Infidelity & Feminism

[terra_lily]

This post infuriated me on so many levels, that I did something extremely uncharacteristic: I actually commented. I also think it's telling that people are describing the moral arguments against infidelity by making comparisons to theft and money

Comments

[sugersh]

Yeah, wow, that person is not so much a feminist, and more an idiot.

[sugersh]

Phew -- good to know it's not just me.

Wow, I just realized it's August. (Hopkins' joint-degree schedule makes it really, really easy to lose track of time. I guess that's inevitable when you compress two years worth of medicine and math into eleven months.) How much longer are you in town for?

[terra_lily]

Anonymous is me -- I forgot to log in.

Anyway, two of my finals will be over with by Friday. Want to head up to B'more this weekend with the public interest med school crowd? We're checking out a bar owned by a JHU biochem professor whose hobby is molecular gastronomy, so they're able to do the craziest things with alcohol (e.g., make a completely edible veggie-friendly shot glass using nothing but liquor).

[sugersh]

Wow, that sounds awesome. Alas I'm already back in the northeast, but I hope you enjoy it!

And good luck with your finals, though I'm sure you won't need it!

[halfie]

Is it a serious internal mental problem if anywhere between one-sixth and one-half of the population is in the same boat?

This is entirely not at all on point, but on my view of humanity, *at least* half of the world's population of human beings has mental problems.

[terra_lily]

Fair enough.

I'd argue that the problem isn't that the half of the world's population has mental problems so much as it is that the only reasonable response to inequitable social structures is "mental illness."

Or to put it another way, mental illness is more social than mental.

[arcessita]

*shakes head*

When will people learn that you can't hate somebody for their own good?

This is one of those situations where important questions are being drowned in a sea of knee-jerk responses to a question that nobody's actually asking. It's like trying to talk about the sainted mother-above-all-else role with people who are totally convinced that the question at hand is "Do you hate my mommy?"

This woman is totally convinced that the question at hand is, "Is hurting other people bad or AWESOME?" Meanwhile, we could be having a much more useful conversation if we could get to the really important questions, like "What systems are in play that make infidelity so hurtful for the Wife and the Other Woman, and when we bring them forward and look at them in the light, will we find that they're patriarchal?" (Yes. Yes we will.)

I prefer to be in monogamous relationships, and my experience is that being cheated on really fucking hurts. But, because I'm a feminist, it's my responsibility to dig up the patriarchal ideas that