Cheating is cheating but is it all the same?

All very well saying he'd forgive you for using a 'cam boy' when women don't use them and he knows that they don't 😂 What about if you struck up some kind of relationship online and you did the stuff that cam girls do for another man? Would he be so forgiving then I wonder?

Also forgiveness is only one part of it.
Someone finding out their husband/partner uses camgirls often do forgive and they don't have much anger over it, it often hurts their self esteem massively though and gives them body image issues or makes their own body image issues worse....so forgiving and being able to forget are very different.

Also some women are disgusted by it. They might not be angry and they can forgive but they get the major ick for want of a better word. You can't forgive the ick away!

So using cam girls can cause permanent damage to the relationship and particularly the sexual side of the relationship regardless of forgiveness or not.

Oh yeah I get that, but is he then implying if he did it, you should do the same?

I suspect if you were looking at web cams and paying men with huge dicks to wave them around online he might not be as understanding of it as he thinks he'd be. Its very easy in a hypothetical scenario to be all forgiving but when it impacts your own personal insecurities it's a different matter. eg imagine if you were looking at men of the complete opposite physical type to him

@CommeUneVacheEspagnole

Oh, no. As in he would forgive me if I did it.

Yeah but it’s easy to say that: how many women use webcams? He knows the odds of that are minimal.

You're right, the results are both the same you're leaving.

Hes right, the levels are different.

Interesting discussion. Honestly, I think what would be the dealbreaker for me would be lying and intent. A random drunken one night stand? Tbh, I actually just wouldn’t want to know. Cam girls I wouldn't like- but if everything else in the relationship was ok, and it wasn’t hidden, then it wouldn’t be a dealbreaker.

Covering up an affair, and lying to my face? Absolutely unforgivable. I was in a relationship with a man, who it turns out, had a fiancé. And the depths of the lying, deceit and planning that went into having two women on the go was just staggering. The lies he was telling me as the ‘other woman’, if you like, must have been the tip of the ice berg compared with the lies he was telling his poor fiancé. There’d be no going back from that I’m afraid.

I tried to forgive my ex for a one night stand he had whilst off his face on drugs and gaslit myself into thinking this wasn't as bad as an emotional connection or ongoing affair. The reality was he was juts incredibly selfish and didn't care about or respect me enough not to have random sex with a stranger unprotected then sleep with me without protection a few days later. Unsurprisingly he was selfish in most other areas too. At least an emotional connection would have had some sort of point or thought to wrecking my life like he did.

I’d be hurt/heartbroken by an ‘affair’.

A one night stand/cam girl/escort would fill me with disgust and contempt.

I think.

I’d consider leaving for both.

My DH says the same but that one can be forgiven. I don't think either can be forgiven

He doesnt get to decide universally what is able to be "forgiven" though does he? The person who gets to decide that is the person who is hurt by it. He might find it forgivable but that doesn't mean everyone else has to agree with his stance. Forgiveness is subjective and everyone has to determine their own boundaries of what they deem is forgivable and that will be different for everyone.

He would forgive a cam boy/girl as it is just physical and can be fixed.

What can be fixed? The cheater's entitled attitude and lack of respect for their partner? Both of which would be present in both scenarios. Bleurgh.

Arguably sex cams are worse than cheating with someone in flesh because they are a form of exploitation - paying someone for sexual services. You cannot buy consent, and you cannot be certain that the person is 100% willing. An affair is less likely to exploit the other person (although of course a lot of affairs do actually involve massive imbalances in terms of respective ages, seniority etc.). But I think sex cams are more similar to using sex workers.

So for a physical affair I'd leave, and for sex cams I'd get the massive ick, lose all respect for my former partner as a person and then leave.

They're your personal boundaries. So you're both right. What's important is that he respects you saying that you're not comfortable with him doing something he thinks is fine. And that you're being reasonable in what boundaries you have.

This is all just semantics surely? whether you call it cheating or harmless looking at women its deeply disrespectful to your partner and if you would keep it secret then its clearly something you know they would find a betrayal and find hurtful.

That begs the question- why are you deliberately doing something that you know would hurt your partner? That alone, regardless of the actual label you give it, indicates a lack of empathy, care and love for the person you are with and that speaks volumes about how you feel about the person you supposedly "love".

For me both would be dealbreakers. I can see the logic that emotional cheating is worse than physical. It makes sense.

It’s just that I couldn’t either respect or be attracted to a man who had either cheated or used webcams. I would never be able to take him seriously or have sex with him so what would be the point of maintaining the relationship? There’s no point staying with someone you don’t like, respect or fancy.

Webcams are grim too. So tacky and low rent.

Honestly, you should take a leaf out of Birgitte in Borgen and not answer hypothetical questions!

I don't know if I could forgive either but for different reasons.

Cheating with someone husband has a connection with would be heartbreaking. Humiliating as well as they may know you- and may be impossible to cut out of your life depending on who they are.

Using a cam girl is using a sex worker. I'd be disgusted husband would treat another person so badly - sex work is using another person as a sex toy basically, it demeans them. It doesn't treat them as a whole person. I suspect I would permanently get the ick if he ever used a sex worker.

No, you don't. You don't even have to know their names. I had really great sex with a guy whose name I never heard properly (he did tell me.ltell me, but i have crap ears and I'd been swimming earlier.) I was single though.

I do think it depends on your own boundaries. My first serious boyfriend after uni went away on holiday and came back really apologetic, telling me he'd kissed another woman. And i found thst because he was open about it, i didn't mind, I was just curious about her and what happened. I knew i was meant to be upset and jealous, but i just wasn't. He and I are still good friends - we visited his Dad in hospital together last weekend, in full knowledge of his current partner.

3 decades on, i am much the same - I don't mind if a guy I'm seeing has sex with someone else, as long as I know about it, they use condoms, have regular STI checks and it doesn't take time away from me. If he does it instead of being with me, that would make me unhappy, but if he sees someone when I'm busy, that's fine as long as it's not a secret. He also has to allow me the same freedom. I might not do anything about it, but I should have the choice to.

What I won't tolerate is secrecy. Seeing someone else when I don't know about it is not on. I don't want secret affairs or to go behind people's backs and cause hurt.

This wouldn't suit many people, and that's fine. Some people do need an emotional connection. Some people get very jealous. I don't. Any relationship needs to be built round the way we are. It's just we're all different.

For me, watching cam girls seems much seedier than getting with a real person in the flesh.

I agree with your DH.

You're discussing your personal boundaries so you're both right.

For you, it's the same. For him, it's different.

There's no objective correct answer.

I never understand the view that a drunken one night stands is forgiveable whereas an affair isn't. If your partner can't be trusted to be faithful when he is drunk how can he be trusted at all? If it's only being sober that makes him not indiscriminately have sex with some one it doesn't say much for his character or his regard for his partner.

A one night stand might not involve the extraordinary level of deceit an affair does but it still involves lying and disrespect for your partner. It's seedy and sordid.

I've had a fair amount of 'social sex' in my time. Obviously you talk, maybe dance or something, maybe have a few drinks. You could call it impersonal by comparison with an ongoing relationship but (obviously!) there's plenty of personal interaction.

Thing is, there is with cam girls as well. The differences are that the participants aren't physically touching and there's a clear power imbalance. The power gap's the same as with an in-person prostitute.

A friendly shag can lead to a full-on relationship. Users of prostitutes regularly develop feelings for their favoured sex workers, whether their relationship's online or in person. For that matter, people of both sexes fall totally in love with people they have never met or spoken to, let alone had sex with.

Any activity that engages a partner's emotional or sexual involvement is cheating, imo. The test is whether it's taking something away from the home relationship.

So does your H have video sex with other women, OP?

I agree with him. Someone they know would be worse for me because there is some level of relationship there.

I wouldn’t leave over a cam girl thing (although I would be ashamed of DW for supporting such an awful industry), and I might not over a random drunk one night stand- It’s possible I might forgive that;

but a friend or colleague would be a whole different thing.

It is all cheating though obviously.

It’s different for everyone, there’s no right or wrong which is worse. It is 💯 ALL cheating though!

All the same to me personally.
There's lots of cam girls etc who would say that a lot of men are very emotionally attached to them and often just want to chat etc and some men who say they fell in love with them.

No one but the person understands their feelings towards the other person...so they could say it was just sexual but really they could have felt other emotions about them and thought of them very fondly and been day dreaming about them etc

So OP was this just a purely intellectual discussion or do you think your DH has been using cam girls?
For what it's worth I agree with pp who said seeking sexual gratification outside the relationship whether it's an affair, ons or cam girl is cheating.