I think it was a good jumping off point into this episode to ask the question, if you are in a relationship where two people are hopefully open about seeing other people, sleeping with other people, having sexual relationships with other people, can cheating even exist?
Dedeker: Well, first of all, if you’re out there listening and immediately having your feathers ruffled up, if you just go read this article, probably the outrage question that you have https://lovingwomen.org/fi/japanilainen-morsian/ is answered. I wouldn’t say that it is necessarily answered satisfactorily, I think that rather than being a very well-thought-out treatise on what motivates this person and their values behind encouraging their friends to cheat. I think this is the kind of thing that would stir up a lot of ire at the same time, of course, the place that I go to is, who decided this person was the savior of their friends or the savior of making sure that their friends can access autonomy?
I think that a lot of causes, people can have really intense conviction to the point where it seems disruptive. I can think of a lot of examples, like there’s certain extreme animal rights activists where it’s like, “I’m going to release animals from the zoo,” and some people can be very convinced and feel like that is the right thing and you do something destructive in order to actually get something fixed. That also falls in, I think, a similar line of thinking of, “I need to burn down this abortion clinic, because that’s the only way that this is going to get fixed and this is the only way that’s going to send the message.”
Maybe it’s reductive for me to think about that in the same way and I’m sure a lot of people out there will be upset that I’m making that kind of equivalency and I wouldn’t call them necessarily an equivalent, but it does seem to share the same seed of I’m so convicted by my beliefs around this and have this sense of I’m the one who needs to do something about it to the extent that I’m okay causing some destruction, essentially. That can open up a whole other can of worms of how effective is it to burn the system down versus not?
Jase: Same thing. It’s just that I see this come up sometimes with talking about your sexual identity or your gender identity or the way you do relationships as being a political action, I think makes a lot of sense and can be a very validating thing to realize and to understand yes, just by being me and being my true self, that is a political action, and it’s something I can be proud of, and also can help people to understand why there might be resistance to it and to find strength in that.
I think this person falls into that category here
At the same time like, Dedeker, I think was getting at, thinking of it that way, is also a really good way to jump quickly to the ends justifying the means or that the ends justify any means not just the best means or good means, but just literally anything I do in the name of this is okay. To give more examples of what Dedeker is talking about, we have to remember that whatever your political ideology is, can lead to some stuff that’s destructive and also doesn’t help your cause. I don’t think they’re actually helping their cause and I actually would argue, they’re not even helping their friends actually achieve autonomy in this way.
Emily: Yes, and it had some strange things to talk about when it came to discussing ethical non-monogamy, which I think we’ll get more into in the bonus episode.