The “Excuse for Cheating” and Fetishizing Punishment

E

EldritchDucky

Member
In contemplating things, there’s a real hard-on for punishing cheating. It gets a little ridiculous, how aggressive it is. Not that I’m excusing cheating behavior. I’m reading about Restorative Justice practices, and it’s apparent that the paradigm around punishment over repair and restoration leaves people just aching for a chance to dole out some punishment. In fact, you can spend an entire life fetishizing getting to punish a cheating partner.

I wonder if that has any effect on how you value your relationship, or how you rely on relationship structure, rather than being present and working on things.

Of course, poly often gets hit with the undeserved accusation of just being an excuse. It’s a well-worn discussion, so I’m more interested in the fetishization of relationship punishment and consequences.

Thoughts?
 
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Hello Blaincorrous,

Sometimes the way people react to cheating, is to get jealous and go after the person one's partner was cheating with. Shifting the blame away from one's partner, and let's say, going after the person one's partner was cheating with, and punching that person's lights out.

There seems to be a whole set of rules around exactly how bad cheating is, around where blame should be assigned, and around what kind of reaction is allowed. Punishing one's cheating partner is one of the acceptable reactions.

Just some thoughts,
Kevin T.
 
P.S. Generally speaking, polyamory is considered a much worse (much more filthy) thing to do than cheating.
 
Oh sure. People set their partner up with ridiculous expectations and then when they "fail", use it as a reason they're not allowed the same non-monogamous freedom as others.

"Remember, last time you weren't back at 9pm, like we said would be appropriate. So now, to prove you can be responsible, you'll only have one-hour dates. After a while of proving you can stick to one hour dates with a particular person, we will extend the duration of your dates with that person. After about a year of consistently meeting your deadlines, maybe we will think about overnights... You do want me to trust you, don't you?"
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I think cheating is far more socially acceptable than poly.

I wouldn’t want to waste the thought process, time or energy fantasizing about how to punish someone… unless it was in a sexual way. ;)
 
ref2018 said:
"Fetishizing punishment"? That's been done already.

Toxic people gonna tox.
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Is that a post elsewhere? I can't tell if your comment is directed at me.
 
Blaincorrous said:
Is that an post elsewhere? I can't tell if your comment is directed at me.
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Well, there are whole websites fetishizing punishment...

And cheating.
 
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