“Physical infidelity is the signal, the notice given, that all fidelities are undermined.”
– Katherine Anne Porter

ALEX VAUGHN

Asking what possesses a cheater to betray their loved one is a loaded question that really does have a million and one answers, not to mention sub-sections as to what actually counts as cheating. From flirting, to a peck, to a passionate kiss, to sex, to fully-fledged affairs of the heart, cheating spells doom for a relationship, especially if it happens early on.

The moment you find out you have been cheated on, your world crashes. The love you thought you had is gone and the excuses are there to replace it. “It was just sex, it didn’t mean anything!” Then why did you do it? “I was looking for something you can’t give me.” Well, I hope you found it in the arms of another woman/man. And the best “I was drunk.” A martini, not a morally devoid lush!

In a community where sex is on the menu more often than love, many people believe the gay community is just promiscuous. In many cases it is, but the difference between straight and gay cheating is straight cheating has become part of the norm – we see it in movies and on TV and know of someone who has cheated or been cheated on. It is shocking and we would be appalled. In the gay community, a cheating husband or wife is a subset, those on the DL.

However, a gay relationship that is solid and then rocked by infidelity seems to not garner the same sympathy or shock. It seems it’s almost expected, especially if you live in Fort Lauderdale or San Francisco or Washington DC – anywhere where there is a high percentage of gay men. The reason is clear: Too much on offer, too many hot bods, younger models and too much apparently consequence-free sex.

So, the worst has happened and your lover has cheated. Well, first off you decide what cheating is – is a drunken kiss in a bar that bad? Well, in my opinion it’s bad enough because it chips away at the trust foundations you have built. Who was the kiss with? Did they know that your man/woman was already with someone? Did they care?

Then there is the worst: The actual affair. I think people still need to be reminded it can NEVER work. As the cheater, you won’t leave your partner but feel you can play along in a happy affair with someone and that no one will know. If you do get away with it for a while, count yourself lucky, but one day it will catch up with you and the longer it went on the more hurt you will do to your partner and, ultimately, yourself.

Then, being the other woman/man. Think about this: If they are prepared to have a relationship with you, why are you any different from that Lifetime Original Movie character who continues to tell her friends “he is just waiting for the right time to leave his wife”. I mean, really? If they do leave their partner, which they won’t, but let’s just say they do, has it not been clearly shown you that he or she just can’t be trusted?

Of course there are urban stories of couples who have been very happy after they cheat and marry the affair, but they are rare and I don’t believe there isn’t somewhere deep down a sense of doubt in that relationship.

So they have cheated – the next phase is to decide whether you forgive and forget. (A message to all cheaters: Forgiveness is the easy part, forgetting is the hard part – very few people forget.) The next time you are late at a meeting expect, a third-degree when you get home, every time.

A cheater is a cheater, no matter the ‘reason,’ but society has caught up with many men’s and women’s need to have multiple sexual partners with the theory of “an open relationship”. Personally, I think the idea absurd in any context, particularly in the beginning of a relationship. Now longer term, I couldn’t comment as I don’t know. Why would you start a relationship saying, “I am a cheater and if you don’t let me slut around the gayborhood, then this relationship won’t work.” What happened to the time where you meet someone and, as you fall for them, your world becomes consumed by their kiss, their touch, their looks – and only theirs? Apparently now, that can still all happen, as long as one can also screw around. This so-called condoned cheating has pitfalls, obviously first and fore most in ensuring both people in the relationship really want one, rather than the more dominant pushing the more submissive into agreeing to something so as to keep the relationship going. In addition, the biggest risk is that while your partner – or you, for that matter – is being open, what’s to protect you from confusing sex with a better relationship prospect?

Simplistically, cheating is cheating, when you start a relationship, in the middle or even near the end, open or not.

When you share a part of you with another person that you have previously kept back for the one you love, it is cheating. Someone always ends up getting hurt, and ultimately it’s the one who deserves it the least.

Alex Vaughn is the Editor-in-Chief of the Florida Agenda. He can be reached at editor@FloridaAgenda.com