It's only cheating if you get caught...
If you have to hide it is cheating. The problem lies in that monogamy is considered so much the default in most societies that a lot of people who would prefer an open relationship and being honest get pushed into cheating. Say on your first date that you want an open relationship, and most people will walk out. I don’t defend cheating and I’m too clumsy to do it myself, but is so common that is clear a lot of people feel conflicted by the concept of being monogamous for very long periods of time.
Lying over time only makes the physical unfaithfulness worse, at some point is not only about sex and it becomes an emotional betray. As it often is the case the person you are cheating with knows about the person who is being cheated, while the person being cheated only finds out about the other at the last time (pardon for stating the obvious); despite all claims of the opposite and saying that cheating was only a physical fling, the true is that there is also very deep emotional intimacy in most cases of cheating and at moment in time people usually opened more to the person they were cheating with than to the one being cheated, even if they never intended to leave one for the other.
Furthermore, the default being monogamy, an also awful lot of people feel entitled to impose even more strict restrictions over their partners, like not flirting, or not having close friends from the opposite gender, not looking at porn, or not even looking at strangers outside. If your partner flips out because you flirted with the barista at the cafe, you might as well go the extra mile and go to bed with him/her the next time.
On a deeper non snarky way, it’s also true that
“it's only cheating if you get caught.” Cheating happens so often, and most people are guilty of having done it at some time (maybe not in the current relationship, but surely in others in the past), that most relationships work under the delusion that they are the exemption. You know all your friends have been cheated at least once, you one at least a handful of them are being cheated right now, but as long as you cannot prove your parter is cheating on you, then he/she is not cheating.
This applies to both men and women.
i heard that in Japan p4p is not considered cheating. does anyone confirm that?
I have only heard it here. Good luck quoting TAG in your defense if you are found out cheating. I don’t think anyone out there thinks remotely that way.
What is true, not only in Japan but in many other countries as well, is that cheating with a escort is less threatening to a relationship. The escort won’t try to make it public and doesn’t hold feelings for the other person. She will only
‘help him cheat’ as long as money keeps coming in. The cheater needs to pay to see the escort, which immediately limits how many times he can see her, and also leaves a trace in his finances that his partner can track down. Furthermore, if the cheated person finds out and forgives its partner, they both can agree to don’t disclose it (unless the guy brags about doing P4P around). Having seeing a escort in the past is easier to hide than having had an affair at the office or in your neighborhood, people around you find out, it becomes an open secret among friends and acquittances, and even if the cheated person wants to forgive the other, her social reputation and pride are stake.
Finally, don’t forget that
most people react irrationally to the risk of STDs in P4P and fear escorts. If you think some comments on this forum to sex workers can be offensive then forget about the real world, most people keep it to themselves but even
‘nice people’ cannot think of escorts without immediately panicking about STDs and seeing escort as a hazard. Protection, statistics, etc. nothing of it matters. A partner is sure to freak out and ask you to put a stop if she discovers or suspects that you are seeing an escort, only because of the fear to STDs. And off course, there is the money issue. P4P costs a lot. No partner is going to feel happy about that either.
P4P applies mostly to men, so I didn’t even bother trying to write the comment above gender neutral. There might be a few female exceptions, but is mostly men that we are talking about.
