It's adultery if you say it is.

In my world however, thoughtcrime isn't - well - a crime.

Yesterday the guy I'm currently seeing("Dude") found a poem I'd accidentally left at his house the other night. I think I upended my purse. It's a very sexy poem, that one that he found. Unfortunately, it's not about Dude. It's actually about Dude's coworker, who I cough had a sex dream about a few months ago. I had a sex dream about this coworker, yup, and I simultaneously loathe him. So the poem was a great big sexy amalgam of like, "I hate you, but, we had really fabulous sex in my dream." Once I realized I'd dropped the poem at Dude's house, I was a little worried it would bother him...while simultaneously rolling my eyes about it, because after all, I first wrote the poem in April, I believe strongly in poetry as fiction and in writing as a personal outlet. I was hoping Dude was secure enough and smart enough to know and see all this...

...and the happy ending of the story is that he was!

A relationship where you cannot acknowledge and accept that your partner will at times desire others, or even just other kinds of sex, is not a good one, in my mind. Porn is a way to fulfill a desire for more "variety," as well as freedom to do what one wants with one's own body (i.e., masturbate) that I do not think it is right to deny someone, especially when you are in a romantic, monogamous relationship.

I spend a lot of time in r/relationships eating popcorn. That means that over time, I've watched a whole lot of discussions about what's porn, what's not porn, what's passing the line. In general, the line that I've come to agree with is as follows:

- is the person a paid or amateur porn-er and that is how the person viewing the porn knows that person? AKA is it "strictly professional"? and it's on a screen? then it's okay

- does the viewer actually know, in person, the person(s) whose nudie bits they're seeing? then it crosses a line

- is it in person? are all clothes coming off? then it's crossing a line. Whether you're watching or touching, the in-person physical presence of another certainly ratchets up the level of intimacy and potential for harm - if you're "just paying to watch," but it's alone in a hotel room like Spitzer, then who can say you're really just paying to watch? if it's a strip club, that's gonna be YMMV territory. i would only hope if anyone in a relationship is going to a strip club they have talked to their partner(s) and made sure that this is okay with the partners or if not ok at least accepted.