Why Boyfriends Need To Let Their Girlfriends Sleep With Other Guys

By Staci Traynor

I once went down on my close guy friend, Connor. Yes, this actually happened. Yes, he loved it. And for your information, I was definitely not single at the time. Does this make me a bad person?

Actually, no, it doesn't.

I will put the dirty details of the Connor story in context a bit later, but first, let's start macro to build the framework of why I was definitely not in the wrong to cheat. (Also, you will soon learn why the concept of cheating is perhaps a bit "dated.")

Okay. Right now, you are probably thinking something along the lines of "this girl is nuts," and I couldn't exactly fault you for judging me that way when perceived from the narrow perspective of conventional thought, which the majority of society identifies with, but we are here to shake loose the shackles of those debilitating strains of dogma. After all, if you didn't have the interest in breaking free of the constraints of Republicanized mind control to the self-empowering and altogether unifying realm of postmodernism, you would not be reading a website called The Woke Feminist.

So please, Let us construct a purist, non-judgmental, completely bias-free visualization of the philosophy of why it is not necessarily wrong to cheat on your partner. Let's start big and work our way down to the details.

Let's start with the mind.

The human mind is one of the most complex and mysterious entities in the known Universe. We understand only a fraction of what goes on in the realm of firing synapses, surging emotions, and often uncontrollable feelings. The vastness of inner depth that comprises what we consider our "conscious center" knows no bounds. It's complexity is undeterred by the notions of age, development, gender, race, or IQ level. The basic functioning of the human mind alone is breathtakingly extraordinary when one considers the incredible amount of processing power it wields within it, taking in sensory data and transforming it in real time to practical information that we use to base our decision-making processes, live our lives, choose our partners, carry out our goals, and any number of human undertakings. Suffice it to say that any person off the street has within herself limitless potential to do whatever she pleases when that mental energy is directed towards her passion. But is it possible that this limitless potential could be stifled? Unfortunately, yes.

Enter love.

Above all human emotions, love reigns supreme. Love is what drives us, what keeps us searching for meaning, what fuels our ambition and what ultimately showers us in happiness. But like the mind, love is equally complex.

When you take two people, both fully-equipped with the vast, processing powerhouses that we call the human mind and couple those insanely uber-dynamic minds with two very different emotional centers, we are in for one hell of a crazy ride.

Did I mention that love was complex?

Yes, things often do go smoothly when we find someone to "fill our gaps," as Rocky Balboa would be inclined to say, but the smoothness only lasts for so long in any serious relationship. There are myriad bumps along the road and the smooth sailing times are both fleeting and intermittent. The intense connections of dating in today's world are often equated with the proverbial roller coaster, with all of its ups and downs, twists and turns, and the occasional upside-down corkscrew spiral.

But roller coasters are supposed to be fun... Right?

Well, it depends who you ask.

Sarah from Michigan writes, "I used to be able to deal with the constant emotional turmoil of being involved with someone on a deep level but the older I get, the more tired I become when faced with the low points. I feel that certain compromises are holding my soul back from bigger and better things."

You just can't truly be yourself when you have to compromise. Period. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we can move closer to truly knowing ourselves and thus entering into previously unattainable levels of self-assured existential pride.

Bottom line: know yourself, love yourself, live for yourself, be unstoppable.

Sarah is not alone in her apprehension in the face of mandatory compromise. I myself often feel as though the idea of having to compromise, as is continually force-fed to us by conventional society, is symptomatic of a fatal flaw in the human condition: our relationships lack honesty.

Now, before you jump the gun here and assume that I am referring to the household variety of honesty that manifests itself in such situations as "yes, honey, I forgot to lift the seat up," or "yes, I admit that I used to date my boss," let me distance myself as far as possible from the mundane.

The brand of honesty that we have denied ourselves transcends the level of individual relationships between two people. What we have lost can best be described as animal honesty. (You heard it here first!)

A perfect dovetail to the whole human/animal comparison presents itself in a wonderful piece of sociophilosophical literature I read recently. David Brooks does a superb job in dismantling the inner workings of human social behavior in his #1 New York Times Best-Seller, The Social Animal (available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2JlYV4f). His narrative closely examines the lives of a selection of characters from infancy into their elderly years, taking note of the unique decisions that drive the outcomes of their lives and how these decisions affect those around them. This pioneering literary work is performed with extreme care and diligence, with the scientific evidence to support his conclusions on the dark and often twisted mentalities that sweep over ourselves in times of stress, and, equally important, in the extreme antithesis exemplified by the stubbornly headstrong and over-confident.

But what does this have to do with love and sex?

Lots, actually.

I will admit, I have cheated on boyfriends (for various reasons) with zero shame or guilt. Not all of the time, but sometimes. Some have deserved it, which accounts for a degree of the lack of shame that I had at the time, but some of them honestly didn't. (Notice that word honesty in there?) I followed my urges a few times which lead me to hooking up with other people whom I found deliciously attractive.

In one instance, I took a short hiatus from faithfulness in order to donate to one of my closest guy friends a bright-eyed blowjob after his fiance left him for someone else. Admittedly, I even gave him the green light when he made the incredibly creepy, weird request to smell my workout socks while I did the deed. (Picture these but literally soaked with sweat: https://amzn.to/2KdnmNE). Yeah. My stomach turns just thinking about how so many guys actually find that hot but whatever. I pried them off my feet and let him go for it. What can I say? He needed an, erm, boost in morale? The greater good, folks. The greater good. Needless to say, he admitted that he has been desiring exactly what I had given him for close to a decade and that it was the single best moment in his entire life. I kid you not, he told me that verbatim.

THE SINGLE BEST MOMENT OF HIS LIFE. (*insert laughing to tears emoticon here*)

You're welcome, Connor. And no, my boyfriend never found out.

But I digress...

I have also been cheated on by boyfriends, none of whom displayed even the slightest bit of shame either. For instance, my ex Will kissed a random at a party because "he was lonely." Oh, is that so? Lonely, huh? Totally know the feeling. I hope she was worth it, asshole. Go enjoy "not being lonely" with her...

Okay,  yet again, I know what you are thinking right now: "Yes, this affirms it. This Staci chick is a total nutcase who can't seem to grasp the irony here." Truth be told, yes, I am still a tad bitter at Will but I know that I shouldn't be, under the light of my new revelation of animal honesty. I am learning as I go and I cannot let emotion get in the way of progressivism in the realm of relationships. Not an easy thing to do but life isn't meant to be easy, is it?

Progress is never without it's bumps along the way.

Essentially, everything evens out in the end. The world has a way of smoothing out even the roughest of edges.

As I come face to face with my late 20s, I am struck by the epiphany that we as humans could spare ourselves so, so, so, so much misery if we threw caution to the wind, accepted that our deepest desires will never change no matter how much we try to ignore them, and acted completely on impulse. (Within reason, of course.) I am not saying quit your day job and backpack across South America until your money dries up. I am not implying that you should go rob a bank. What I am trying to communicate is the simple idea that we should be free to speak our minds when in relationships, no matter how these verbal expressions of thought might affect the other.

Sure, we will hear things we don't want to hear. In equal part, our partners will surely hear things they themselves would rather not hear from their loved one. But the truth is, that is the level of honesty that we truly need to explore in order to progress not just as individual couples, but as a species. That is true, unadorned, no-frills, uncensored LOVE.

That is animal honesty in it's most genuine form. You don't hear cats meowing in compromise, do you? Of course not. They meow it like it is!

Let's go deeper.

If we were to become completely honest with ourselves, which is equally as important, if not moreso, we would realize that our sexual practices deserve this form of unabashed honesty. After all, carnal pleasure is one of the most important aspects of solidifying attraction between two or more people, not least the most euphoric manner by which to channel off stress and anxiety.

Sex has traditionally been a regrettably taboo issue when it comes to truly getting to know someone. The act of trying to decipher what your sexual partner is thinking can often be synonymous with the proverbial pulling of teeth. This is not always the case but it occurs often enough to be worth mentioning. While certain adventurous folks might be very forward in expressing their kinks (I happen to experience literal cravings for this epic vibro-helper all the time: https://amzn.to/2KJzQ4V), most would rather keep these desires to themselves for fear of embarrassment or ridicule or any number of reasons that call into question their sense of morality and self-worth.

It runs counter to maintaining a healthy lifestyle to keep these innate personal desires bottled up inside of us. By doing so, we are not only presenting a false sense of self to our partners but we are also reaffirming to ourselves that what we desire is wrong. And, truth be told, it is not wrong to want to have sex with other people. It is the most natural thing in the world, and, unless your partner is just as open and honest as you, they will most likely not see it that way.

This needs to change.

It is crucial that we allow ourselves the full spectrum of expression when it comes to our sexual desires, for not only our own mental health but for the sake of maintaining a healthy relationship with our loved ones.

In doing so, we step into a beautiful realm of joint self-discovery. We are extending the courtesy of displaying the warmth of unashamed vulnerability — a trait that both sexes find immensely attractive. Scared to speak your mind? Don't be. The truth is hot!

What we can all admit, even if just to ourselves for the moment, is that we are attracted to people we are not dating. We want what we cannot have. This will never not be the case. No matter how in love you might feel — no matter how long the two of you have been together — you will always want to have sex with someone else.

This is a scientific fact.

The National Institutes of Health spend over $4.5 billion a year studying the intricacies of the human brain and its behavioral implications. In over 1/3 of all marriages, either one or both individuals admit to cheating. Think about that for a second...

How is it that such a disproportionate amount of people who accept vows would be willing to throw it all away for the sake of sexual gratification? Could it be that the entire structure of monogamy is fatally flawed at it's core?

Some might think so.

Emma and Michael are a couple from Reno, Nevada that have been willing to share their story with The Woke Feminist. They consider themselves "swingers" in the sense that they often enjoy sexual relationships with people other than each other. There is no shame or guilt or even the slightest tracings of jealousy in such an arrangement, as both partners are completely honest in their desires to "explore what is out there" and maintain a wide variety in sexual partners, to keep the flame alive and to keep their sex lives mutually interesting. They are both, I should note, completely 100% in love with each other despite how seemingly unorthodox such a relationship might seem to the outsider.

Emma states, "It was my idea. I met someone at work who thought I was attractive and I told Mike that the attention he was giving me actually turned me on. He said go for it."

Mike, you are the fucking man.

"I also let Mike sleep with my best friend," said Emma "after she told me it was only fair. I thought about it and realized she was right, so I let her and Mike have at it. That is how we do things now. I find someone I want to be with and he finds someone he wants to be with and we both come home to each other at the end of most nights. It has actually made our relationship stronger."

You see, this is the level of commitment that we must allow ourselves to take part in if we are to truly state that we love someone. We must be willing to surrender the notion of jealousy and allow the true animal honesty to shine through with respect to both parties involved, noting that it is scientifically impossible to not be attracted to other people and not just stopping there, but, actually exploring those desires with the full consent of your partner.

Simply put, if you love them, let them go.


—S

Book Recommendation:  "This Is Me: Loving The Person You Are Today" by Chrissy Metz

Buy on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2IUFrjt