bubble super fast spoiler alert yeah and I feel like a lot of my posts when I do my stuff on um on my social media it's there's there's usually like an answer and then I give the explanation and on this one it's like no yeah it depends it really does so if you're looking for an answer to either prove your behavior was okay or not, or to try to like ding your partner and be like, see, people say this is cheating. It's, it's probably not going to happen today. And I'm just wanting to throw that out there. Pardon me. I just took a sip of

coffee. Sorry. Bad timing. All right. So is it cheating, Dr. Sue? Is what cheating? We didn't even talk about a behavior yet you're already putting me on the spot is what cheating I think that's that's the best question to lead up is what cheating yeah um so where where shall we begin our adventure today's adventure let's start with the things I think most people do agree is cheating because I think that list might be easier based on past order yes it is um I think anything physical with someone without your partner's consent that's always the thing like that when when i start talking to people it's always that line maybe not the way i'm phrasing it um but what it really boils down to is any kind of physical contact without the partner's

knowledge and consent um because when we talk about things like open relationships that is with the partner's consent so there's it's not cheating because it's with the partner's consent and it's funny because i'll say like is kissing another person cheating and then it's funny then you get into what kind of kissing exactly like is it tongue kissing is it mouth kissing is it you know a lot on the cheek right like a lot of my friends like kiss family you know coming from new york you would kiss family on the cheek like that's how you greeted each other and i'm like that's you know that's not what i'm talking about um but for a lot of people it's like well if it stop short of penetration and it doesn't count and i think most of us agree actually that physical

contact like that would count penetration or part of someone other than your partner without your partner's knowledge or consent would count yes i think we can agree on most of those uh for the purposes of this episode and then just also personally yes i agree on that baseline all right so there we go you have a starting line everything else i think is like gray area right and that's where it becomes complicated and technology has made it even more complicated um but but i think we need to talk about the flirting thing because i know we were talking about this yeah before we um sorry sorry folks my phone my voice i'm still getting over a cold so my voice is a little in and out of a search sound like i'm going through puberty

episode um the the flirting thing of whether or not flirting counts as cheating and I had a I had a I had a person it wasn't a couple I had a person in one of my classes who was like it depends on the reason and I was I'm never really sure to expect with a statement like that and they were like if my partner is cheating with the host or hostess at a restaurant to get us a table faster I'm totally cool with that cheating or flirting sorry flirting is it wait I got confused in my language if they were flirting is it cheating sorry yeah um and but my point is that that is that that's with your knowledge because you know why they're doing it they're doing it for you and you're watching it happen so that kind of it kind of you you know why so it crosses that boundary of

of knowledge um so do we want to start with flirting okay okay is it cheating is it flirting or friendly right and that's the other place that gets confusing yeah um I well right that's the that's the layer now it's on you right flirting so for me my what I constitute as flirting is engaging in behavior that is leading to some kind of intimate interaction relationship like there's a there's a it's like the first step of getting to go on dates with this person or whatever um and then just being friendly and engaging to me is not flirting. And so this is, this is a little bit of a sore spot for me because I out, out in the wild, out in the real world, I tend to be a friendly person. And I have been in relationships

where I were out to dinner and I'm engaging with our server. There's nothing in my, in my mind or my motivation that is flirtatious but my partner the person I'm on a date with you're flirting with them right no I'm not I'm they're a human who is being kind and serving us yes that's their job but still they're human they're more than just a plate runner right so so this I get a little so that's why for me flirting is very specific flirting is a tactic to engage with someone further um for physical touch intimate connection etc that's what it is for me so it's the intent yes right if the intent is the intent is to build something outside of or past this this one interaction that's one thing if it's the if the intent is just to be friendly nice kind human

being especially having worked as a server when a lot of the other people you're probably interacting with treat you like part of the furniture um yeah okay so for you okay that's fair how about you i have to think about this it's hard it's hard that people can't see that we're actually thinking about things this is my thinking face but you can't see anything um i think your descriptions yeah no please dr sue looks pensively off to the right um i i think i would agree i think it's the intent of why they're doing it and some people do naturally flirt again i don't know if it would fit your description and how you said it but they are just generally like making people feel comfortable and that's how they communicate

um so i think i would probably follow a lot of what you said it's for me it would also be the intent like is the intent that you were going to go hook up with this person in the bathroom or like you're just trying to be a decent human to someone who's probably been mistreated during their entire shift right so so yeah I think that would be also if it's happening in front of me I would and I'm feeling uncomfortable I think I would have to check myself on why yeah if now if this is happening and I can't see it and I'm hearing stories about it or like I walk in and watch it happening like that would make me a little more uncomfortable but again that's a me issue um so yeah yeah i think i probably follow your lead that's the intent okay there we go we

did solve it yay there's your answer thank you for tuning in until next time um so let's get to where it becomes a little more complicated with the use of technology okay i don't even know where to start with this because it can become super complicated with technology really fast so i let's start with dating apps because i feel like that might be the smartest place to start i don't know why i said smartest or the easiest most intuitive sure um if if a person is dating someone and still has a dating app on their phone is that cheating so this is where where i add qualifiers if it's on their phone when was the last time they accessed the app if it's on their phone and they've accessed the app how long has their

profile been in have they made their profile inactive um if they haven't made their profile inactive how often are they on the app and is it if i met this person through the through that app or any other app have we had a conversation about deactivating our profiles and and not engaging with those profiles so depends that's going to be the answer of the day it's interesting because because and so I have these conversations with my students and it blows their minds that like not everybody thinks the same way they do because it's kind of still where their brains are um and yeah it's a it's a learning and growing time um for some of them it's like the argument is well how do you not know what's on your phone and i'm like no you know if you haven't used your

app and it's in a folder like you're being creative one day and put all your stuff in folders i don't know how so i know some people are very like methodical and how they put their apps in their phone um but there are lots of apps i'm sure on my phone right now that have nothing to do with dating that I completely forgot I have on my phone. So I think there are some qualifiers there as well. I think if someone is active on a dating app, it depends on why they're doing it. So if they're dating someone and they're still active on the app and there haven't been any conversations about it, and that's what it's going to come back to. It's going to come back to communication. Right. It could be that they're seeking validation that they want to know that

people like them and that's it like I just I don't feel good about my body I don't feel good about myself but I go on and like 10 people liked me and that's all I need to see to feel better about myself I think that would be I don't know if I would consider that cheating unless we've had a conversation about it but I think it's important to keep in mind that people do go on to dating apps with no intention of dating that they're they're getting something else they're getting that they're getting that validation that they want um or that they need through this dating app and they never have a plan of taking any of these like not even starting conversations not even swiping i don't up down left right i don't even know anymore um sometimes my age is very

apparent um but but i think that some you know there there may never be a connection other than i gotta like and that may be all they need and i don't think i consider that cheating but and i don't even know if the person would be able to verbalize that like i'm looking at that behavior as an outsider but also being in that moment it may feel very different yeah because if you if if this person is in a relationship and their partner find finds that out because we don't have conversations about what we each consider cheating when we go into a relationship not at least not many of us do um if you're going to date me be prepared to have all these conversations um and so the partner finds it and and the person who's engaging with this

validation seeking behavior how do you explain i just i i want to feel attractive and that i am desirable and then that becomes well i find you attractive and desirable is is is me finding you that way is that not enough yeah yeah so it yeah it can get can get tricky yeah and there was a couple of court cases um that we're looking at that we're trying to use the presence of a dating app on a phone as proof of cheating for divorce and there was a whole lot of privacy issues that come this is why i'm not a lawyer there are a whole lot of privacy issues that came up with it um but it's it's just like having it as some kind of intent where it may not be it it really may not be so um it's not i think we i think in order to understand if it's cheating

or not you have to understand your own crap but you also have to understand like and when i say crap just your baggage um because you may feel threatened that they still have it on the phone and it's easier to attack the other person and say what are you doing why you're on that app rather than why am i having a huge reaction to finding this and then the interesting question for me is how did you find it so like yeah if you're going through my phone and i didn't give you permission to do that now we've got some real issues um about trusting communication so well that's the other thing i think is to to unpack your own quote crap end quote for a scientific term i know i need to stop doing that sounds like it's from academia

um but there can be a a lot of fear associated with either that discovery or your partner admitting to what what they're engaging with because you can also think well it's a slippery slope like what if we have a fight one night and you're you're looking for that validation that you're still attractive and desirable and engaging and then you connect with somebody because of our fight you're like well fuck it i'm i'm gonna message somebody this time you know so there's a fear of slippery slope there's a fear of any kind of being triggered by your previous relationships maybe you were cheated on in the past or discovered things in the past that led to the dissolution of that relationship so it can trigger a lot of a lot of things for a

lot of people yeah and I think it's hard because most people in the moment aren't that self-aware and and on either side like the people who still stay on dating apps because they want that validation I don't think most of them could actually verbalize that most people aren't gonna they're just like oh I just kind of go on the app and they're not gonna be like and then I feel better about myself and it changes how I interact with a I just I don't think a lot of people have that self-awareness which is normal and I think for a lot of people like you said there's so much baggage that goes into it about like I've been cheated on before this is how it started now I'm finding this on your phone and instead of like having a conversation with you

I'm having the conversation from three years ago with my past partner like I'm I'm still having that argument even though it's I'm talking to you now um so I do think that it can feel it can feel like boundaries are violated and all of this could have been solved with with communication ahead of time but if if Woody had gone straight to the police none of this would have happened um I just dated myself very badly sorry folks um so yeah I think it really does depend on the intent and so I I'm going to talk about Ashley Madison for a minute if that's absolutely yeah so for those of you aren't familiar with Ashley Madison although now that the documentary came out on Netflix I feel like more people are aware of Ashley Madison um Ashley Madison is a site where folks can go on

it it says that it's really designed for people who are already in relationships to cheat but it's there are folks who are using it who are not in relationships but don't want to how do i phrase this um they don't want to get in relationships so they find someone they can hook up with who's never going to want to be in a bigger relationship and someone who's married is probably not going to want a bigger relationship and i don't know how much the data has changed recently but it used to be that the number one day for women to use the site was the day after valentine's day because it makes me chuckle right because they were pissed they were pissed at their partner their partner didn't do enough for this made-up holiday there's my baggage um for this

for this made-up holiday and they're angry at their partner so they go on there and they may never do anything else than just go on the site and see what's out there um but it's it speaks to that that idea that sometimes that outside validation is really important even though there's no thoughts of taking it further than that yeah so where do we go now i i think one thing that a thought that popped up is i think we have some assumptions with this conversation as far as people wanting to be good and just and fair and transparent in their relationships i i would offer that there are people who enjoy cheating oh yeah yeah i just i want to call that that behavior out too because

you know sometimes we record these episodes and we think oh we we did it from this perspective yeah we assumed a lot of goodwill yeah yeah and there are people who are addicted to that that piece of of interpersonal um behavior yeah i mean you can is that taboo of cheating yeah and if you get online i mean onto some of the dating apps like people will be really straightforward and honest and be like I'm in a miserable relationship and I'm looking to hook up I don't think there's any question though on that whether or not that's cheating I think that's pretty yeah it's pretty quiet and cut and dry cheating but there are folks who are doing that and there were folks and I just want to point this out I know this isn't about technology specifically but a lot of what I get

is like oh technology has made things so much worse I'm like people cheated before technology like people would take off their rings and go to bars and meet people and lie um so it's not the technology but yeah i i think that we could cut and dry so see we did give a straight answer yay that is cheating um but again it comes down to like without partners knowledge or consent so yeah and i think to that um that comment of technology makes it so much harder I think if we really unpack a lot of what people mean, or what a lot of people mean with that sentiment, is that it's so readily available now. The access to people, the access to dating, and so it's made this net a lot wider. so you can cast a wide net and then there are it's just made the levels of bullshit

you have to sift through thicker because you know we we talked a little bit about ethical non-monogamy a couple of episodes ago and with the prevalent or the more socialization of that relationship construct there are people on these apps that will name that enm that they're involved in enm when really either they don't know what enm is because they haven't done the work to figure it out if it's something they're interested in or they're using it to get people who are comfortable with enm to engage with them but their partner doesn't know that they are in a non-monogamous relationship i took the e out of it because if your partner doesn't know then it's not ethical yeah and i think i think that's that's where it can get a bit more

confusing like i know my friends who are in dating apps are always like yeah chuckle chuckle this person says they're into enm and they're lying um and i think that that hurts the reputation of ethical non-monogamy and open relationships in poly because there are people out there who are claiming that they're doing it, and they're not. They're just cheating. So I do think that, oh, sorry, my voice just came back.

I do think that that can kind of make it harder for the general population to understand these alternate relationship types because it does damage to them. And the thing is, like, it's really interesting. I had heard some researchers talking about this and saying that folks who are legitimately in ethical non-monogamous open relationships poly and we do we do have an episode where we talk about all those different types of relationships

how they're meeting distrust online and I'm like because for every and in my mind as I'm listening to these researchers talk I'm thinking well for every person who says they're in an ethical non-monogamy open poly relationship there's five people who are saying it who really aren't right And so that's why there's this distrust. Yeah. Yeah. But again, I don't think we can blame technology. Technology has made it easier.

And especially if you're living in a small town, it's definitely made it easier to meet different people from different spaces. But cheating was here before technology. And I don't think that having a website like Ashley Madison or having dating apps makes someone more likely. If you're going to cheat, you're going to cheat. that's kind of my feeling is that if you're going to cheat you're going to cheat if that's your personality and that's what you're going to do and those are the boundaries you're going to cross you're going to do it rather whether you're doing it through an app or doing it you know meeting people in person or whatever traveling for work and hooking up with a co-worker

like you're going to do it no matter what having it readily available doesn't change your value system that's kind of I guess what we're going into yeah well and if you're going to cheat you're going to cheat that also means well maybe you don't think what you're doing is cheating but you're now with a partner who thinks that what you're doing is cheating so um there is again another thought popped up in my mind um go for it married people engaging with non-married people if the married person is in a marriage where we'll assume we'll assume the the baseline um of well i don't even know what the anyway um a married person has given vows to be monogamous

to be there for their their spouse then they start engaging with a single person one of the married one of the married one of the spouses engages with a single person without their spouse knowing okay is it the single person's responsibility to make the married person uphold their vows oh god no you're not responsible i don't think let me own these statements i don't think you're responsible for someone else's behavior or promises or promises yeah and that's assuming that the single person knew like that that as well yeah yeah that's always my big thing when and and it is one of the things that drives me a bit batty when i hear some of these stories like I unfortunately have a lot of friends who've been cheated on um and they get

married they get angry at the other person like what like not their partner but like the person their partner was seeing and they call them a homewrecker and all sorts of words I don't want to say because they're just not nice words and so they they they and I don't know why it's easier for them to go after that other person unless they're thinking I can solve I can save my relationship with my partner and so i'm going to attack i'm angry i'm going to attack and none of this is going through their brains and conscious thought by the way folks like they're not like oh let me think about why i'm angry they're pissed and they have no interest in protecting the other person but they may want to think about can i save my relationship with my partner but i don't think

that other person is responsible for the married person's behavior like for the fidelity of your marriage right and that's actually one of the reasons we have these conversations a lot when I talk to my students about things like Ashley Madison the person who's going on those to find someone they legitimately know that this other person is probably married because that's really what the site is for but if you're out somewhere and someone's hitting on you and they're not wearing a ring and they tell you they're single it is not your job to do a deep dive and background check to find out if they're being honest like that's not your response if you're if you're into someone and you're taking them at your word you shouldn't then be held responsible for what that

may have done to a relationship you didn't know about what do you think but even if you did know they were married I still don't think it's your job like I don't right I so I agree and I and I bring this up because in you know uh you referencing your friends that have been cheated on um and the language around the person their spouse had an affair with i find that that language and that responsibility for a single person upholding someone else's fidelity is largely centered around women a hundred percent agreed yeah so i wanted to bring that question up because i also believe that a single person whether they know that person is married or not it is not they didn't make the vow they didn't make the promise it's not their responsibility to look out for for that for that

person to uphold what they said they would do okay next so we are glad we agree yes we started this whole episode by saying we weren't going to give definitive answers and apparently we are for at least for us um it gets interesting when and it's I'm thinking about a few people I know right now we're like and I think I've talked about this a couple times in other episodes where like the partner gives the other person and it's interesting because they'll say permission to cheat if you're giving them permission to cheat they're not cheating like for me once you give permission and and sometimes it's related to and I've talked about this in previous episodes related to illness where one person is sick and cannot meet the sexual needs of their partner is like you go

take care of you on that end until I get to a point where I physically feel like I can do these things um sometimes it's related to a kink where like I know this is what you want to explore and I can't do this with you it's just it's outside my but if this is something you want to explore you can explore that somewhere else with boundaries um and so it's it's always interesting Because I hear my friends saying, you know, I've given my partner permission to cheat. You haven't really given them permission to cheat. You've given them permission to explore or do things with your knowledge. But people aren't always so careful.

I mean, I'm taking apart the language here. That's not how people speak in the real world. But there are times. And so, again, for me, the basis of the cheating is are you hiding it from your partner? Does your partner know? Does your partner give consent? And if you, you know, depending on the answers to those questions, your behavior may be cheating. And I want to add to the are you hiding partial truths are still lying in this context to me.

In this context, because there are things where lying by omission could be for safety reasons or what have you. But in my opinion, with with relationship dynamics where you could be engaging with other sex play partners or emotionally or what have you, partial truth lying by omission contributes to to feeling to someone feeling like they've been cheated on because it's deception. Yeah. And I think that's a big point is that it's it's about how it's being perceived and how it's being felt. and I think I think for a lot of people they don't even know how they're going to react until they're in that situation like I may be like yeah that's totally cool you want to cheat you know you want to flirt with someone to get us a better table but then I watch it happen and I feel like someone's kicked me in the gut so a lot of these things it may be easy to talk about in the abstract but when you see it you don't know and my always my big fear about having conversations because I

do like that that will be your homework I know you're going to ask me this at the end so I'm just gonna do it now like my advice to people is to is to if you're in a partnership have a conversation right now about what do you consider cheating because most couples do not have that conversation until a line has been crossed with one of them and now you're not having calm conversations you're having angry hurt you know somebody's in the defensive somebody feels like they've been victimized so i always tell people like try to have this conversation ahead of time which is weird so like blame blame the podcast yeah this podcast because otherwise it's like let's talk about cheating and either the person is going to feel like you're about to attack them

for something that happened or they think you're hiding something and now you're bringing it up like in a conversation like yeah depending on where you're at in your relationship right right every relationship for five years and you're listening to this episode and you're like oh yeah we never did that let's do it yeah and your partner's like what the fuck is good like What do you need to tell me? Where is this coming from? Yeah. So you can feel free to say you're listening to the podcast and we told you to do that.

I have my students blame me for stuff all the time. Like, go have this conversation and say I'm telling you to do it. But have a conversation. Realize it's not going to be one conversation. And realize there are things you're not going to cover. And this is my big fear about couples, having this conversation and being like, okay, we had the conversation. One and done. Right.

There's too many nuances to it. because i might be okay with your work wife oh there come the air quotes i might be okay with your work wife work husband work partner work spouse whatever it may be like in theory but when i start feeling threatened it's no longer theory like i may be like oh you know you're spending time with them you know you can talk about things at work i don't know about you know you're spending a lot of time with them because you have to for work but then there may be a line that got crossed where suddenly I'm like I'm suddenly not okay with this so realize that yes it's going to be a conversation but it's not a one and done you're you're going to have to have it lines are going to

shift um and so you may have to have this conversation multiple times because I think that's important to point out yeah yeah that's it that's certainly it's there's nuances but then there's the evolution of your relationship what I consider cheating um at the beginning of a relationship is going to change based off of how we've decided to have the construct of our relationship and my expectations and as my feelings have grown for you and my commitment and attachment has grown. What I said at the beginning is not static. It's going to change. You know, one of the ways that I've heard this conversation broached is don't make me feel like a fool. Yeah. Just don't make me feel like a fool. Well, what does that mean? Well, it means,

you know, if you do something and you don't tell me about it and I find out about it in a different way, what is that? What does that look like? You know, so just that, that can be one tactic is I will feel foolish if, or something along those lines. Yeah. What's next? Sorry, I had like three thoughts come up at once. Yeah. There were a lot of thoughts that had come out of that statement. Sorry.

Yeah. But one of the things that kind of popped up for me was this idea of time that you're spending with the other person. So I had a former co-worker who was late. She was married forever. And her thing was if my partner cheated on me, they were away at a work thing. and they got drunk and they had sex like she's like i would be okay with that i don't actually think she would be she convinced herself and as far as i knew it never happened to her it was if the person it would feel worse if there was an ongoing relationship with someone else

even if it was just an emotional relationship because i get that question a lot like is emotional cheating really cheating right and it comes down to what you were just saying like would I feel like a fool if I found out about this that you were you know you you weren't talking to me as much and you were disclosing your thoughts your feel your feelings your fears to this other people and developing this deep emotional bond that could yes that would make me feel foolish and I would consider that cheating but so often when we talk about cheating we focus on that physical component right yeah and it doesn't always have to be well and to take that a little bit further too if you if you're engaged with a partner or engaging with a partner and they've

you know they've said you're you're it it's you and me but then they're engaging with someone else and and they're describing their relationship and this is this is getting murky yeah that's gonna be the summary of the of the podcast this gets a little murky but say you're in a relationship you've told your partner you're you're monogamous and that you're there emotionally and physically but then you start engaging with someone else and you're telling that someone else that your relationship is a mistake you feel like it's a mistake if your partner found that out somehow is that going to make them feel foolish is that going to make them feel good if you're describing your relationship one way to an outsider that you're

engaging an intimate emotional physical connection with but to your partner you're giving them opposite information that's not ethical yeah yeah and I think it comes as no shock to anyone I love when research supports the stereotypes but I also hate when research supports the stereotypes yeah men are less likely to find emotion to think of emotional cheating as cheating and women are more likely to find emotional cheating as cheating and so that that deep meaningful conversation you're having with someone else a woman is more likely to find that cheating for men it's more about was their physical contact of some of some type and if you are in different gender relationships that's one of the reasons

to have these conversations is because of this kind of gray area the murky part of it um because otherwise it can get super confusing really fast yeah it can yeah where else shall we go i'm not really sure i feel like we've got a lot of what we wanted to do is there anything that's kind of sticking in your craw that you want to do um i i i just would reiterate that it all comes down to communication and understanding each other's being open and vulnerable as much as you can depending on where you're at in your relationship as well yeah this isn't if it's a one-night stand like you don't need to go to this level yeah um but be mindful of of how your relationship is evolving and how emotions may shift because what one person told

you three months in can change at the six month mark four month mark even and so be proactive about finding that engaging with that conversation and um the takeaways that i would offer is lying by omission half truth is still lying and if it's something that go ahead sorry god go ahead although sometimes i'm sorry i'm sorry that's okay sometimes lying because i do want to point this out sometimes lying by omission is important for safety yes and so i say i'm saying this within the constant context of having these calibration conversations oh i like that phrase thank you always a fan of alliteration as well um so that that's the context of you know partial truth lying by omission um that's still that's

still deception within this context and so try not try to be better about that yeah if that's something that you lean on because you're you could be doing it because you don't want to lose that connection with that person but if they find out pieces of information and it didn't come from you it's way worse than the discomfort of being completely honest in the moment um and and just continue to have the conversation as recognizing that your relationship evolves so these parameters will evolve and ebb and flow yeah I think it's to me it's yes to all of that and I think part of it is this idea of like being disrespectful to your partner that by not telling them that by hiding things if if you feel like you have to hide it it's

probably not okay within the context of your relationship and I I think it can be difficult for some people especially when so I'm thinking about exes because I get questions about this a lot of like if I go out for coffee with my ex is that cheating and I always want to be like why are you asking me like I'm not the one who's dating doesn't affect me right because they're looking for they're looking for either guidance or permission and I can't do that in someone's relationship like that's going to depend on the parameters of your relationship how long are you dating them what's the point in getting together like why why do that is that going to feel threatening to your partner and does your partner know and if you have to hide it and it may be that

you're hiding it because your partner is super jealous and they may get violent in which case I would encourage you to leave that relationship anyway right but but why like if a partner came to me and said hey my ex is in town like they had moved out and now they're back and I just want to catch up and find out how they're going because major life changes and and I I just want to find out how they're how they're doing it I would be super uncomfortable but also okay with it because I have to trust the partner right but I would want to know a lot of like what happened after and you know there'd be a lot of quiet be like yes but we're gonna have to talk about it when it's over it's not just like a we had coffee we had lunch and I'm never gonna talk about it again like I'm

gonna want to hear some details but if it's if it's someone that you broke you know who dumped you and you've been pining over them for years and like now suddenly they're coming back in and they want to meet you and talk you know it kind of depends on the intent i think we've talked about this word a lot today it kind of depends on the intent but i think you also in that situation have to recognize that your partner may not be comfortable with it this is someone you had a relationship with they may not feel comfortable with you getting back together for any kind of intimate conversation especially based on any information you gave to them about that relationship or how it ended because that your partner could be coming from a place of

feeling protective of you emotionally because because of any information you may have shared right i didn't think this was a really good relationship from what you've described i'm worried that you're going to get back into a codependent relation you know what a lot of what it is i had a friend i feel so badly i feel like we we do episodes our friends are like we're no longer going to be your friend because you're not mentioning them maybe we should do a disclosure of like these conversations are not based in reality even though they are but I had a friend who's um she was she was in a relationship with a man and and this kind of thing happened where like the ex was had moved across country and was coming back to town to see family and

and her boyfriend said I they reached out to me I'd like to meet do you want to come to the coffee with us and so she was like i don't she was i don't know if i could have reacted she was like i don't know let me think about it which i think is a very grounded mature response which i'm not sure um and she decided she didn't want to go because she didn't want to she didn't want to be there she didn't want to put it like she'd seen the person's picture but she didn't want to put a face to the name she didn't want to she want to name the puppy i almost want to say but yeah but yeah i thought it was it was really impressive that that was the reaction and we were talking about in a group of friends and one of our other friends was like oh he asked you no

and you'd say no so now you basically just gave him permission to do whatever i'm like i did not hear that at all i don't know where that came from yeah um for those of you who like to know the ending of stories they actually never got together because their timelines didn't match up but just just so you know um so yeah there's I think there's a lot about the intent there's a lot about the deception piece that we've talked about so I also want to throw out that if you're listening to this episode um having gone through some kind of recent feeling of deception or that you're in the act of deceiving or this is really for those that are experiencing some kind of deception or um theft of trust um you just got the coming up all i know um

if it feels icky then it's probably icky and that's okay even if you never have these conversations because it's important to recognize when something doesn't align with you personally your values your character the character you thought your partner possessed and and there can be um some grief and sadness to that perception being dented damaged shattered yeah and that's okay and that's valid and you don't have to try and make it okay if you don't want to yeah so I almost want to start a conversation like a piece of the conversation about can couples come back from this but I think that's a whole episode on its own yeah yeah because having my friends you've been been in these situations that's like the next

step is okay I found out like now what can we survive but yeah I think that's going to be a whole separate conversation I think so too yeah yeah but I think that I think of recognizing that the doubt is is scary and like you said like now it's not such a shiny toy anymore because I have my doubts and um I didn't mean to refer to partners as toys sorry but uh but I I think there's a lot of distrust and I think that it's okay also to own your own baggage in this and say this has happened to me before so i'm super sensitive to it and i think it's also okay to not always have that language yes it's always gonna be clumsy yeah and to be like i'm pissed and i don't know why but i need you to know i'm pissed yeah which may feel unfair to the other

person like well if i don't know why how do i fix it and maybe like i need to figure out why i'm so angry about what you just said and then and then we'll have a conversation um but yeah that's it can be a difficult thing to do I think we saw there you go yeah we did actually answer some questions clearly cheating depends on intent yep have calibration conversations there we go I really don't feel a theft of trust nice way to work all of that in I appreciate that you're welcome but yeah I do think it's important so I guess the homework like takeaway is like because my students always do that like how do I make sure I'm in a relationship where a person never cheats I'm like well you can't really do that yeah because you don't know what's gonna

happen but you can have conversations along the way ahead of time before the thing happens and then if something does happen have that conversation then like hey this happened and I'm not cool with it um I think it's okay to establish boundaries oh this is something sorry I know we're about to wrap up but now I don't want to um the idea of boundaries and how much partners should have access to your stuff yes so way back in the day at the beginning of the interwebs the couples would have one email address do you remember this no oh i am older than you so it's okay um let me go yeah um so back in the in the in the day back in the day before people had 18 000 email addresses you know one for spam one for this one for the

dating a bunch of couples would actually share email addresses so there was like this constant open community like i could see everything that was coming to my partner my partner could see everything that was coming to us i actually still know people who have joint email addresses which is funny because my students are like yeah it's adorable but my students are like what the hell um you i do believe that you're entitled to a bit of privacy because and this may be my own stuff but I don't think even in a relationship that you own all of me like I am entitled to my privacy and I don't know if you've seen these videos going around on social media where like someone will reach for their partner's phone like it's usually around food it's usually like the person's eating

and their phone's right there and they go to reach for the phone and it's like well if the partner just says yeah take my phone but don't take my food that makes them a good partner and I'm like I don't think you have the right to have access to everything that's in my phone like yeah I also have a fundamental issue with some of those videos those testing videos it's like why yeah why did it's akin I'm not a listeners I'm not a fan of pranks either friendly or not yeah so it's akin to that it's I'm going to record this person and their unadulterated raw reaction to something completely unexpected and then conflate it with some meaning that they're not even aware of yeah and post it on the internet yeah because i'm trying to make a viral moment right so but

but i do believe and i know that there are people that i talk to who think that that boundary of mine is inappropriate if i was in a relationship like no your partners have the right to read all of your stuff i'm like no are they paying for my cell phone no right and it's not even about what i do because if you read some of the emails with people that i'm having ongoing conversations and when i when i was working with because i used to um in a lifetime i used to actually work with clients who were getting education from me like you read those out of con first of all you can't read those because there's confidentiality second of all if you read them out of context it sounds inappropriate but it has nothing to do with the work that i do even if i didn't work in

the field of sex right even if i worked i'm trying to pick something innocuous um i don't know if i was not worked in a coffee shop there we go that's enough but like you just i still have a right to privacy and some people may not agree with me some people may believe that when you're in a relationship it's it's open everything but i do believe that people have the right to privacy i have the right to know what's going on in my own head and i don't need to share everything with you and this is this is where we get into the lies with a mission because i had this conversation a couple years ago in one of my classes it's like if you're having a fantasy trying to remember how the question was asked because it was it was a couple years ago now if if i'm fantasizing about

my partner's best friend should i tell them and i'm like no i don't think like that to me is a good lie because if you're never going to act on it it's just a feeling that you have like lying by omission there is okay so you don't get to always know what's in my head you don't get to know what's in my phone you don't get to see what's in my apps I you can ask me a question and I should be honest with you but I do think that we need for me this idea of not cheating doesn't mean I have access to everything in your life in your world you are still an autonomous human being who has the right to privacy if you want it now if that makes a potential partner uncomfortable then maybe you're not good matches but yeah i think that's important to point out i

not to reduce the human experience to a um to a graphic but if you if you were to kind of think about it as like a venn diagram you're one circle and your partner is the other circle and where where do you overlap in expectations and boundaries right like frame come maybe that's helpful to some listeners to frame it that way for when they need to broach this this topic or any the autonomy in a relationship topic yeah and i'm not saying people who want to open up their lives completely that that's wrong like you're like oh i'm with a partner they have the right to every thought every everything that's good on you we could never date but good on you um but i think that that's an important thing is just but it's about

recognizing your boundaries and that's where that communication piece is really important yes so i just i just felt like that fit into the conversation there it did very nicely thank you you're welcome good job okay all right everyone well thank you for joining us on this murky journey through our conversation on cheating. What is cheating? Thank you for joining us on Unzipping Taboos today. Candid conversations about sex. We hope today's episode maybe sparks some new thoughts. We'll open up conversations worth having. And remember that your curiosity is the key to breaking down barriers and embracing a healthier understanding of sex and relationships. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, leave a review,

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