I’m a man who recently had a fling with a man who is in a monogamous heterosexual relationship. We had sex twice. While I am in a nonmonogamous relationship myself, I respect the practice of monogamy. Normally I wouldn’t get involved with someone who is unfaithful. But here I felt my moral obligations to a struggling member of my own queer community were greater than those to his partner.
The guy I had the fling with is not openly queer, but he reached out on an app for gay hookups. After we messaged back and forth, it became clear that his relationship is not emotionally or physically sustaining. Both of our encounters occurred in the apartment he shares with his girlfriend; we only ever met there because she consistently tracks his phone’s location and would confront him if he went anywhere without letting her know. It appeared to me that this man was in a manipulative and potentially abusive relationship. He seemed lonely and trapped, and I connected with that experience as a fellow queer person.
I do not want to continue our physical relationship because the implications of my behavior have been weighing heavily on me. His girlfriend has a right to know what’s going on in her relationship, particularly in terms of communication around the number of partners and protection. Whatever judgment I may have for her actions, I believe she deserves the truth. If I didn’t believe in the toxicity of their relationship and the danger of outing this man, I would be inclined to tell his girlfriend what happened, or make it clear to him that she must be informed.
I think that my time with this person was meaningful for him and helped him to affirm his identity, even if our hookups were illicit. At this point, my plan is to let him know that I’ve enjoyed our experiences together but don’t think we should continue seeing each other, then to cut off contact and try to reckon with my actions. I don’t know if I will ever really be able to settle my ethical stomachache about it all. Can there be stipulations on the immorality of infidelity? — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
It takes two to cheat — well, at least two. But that doesn’t mean that there’s a moral equivalence between the cheater and the person with whom he’s cheating. The fellow you’re describing was the one who presumably had promised fidelity. Knowingly abetting his behavior was blameworthy, too, but less so: You weren’t the person betraying an intimate partner, concealing what you did and all the rest of it. Still, you’re making the right call to call it off.
You’ve explained how you justified the situation to yourself: helping someone who is exploring his same-sex desires, affirming his sexual identity. You just need to be sure you aren’t dignifying the activities of a straying partner. Nor should you accept the cheater’s account of his relationship at face value and assume that he’s deceiving only his partner. He has every reason to cast his extracurricular activity in a self-justifying light: A cinq à sept becomes a sanctuary from a toxic relationship; a hookup is how he explores his sexuality.
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