Well, I’ll give you a hint: it’s the same defining “default” relationship participants. Like, say, a heterosexual relationship between two cissexuals partners.

But really when has that ever caused a slight bother historically

No, no, having a default always carries meaning, and when it’s about people, political meaning, and we all know how well that ultimately ends if we don’t recognize and question our assumptions of what is considered “normal”. Fuck normal.

Also I don’t know if I should tell you this but humans are not fries

And I dearly hope you don’t seriously me to add to that statement that it obviously doesn’t mean I condone wankers abusing a position of power to be jerks toward more vulnerable partners saying “hey, we never said our relationship was this way”

AND this is entirely without even broaching the fact that by all biological accounts, monogamy is wildly unnatural to our species

It shows they haven’t talked about it, most likely.
Extremely scarce chances are that when Clevin knows, he’s going to be like “oh, exclusivity? No, I totally don’t care for it in the slightest!” Although yes, given what we know about him, it’s definitely not going to be the case, and Alison can also have her say in how she feels about how /he/ feels about it.

We call it cheating specifically when it involves romantic or sexual actions. So no, you doing martial arts is not cheating.

Gonna have to be more specific – you’ve written, like, 500 comments.

Of course that wasn’t cheating. That wasn’t even the question.

The question was whether you should always avoid doing things that might hurt your partner. The answer is: No.

Also, you’re phrasing this assuming monogamy – I care about breaking agreements far more than I care about sexually exclusivity as sure. Why shouldn’t I care about lying about spending more than kissing someone?

I feel like the fact that it’s Menace instead of someone who isn’t a mass murderer would violate some sort of default. If you’re not going steady that usually implies some sort of safe standard, like no unprotected sex with someone you know is HIV positive (unless you and your partner already have HIV in which case a talk would be required). Basically, her relationship with Menace might be criminal since she has a legal duty to report information on a known criminal and is failing to do so.

Of course I agree with you that having a default /shouldn’t/ mean alternatives are unacceptable, my point is that you just can’t help that from being the case, times and times again.

Again, hopefully if you replace “default” here by “heterosexuality”, you can realize on your own why the hurt feelings it might cause to challenge that default are not worth respecting.

I shall scoff at your “1000 years of monogamy”, scratch it and write instead “I give it ten minutes. Since the advent of human civilization, humanity has maybe managed to accumulate ten minutes of monogamous behavior”
And it became prevalent to control women’s bodies.

The opinion that it’s a cynical view of people is so biased, though! It’s entirely based on the assumption that non monogamous relationship are somehow less than. If I do have a cynical view of something, it’s society’s patriarchal rules and expectations such as this very one.

Okay sorry my bad, I guess I didn’t express myself explicitly, when I said “ten minutes”, I meant “ten minutes of all humans of earth collectively being monogamous, no breach of it anywhere for 600 consecutive seconds”.
That I don’t believe in for one second, and given the number of humans I suspect you don’t either. Ten minutes is a huge number for that standard, even.

I’m not sure why that comments here and now, and also ever, considering by now I personally told you twice about my definition of cheating and how it’s all encompassing and none of what you said wasn’t obvious to me

…I think that’s kind of the inverse of the argument.

I think I’m still having difficulty parsing your phrase – you’re making an all statement, like “I don’t believe at any time all hydrants were red”, because if even one hydrant was yellow, the statement is false? If so, it seems an odd bar to set, and perhaps I don’t understand the purpose of the argument

because “all” statements tend to be the most disprovable sort of statement, making it a bit of a straw man fallacy; by saying “I don’t believe this “all” state of being existed”, you are bringing up a point, assigning the argument to the opposite side, and then disproving it, when it’s not a logical argument for the opposite side has made or would have made. It’s pretty much setting up the statement for failure unless the statement is a tautology

I don’t think this is moving the goalposts, unless you’re suggesting you were the one moving the goalposts as part of your argument, perhaps because you felt it was subject to the fallacy fallacy, or maybe using hyperbole to make your point

I wasn’t really arguing a point so much as trying to follow the argument, got confused by your point, and wanted clarification – because it seemed like a weak argument, I thought I might be missing the point, or it was a subset of a stronger argument

If I were moving the goalposts, it would suggest perhaps, that you effectively made your point, and then I put it to a higher standard, possibly an impossibly higher standard that could not be reasonably met, but questioning the clarity and logic of the statement probably doesn’t fall under that

It might be said you were moving the goalposts of the argument of “whether monogamy is/should be the default” by suggesting that as long as monogamy was never at any point omnipresent, it cannot/should not be the default, since the same could be said for polyamory [that at no point as everyone been polyamorous], and either point is basically impossible to prove [even if there was a point where everyone was polyamrous or monogamous, it’s not like anyone was taking a census or Patrick was around to confirm such a thing], but as I said, it might be that the fallacy fallacy applies, the point that just because something appears to be a fallacy doesn’t mean the point is wrong – it needs to be evaluated on its own.

I mean, you’re right that it’s not like this is a super serious debate, so I suppose if you were just having fun, I’m sorry I was trying to follow it and took it too seriously, but considering everything is in text, I don’t see how a wall of text should be problem [and does breaking it up with spacing help?]

I’m also not sure whether the question of “should monogamy be the assumed default” can be answered logically – perhaps it’s more of a question of ethos or pathos, like;

“We have a moral imperative to not assume monogamy by default because such assumptions lead to harm – hurt feelings, break ups, etc – in our modern society: the moral choice is to not assume, but to instead discuss the general boundaries of the relationship such that all members accept it”

or

“nobody likes feeling excluded; it’s hurtful. When we assume a default relationship mode, it implies an exclusion to what is normal, hurting people. Also, if you assume and you’re wrong, it leads to more hurt feelings”

of course, I could see a logical argument about it requiring an inductive element, along the same lines as those, such as

“Since variance in relationship modes exists, it makes more sense to clarify the boundaries of the relationship than to assume you know what another person’s thoughts and expectations are”

I’m not sure what you’re calling bullshit. Monogamy has been the prevailing (aka default) form of a relationship in western culture for about a thousand years. That fact doesn’t preclude anything you said.

Clevin and Al are, in fact, in western culture. Much like Clevin and Al, I should have stated my assumptions to ensure we are communicating effectively 🙂

I know that all too well. So many times I will hook up with someone explicitly saying that I am not interested in a relationship and they still try to get in one.

That’s totally unrelated to what Clevin and Al have going on though, which by all outside evidence is a typical monogamous relationship.

(Like I wasn’t already everyone’s big sister – I’m out about being queer generally, but most of the research students know I’m poly, and this apparently translates to many as “I won’t judge about anything,” which means I get some pretty amazing relationship and sex related questions. Though more folks just kind of checking in and being someone will understand their enby demisexualness. The kids are okay.)

Ah, no. If they haven’t discussed being exclusive, they aren’t. I mean, yeesh, this goes back to the “going steady” and other conversations – it’s not exactly news, even amongst generally monogamous folks.

I totally agree!

…but it’s not super practical, is it?

I think a lot of this is about what are appropriate consequences. I’m not team “She did a bad thing and deserves to be punished.” Clevin is likely to be hurt, and it’s likely to play into his existing insecurity. But there’s also a lot of past history here. And it’s a kiss – which, honestly, if they were grown ups, they might recognize isn’t even really the issue, the way the relationship and feelings between Patrick and Alison are. (I mean, they aren’t, I don’t expect them to be, and that’s part of what makes the comic interesting. Still.)

I agree that Clevin has, um, standing, to be upset. But upset, not kind of, Al is in violation, AFAWK. Though if he tries to weaponize his upset (which doesn’t seem very Clevinish, but does seem in line with what several people on this board are suggesting) I’d find that deeply problematic. They have stuff to talk about…

…though the kiss is the least of that, really.

…I am really not in the mood for an angsty love triangle.

You can’t avoid hurting feelings, but talking to your partner about things before you do them is generally a good policy.

From there, you can decide if their reaction is worth sticking around or not.

I genuinely don’t understand what you wrote. Are you against good communication between romantic partners (however many you agree to have), or are you advocating for a “better to ask for forgiveness” approach?

Even if you do an assessment, and come to the conclusion that your actions might hurt their feelings (as Alison clearly does)? Your response is “I’m going to do it, and since we haven’t actually talked about it, they have no grounds to feel upset” and not “I should talk to my partner about this”?

Because Alison is the one becoming romantically involved with someone other than her current partner? Even poly people have conversations about adding another person in before just willy nilly doing so. If anything poly people are MORE concerned with having good communication because there isn’t a predefined default.

This is more like VR or the Internet. Both parties are (seemingly) aware of their situation, know what the other is saying, and will (probably) remember it vividly when they “Log Off.”

Much like porn, most people draw a line of cheating when it starts to involve another person. So watching porn = not cheating, but interacting with a sex worker in a romantic or sexual way = cheating. If you are able to meet another person and consciously do things in your dreams, yes, it’s cheating.

(Assuming you and your partner(s) haven’t explicitly allowed this in your relationship.)

“The time I don’t spend with my partner is my own and they have no business deciding remotely anything in it.”

It sounds like you have no interest in being in any kind of relationship at all. Being considerate of another person’s feelings and your shared goals is kind of the basis of a relationship. If you decide to spend your time doing meth, or robbing a bank, or free-solo climbing, or spending all of your money gambling, or adopting 5 kittens…OF COURSE it’s their business because your decisions affect both of you. This has moved well past whether or not it’s cheating to just common decency.

I think that’s a totally legitimate relationship model when everyone involved is on board. Solid odds that Clevin isn’t someone who feels that way, of course.

Reminds me of the Master of None episode where Brian finds out his dad knows both of the women he is seeing would prefer he be monogamous but they are so desperate for intimacy that they shove their feelings deep, deep inside.

They do have the right to feel emotions about things I do outside of our time, but to treat all of these emotions about all the things I do with the same respect is dumb. I profoundly do not care for feelings hurt out of entitlement.

You seem to think unwarranted entitlement deserves kindness, and, well, I don’t

Treating “I don’t like how you spend your time with your best friend, it hurts my feelings” with the same degree of respect than “I don’t like how you are self-destructive to the point that your dependence on me is pulling me down, it hurts my feelings”.

You probably have an existing agreement with them that they don’t need to ask your permission for that, though, right?

I’m generally in agreement with you that monogamy shouldn’t be the assumed default and that exclusivity requires an explicit conversation, but I also think the person you’re debating has a valid point. If Al believes that kissing Patrick in this brainspace could hurt Clevin, then that means it’s time to have the exclusivity chat (if they haven’t yet), not that she should just go ahead and start mackin’. It may not be Technically Cheating, but that doesn’t make it the action of a considerate partner.

I can see where you’re coming from. I agree it’s a heat of the moment thing, but I also think she does disregard Clevin’s feelings. She considers them, but then disregards them because she wants to kiss Patrick. I’m not judging her super hard because romantic jealousy doesn’t resonate with me on an emotional level, but I am judging her more than I would if she genuinely believed (accurately or not) that she and Clevin both understand their relationship to be nonexclusive.

Gotta say, I’m not a big fan of Al/Clevin either. Although I don’t have a strong opinion on whether their relationship is healthy or not, I just find 99% of fictional romance extremely boring. I’m wincing and bracing myself for the romantic drama this page is probably gonna lead into. Not that I think it’s bad writing or anything, I know many people do enjoy that sort of thing and my personal distaste for it isn’t an objective measure of anything.

I guess I feel like this is different because it’s explicitly romantic. Their mindscape interactions have been deeply intimate up to this point, but intimacy isn’t intrinsically romantic.

Well, I guess kissing isn’t automatically romantic either, but the last couple of pages have been very romance-coded, so I’m taking that as the intent.

Maybe we should treat the kiss (and the following fifteen pages of uncensored wildly inappropriate graphic dream-sex) as platonic

I don’t think the kiss was platonic, but why though? Why must we consider a declaration of love, the greatest human sentiment, as such, but not the flapping of wet meat against one another

Oh, you’re being disingenuous now.
If last page was ambiguous about anything, it was about how platonically Alison would enact upon her the-infinitely-absolute-opposite-of-platonic declaration of love.

Watch as Gotham uses her predictive powers to conjure fifteen pages of uncensored wildly inappropriate graphic dream-sex!

Y’know, I think Feral would be there for this story, and open to it, even were she involved with Alison. I mostly throw this out there because it kind of points to all the background Clevin doesn’t have. (Well, and that Feral is awesome.)

That, sure, is a cogent variable.
Something we often forget to consider is the fact that Alison might have kissed a dude sure but she also and more importantly decided one day to be the sole judge and jury of the world’s most dangerous criminal and rob countless mourning families of closure.
By that considering, she cheated on the entire world, much more potently that she ever did Clevin.

See, now I totally want to dump whatever storyline is going on with Clevin, and skip forward to one where Feral corrals Al into awkwardly getting Patrick to sit down and the three of them go over the whole conspiracy thing. Because it’s important enough that Feral will understand if she has the information… right? And heavens knows Patrick needs to start to make other friends.

(Of course, there’s a bunch of stuff there we still don’t know.)

What? Those are the acceptable deaths that he caused! They were fighting to uphold a corrupt system.

It’s the deaths of the innocent people caught in the crossfire that I could understand you being upset over. Not the people who knew what they signed up for.

But he wasn’t a mass murderer. He’s a failed revolutionary.

And are you kidding me? Villains are super hot. Especially reformed ones. Especially ones that never intended to be evil. Honestly, if this was just about who he is and not the feelings they’ve got for each other then it’d be 100% okay. Like the pass you give your significant others if they had the opportunity to kiss their celebrity crush.

No, quite the opposite. Mass murderers are the /failed/ revolutionaries. Otherwise they’d be freedom fighters that did what was needed to overthrow their oppressive regime rather than mass murdering terrorists (although I suppose successful rebellion leaders can also be hot). The fact that their label is dependent on whether they succeeded or not kind of makes me personally rather dismissive about the whole thing.

Also, to cover any possible pedantry: this of course is only about “mass murderers” as it pertains to “revolutionaries”. Obviously one can be a mass murderer for the sake of murdering people. Or can be one of said governments (or post success ‘freedom fighter’) using their power to mass murder people.

Sorry, my cynical view of history rose up at your comment. I initially meant that he was fighting for a reasonably just cause and innocent people were killed as collateral damage. And as such was only labeled a mass murderer because he failed. In which case he’s not really a mass murderer unless you consider every revolutionary a mass murderer – which I don’t (unless I suppose they’re clearly guilty of some horrific crap, which we never saw Patrick do).

“Or can be one of said governments (or post success ‘freedom fighter’) using their power to mass murder people.”

I’m merely saying that killing people as a consequence of a revolution isn’t “murder” (although it will be labeled as such if you lose). Doesn’t mean that if you win your revolution and then use your new power to continue to kill people you’re still not a murderer – you definitely are.

He’s both. He’s killed enough people to be a mass murdering terrorist on par with Osama Bin Laden, and the Jacobists were failed revolutionaries.

Yes! That’s what I was trying to articulate, but couldn’t phrase correctly. Thanks for your post.

Oh well if you’re just deciding to establish axioms such as “there is no fault for not having had the conversation yet” this is going to be easy here’s mine “I’m right”

Also, and like, Gurwara and Alison already a talk about what constitutes “action” and what exactly is the sanctity of inaction, but why wouldn’t “assuming your partner and you are exclusing” not be one of those “things you should about with your partner before doing”?

You’re going to have fun reading the rest of that thread aren’t you

“assanine” made me laugh

“the average relationship is monotonous”

Probably not what you meant to convey, but you’ve summed up my feelings on most fictional romances.

God bless typos.

That is bullshit, if youcheat on your partner and then turn around and claim they are being controlling because no one ever explicitly said you weren’t in an open relationship and should check themselves your in the wrong. The average relationship isn’t polyamorous. The average relationship is going to be assumed to be monogamous until said otherwise. If you are making out with other people and you never discussed it with your partner you are problem not them.

> Guys who tried to do the thing where they said they were threatened by my close platonic friends and wanted me to spend less time with them.

This kind of behavior annoys me every time I hear about it. It’s so obnoxious that someone would try to undermine their partner’s long-standing friendships out of misplaced jealousy.

That bundle of anecdotes had no bearing on the situation actually being discussed. Where two people are in a relationship, that is known and established.

The ones that were based on ongoing relationships – yeah, pretty much all of them. Well, I didn’t usually say “boyfriend” because that’s not my term of choice, but partner, lover, something like that. Part of what was shocking was when this kind of thing was pulled out some time into an established relationship and it was pretty contrary to our existing agreements.

I mean, it might be useful to keep in mind that during the times I was dating many people we’d often all hang out together, everyone would show up and my mom’s for my birthday (well, during that brief period that my mom hosted my birthday), that kind of thing.

I think it’s more complicated than “wrong”. This isn’t a great step vis a vis her relationship with Clevin. But that’s not the only issue here.

*activating pedantic mode*

I just want to point out that, according to Allison herself in Issue 3’s page 11, she isn’t interested in women.

That can be blamed on auto-correct and me not proof-reading my comment. Fixed. 🙂

I know, I know.
I was illustrating my definition for clarification’s sake. It definitely seems like Clevin and Al have spent more than enough time together to broach the subject of what they mean to one another, even implicitly. While I do defend my statement that if no discussion was made, no harm can be blamed, it’s disingenuous and abusive to reach a far point in the relationship while having willingly avoided that conversation to use it as an excuse.
The rules society imposes on us are the worst, but they affect us nonetheless.

In actuality I totally think Alison is cheating right now, but also that’s it’s fiiiiine

No such thing as a distinction between emotional cheating and physical, to me. She was already kind of lost when she said I love you last page.
And like I said elsewhere, if my actions hurt the feelings of people I care about, it is not /automatically/ warranted. Let’s stop encouraging couples to think they’re entitled to a full 24/7 devotion to the other

Is there something more heinous than the concept of “expectation of exclusivity”

Is there anything more common than me saying remotely anything is consistently the best or worst of its kind