Judgements

[East]

I often say I have no judgements when it comes to two consenting adults...and I generally don't...but I was thinking today that there are some instances when I DO have judgements...so my assertion isn't really true...damnit. I was used to saying that and it types out so nice and succinct...how will I qualify this now?

So...here's the thing. Two incidents...the same factor that I judge....

The first one...a guy I knew (and couldn't stand)...and he was an obnoxious drunk. He could push all of my buttons...and did. He even found ones I didn't know were there. We had a knock down drag out one night when I had to cut him off and stop him from forcing himself on younger guys..insisting he buy drinks for them when they didn't want them....it was a common thing...he was overbearing, loud and pushy...and very rich. He would chase away so many people everytime he was there...

One night...the climax of our "relationship"....he told me he was going to kill me or get someone to do it because with his money he could do anything.....as I was physically removing him from the bar. Uh...threatening me with anything is not the best approach. So...he came back in with a gift and an apology as I had 86ed him but one of the owners told him to "make nice" with me...UGH...I threw the package back at him and told him to shove it up his ass...or I would do it for him ....you don't "apologize" to someone who you threatened to kill...what a fucktard....

So...that is the background...he was married to a woman and had maybe one or two kids..I am not sure how he identified himself...gay?bi?straight?.....I never asked.....

...and one day he tells everyone he found out his son was gay...OK....no reaction....he then goes on to say how cute his son's boyfriend was...I guess they were both 18 or 19...he was in his 50s....

...and then he comes back and says that he seduced his son's boyfriend and had sex with him and his son hates him.....THAT was where my "consenting adult thing" falls apart. My skin was crawling..seriously...as creepy as he was before that...this was a new low for me....

That kind of betrayal....I am so fucking judgemental about it. He could have picked ANYONE...and as he was fond of saying...he could "buy" anyone...but HIS OWN SON?????????? What kind of jerk betrays someone that deeply...and that is his own son!

...and then there was a man I put on a pedestal in contrast to the one above. A public figure. Gavin Newsome....

I loved the guy....and then I find out he is sleeping with his best friend's wife...the guy who helped him win...his campaign manager.....

Since I like him...I try to erase what he did. Geez...HIS BEST FRIEND'S WIFE???? There are millions of women (and men) who would find him attractive...why did he choose to betray the person who was his closest friend????? It is so sleazy .....

His infidelity isn't the problem for me...it is WHO he chose...same with sleazeboy above with his son's boyfriend...

_________________________________________________________________________

So I am wondering...are my judgements worth holding on to? Should I try to find a way to let them go? What if Gavin runs for a national office? I can overlook it if I don't think about it but when I remember...it's not so good.

This all came up because there is some porn title on a website that reads "My lover's son"....and it keeps making me think of the guy I was talking about above...and I want to barf....

Oh yeah...I am curious...is there any specific things that you are judgmental about when it comes to sex/relationships?

[meridannight]

apparently the two behaviors are something that are incompatible with your moral standards. if you're worried about having any moral standards at all, then you have a problem. because you are passing moral judgement here.

if you're also worried about conforming to/agreeing with any socially accepted standards, then you also have a problem. because most people in the world would have a critical attitude toward the above-mentioned scenarios. it's socially acceptable to condemn such behavior (in our time at least), and by far most people wouldn't see you being judgmental at all. by far the majority would agree that you are in the right here.

so, only if you want to be completely amoral on principle, or you don't want to adhere to any societal ethical standards out of principle, you have a problem here. otherwise, you're worried for nothing. most people pass judgement on one thing or another. there doesn't exist a single person in this world who is 100% nonjudgemental.

and i fully agree with you on sleeping with your best friend's man/woman. that is unacceptable in my book as well. that's low. this is something you don't do, no matter how fucking bad you want it. get over it, and find someone else.

i also agree with not seducing your son's boyfriend/partner. for fuck's sake, you're a grown man with a brain. that is just driving the point home that you don't give two fucks about your own son.

[meridannight]

plus: there's another thing to keep in mind here. you're not being judgemental about two consenting adults' sexual behavior. i think you're being judgemental about betrayal. i see both as betrayal as well. thus my own negative reaction to such comportment.

[Beaux]

Personally, I would find both situations you mentioned in your post abhorrent, but I AM judgemental and unapologetically so.

I once dated a young man, Paul, who was considerably younger than myself. When we met and first started dating, he was 20 and I was 36. As often happens, after only a couple of months of dating, he moved in with me. Upon hearing that we were moving in together, his father (a Sunday school teacher at my mother's church) began calling me questioning our relationship and pontificating about how we were living in "opposition to God's will".
After a couple of weeks of this, his father (Andy) told us that he wanted our address so that he could bring Paul's meager possessions by our appartment and drop them off. Normally I wouldn't have wanted Andy to even know what state we were in, much less my address, however, through the course of those couple of weeks Paul had confessed something about his childhood to me and I was DYING to confront Andy about it.
Finally, the day came for Andy to drop off Paul's stuff. He had barely made it out of his car when I said, "Paul says that from the time he was 11 until he was 14 you had sex with him.". Without missing a beat, Andy replied, "Having sex brought us closer together as father and son.".
I LOST it! Before I knew it, I was swinging at him! I have never before or since so genuinely wanted to kill someone! At the same time, he was trying to defend himself by trying to tell me that, as a gay man, I should UNDERSTAND why he engaged in sex with his son! I felt like I wanted to vomit (and still feel that way when I think about it!).
Needless to say, though it took some doing on my part, I got him relived of his duties as Sunday school teacher and made sure the entire church knew exactly what he was (my dad is a deacon).

I realize my example is an extream case, but reguardless, I am not ashamed of making judgement calls and acting on them. Wether we are discussing a person who sexually abuses his own children or someone who sleeps with his best friend's wife, I trust my own sense of right and wrong and have absolutely no problem acting (or reacting) approiately. Let the chips fall as they may.
~Beaux

[East]

Good point meridian!! Thanks for that....it really is the betrayal part of it. The reason I think I missed really seeing that before is when people cheat or go outside of their relationship I long ago decided that it was none of my business because no one except the two people involved can ever really know the dynamics at play in any relationship....but still that is a "betrayal" yet I choose to dismiss that...

...but when you have a best friend...or a son...and you do that kind of damage to a relationship of trust...ewwwww.....I think something is very wrong. I almost want to call it evil....not really sure though......

I remember when I was younger the first time I had to confront this...my best friend's boyfriend tried to hit on me one time at a party when my friend was working...I was shocked which probably turned him on.....

Of course I said NO and I was very conflicted for months whether or not to tell my friend....UGH....

I also have this "thing" where I like to get to the simplest point because I think the truth is simple...and now my "consenting adults" equation has conditions ...but I guess it always did.....I just didn't realize it.

I think the incompatible thing with my own moral standards is that I am a fucking loyal friend...to a very strong degree. When I know someone trusts me or our relationship/friendship..it is a huge thing for me and I honor and respect that....so the things I mentioned are really sleazy to me. My lover is my best friend and I have never said a bad word about him to ANYONE in 30 years and I honestly don't have anything bad I need or want to say. He trusts our friendship...I would not do anything to undermine that for any reason. I know it is the same for him with me as well....

....so now I have to figure out if I can still say I have no judgement when there are two consenting adults...or do I have to amend it?

Thanks for your input ((()))

[East]

Personally, I would find both situations you mentioned in your post abhorrent, but I AM judgemental and unapologetically so.

I once dated a young man, Paul, who was considerably younger than myself. When we met and first started dating, he was 20 and I was 36. As often happens, after only a couple of months of dating, he moved in with me. Upon hearing that we were moving in together, his father (a Sunday school teacher at my mother's church) began calling me questioning our relationship and pontificating about how we were living in "opposition to God's will".
After a couple of weeks of this, his father (Andy) told us that he wanted our address so that he could bring Paul's meager possessions by our appartment and drop them off. Normally I wouldn't have wanted Andy to even know what state we were in, much less my address, however, through the course of those couple of weeks Paul had confessed something about his childhood to me and I was DYING to confront Andy about it.
Finally, the day came for Andy to drop off Paul's stuff. He had barely made it out of his car when I said, "Paul says that from the time he was 11 until he was 14 you had sex with him.". Without missing a beat, Andy replied, "Having sex brought us closer together as father and son.".
I LOST it! Before I knew it, I was swinging at him! I have never before or since so genuinely wanted to kill someone! At the same time, he was trying to defend himself by trying to tell me that, as a gay man, I should UNDERSTAND why he engaged in sex with his son! I felt like I wanted to vomit (and still feel that way when I think about it!).
Needless to say, though it took some doing on my part, I got him relived of his duties as Sunday school teacher and made sure the entire church knew exactly what he was (my dad is a deacon).

I realize my example is an extream case, but reguardless, I am not ashamed of making judgement calls and acting on them. Wether we are discussing a person who sexually abuses his own children or someone who sleeps with his best friend's wife, I trust my own sense of right and wrong and have absolutely no problem acting (or reacting) approiately. Let the chips fall as they may.
~Beaux

Oh man Beaux...I know someone who had almost the same thing with the father and I watch him struggle to this day....and I have no problem being judgmental about that either...it violates both of my tenets...there can be no consent with a child...and one of them is not an adult....not to mention that the father is an authority figure and what he did is particularly damaging and heinous....UGH....and for him to mention "God's will" to you...OMFG

I am glad that you did what you did! Most of them get away with it...grrrr....

[Virge]

[MENTION=18508]East[/MENTION] .... reading about the two guys gave me the creeps for the same reason as you. Unlike Meridan I don't think it's an issue or morality and can prove it. Morality changes according the culture and never by religion or dictated by a god as christians like to propagandize. Morality in the days when my dad was 18 said it was wrong to use birth control, have hair touching a man's collar, a woman's skirt above her knee, people to date or marry outside their race, speak out against a war, premarital sex or cohabitation... Unless you believe that an all powerful and all seeing god changes his mind every 30 - 40 years about morality then you have to admit he's either a half assed god or has nothing to do with morality.

I am amoral and proud of it, more proud of it than many things I've done or feel I stand for. When someone starts ranting morality in my face I have a standard reply in two parts.

Part one.
"I live by a code or personal ethics that hold me to higher standards than any morality you can conceive of. Therefore your morality does not apply to me."

If they are stupid enough to to go for a rebuttal....
Part Two.
"Think quick. Would you prefer to stick your shitty morality back in that asshole you pulled it out of or would like like me to shove my foot in it?"

That usually ends the conversation. I developed that attitude at age 20 after reading a long and tedious novel that has an undeserved bad reputation. I usually deny having read it. However there are lines in that book that changed me more than any other. It gave me a words to express my own half formed ideas about love and sex and today I live these words.

"The men who think that wealth comes from the material resources and has no intellectual root or meaning, are the men who think–for the same reason–that sex is a physical capacity which functions independently of ones mind, choice or code of values. They think that their body creates a desire and makes a choice for them. Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a man’s sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy on life. Show me who he sleeps with and I will tell you his value of himself. "

My sexual choices = the sum of my core convictions.
If you want to know my philosophy don't waste your time asking about what I find sexually attractive.
Just look at who I sleep with and know my value of myself.
They are one and the same with no contradictions.

That's a part of my core deep personal ethics and in my lifetime those ethics will not change but morality has, does and will.

I have a hard time keeping that to myself with some people like the two you described. To be honest I'd probably make efforts to feel as low and deceitful as I perceive them to be. They'd never get more than contemptuous politeness from me.

People like that, who treat their sexual desires as something that are only bodily functions, who screw best friends' wives and seduce sons' boyfriends (AND GLOAT OR BRAG ABOUT IT) are showing you their entire philosophy, their values of themselves!!!! They trick, cheat and deceive to achieve what they like to believe are just bodily functions. How can you ever trust one of them or believe a word they speak?

I say clear your mind of any doubts that you are wrong for how you feel about them. If you see that you can vote for a man you know is so unscrupulous to screw his best friend's wife then you are a judging him on something other than his character. If he'll do that to his best friend, imagine what he'd do to you.

I did a search for Gavin Newsom. Handsome. I'll remember the face and the name. I'd like to have to make the choice to vote for him or not. There would be no contradiction involved for me.

[Virge]

[MENTION=13210]Beaux[/MENTION] ... dude I could have gone three lifetimes without reading what you wrote. I feel sick to my stomach now. I would have done my best to destroy that man for the things he said in defense of what he did.

[meridannight]

Finally, the day came for Andy to drop off Paul's stuff. He had barely made it out of his car when I said, "Paul says that from the time he was 11 until he was 14 you had sex with him.". Without missing a beat, Andy replied, "Having sex brought us closer together as father and son.".

vomit! i have no other word for it.

[Borg69]

I don't believe in god, but I do believe in the 10 commandments. I think civilization can't exist without a certain set of moral rules we all should abide by... not because we're scared of going to hell, but because we need them in order to act in a way that's productive as a society, and relatively fair.

I also believe in a certain amount of peer pressure. The people East described are only able to do the things they do because no one speaks up about it and enables them to keep repeating the same bad behaviors.

Beaux said: "Personally, I would find both situations you mentioned in your post abhorrent, but I AM judgemental and unapologetically so."

I agree with this statement... however... I also realize there's a fine line between MY (our) attitude towards this, and the holier than thou religious fanatics I can't stand whom are always trying to tell ME how I should live by THEIR rules... whom often times don't practice what they preach... which may very well be my biggest problem with them.