Cheating In The Digital Age
It's so easy! What the fuck!
Cheating used to be so much cooler. Think about it. Before the internet existed and we were unable to readily access anyone at any given time, there were more hoops to jump through and things to consider. If you wanted to cheat on your partner, you’d have to coordinate a place to carry out your devious desires, free of an iPhone or a way of orchestrating your betrayal more concretely. It led to spontaneous bouts of lust; you would have sex in your car, kiss a coworker at the annual Christmas party, fuck in a motel where your partner would neither suspect anything nor have any way of knowing you were gone. ‘Find my friends’ didn’t exist, there was no omnipresent, invisible other watching you. Cheating in an age free of technology almost makes breaking the primary rule of monogamy a little glamorous, that is, before you remember the selfish and life-altering offence you’re committing against your partner.
In the modern day however, cheating is both evil and corny. It has never ever been easier to be unfaithful to your partner, and more often than not, in more embarrassing, down-right pathetic ways. There’s now a traceable paper trail of your infidelity: raunchy texts, likes on an ex’s post, subscriptions to Only Fans creators, your suspiciously long and ever-growing block list, I could go on and on.
Worst of all, the digitized era that we live in (and will continue to be entrenched by) only seems to be a breeding ground for cheaters, it almost feels encouraged. With more ‘viable’ romantic and sexual prospects living within our screens than ever before, the internet is screaming at you from every corner possible to break your partner’s trust and heart. Is monogamy dead? Am I being dramatic (a little bit)? I don’t really have any answers . . . but here are my unsolicited thoughts on the whole issue!
Cheating Used to Be 1 Thing. Now It Could be A Million
Before everything went digital, I think it’s safe to assume that most people considered cheating to be crossing a physical barrier with someone that isn’t your monogamous partner. A passionate kiss with your ‘work wife’ or being inside the friend that you told your partner not to worry about was a simple indicator that you’ve cheated.
In today’s world, depending upon each individual’s standards and definitions of cheating, it could look like one or multiple combinations of the following options:
Liking an Instagram model’s pictures:
“Well . . . my partner is allowed to think other people are attractive, but do they have to publicly proclaim their lust by throwing a like on the post? Is the following necessary? Does this cheapen the sweet things they say about me when I know they’re yearning after this seemingly perfect, idealized other online?”
Cheating, though? Not sure.
Your partner has an Only-Fans subscription:
“They crossed a physical boundary . . . sort of? Does digitized fucking count? It’s just porn . . . but it’s also more personal and intimate. They can directly chat. They can request certain videos. It’s porn from someone they chose, someone they lust after, someone they pay for.”
Whether or not it’s cheating: up to your definitions.
Your partner has been texting their ex:
“Well, they didn’t ‘cross’ a physical boundary. What’re they talking about? Just catching up? About me? What’s okay and what’s not? Should they be talking at all?”
. . . cheating?
Exchanged sexts between your partner and a stranger:
“Well, they didn’t physically fuck, but they said ‘the scent of your pussy makes me CRAZY!!!!!’ . . . I’d prefer if my partner sent messages like that to me only, personally. How do I know this remained an interaction over the phone? Have they had phone sex? Did audio come into play? Did they meet and delete the conversation coordinating the whole thing? What messages have been deleted?
Did they cheat (yes) ?
I could go on and on with millions of other examples, but you get the point. Before the world became globalized by the internet, maybe you’d be able to narrow down your suspicions more easily. There were only so many people that your partner was able to cheat on you with, an inner circle or community that was confined to a workplace, a town, a friend of a friend.
Now, your partner could be messaging another suitor across the planet, on Snapchat, via a different messaging app. They could be on a dating app, swiping through potential mistresses and lovers; there is no end to wonderful, not at all anxiety and paranoia-inducing options!
On the Paper Trail: A Somewhat Unreliable Convenience
There are so many more pieces of the puzzle to put together nowadays if you’re suspicious of your partner, all thanks to our phones and lives coated in technology. Connect the dots between suspicious locations on some sort of tracking app, throw in some incriminating text messages, a screenshot of them on a dating app sent to you via the dreaded “Hey Girly! I know you don’t know mr, but . . .” messages, and you have a compelling case put before you. This makes for an odd mix between cheating being easier than ever alongside the ease of catching a cheater.
But how reliable is it in the first place? Messages can be edited on most platforms after they’re sent, whole chunks of conversations can be removed, incriminating pictures can be altered or wiped from a device, leaving behind what is often an unsettling but ultimately not so convincing trail of crumbs, ending at a spot that is not at all definitive or conclusionary.
When cheating was more widely defined as engaging in intimate physical activity with someone other than your partner, things were more easily black and white.
EX: “You fucked Sandy from work, and Linda had the kindess to tell me what was going on. You cheated. Fuck you, Rick. GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Now, in a time where it could be defined as an endless, almost comically ridiculous array of instances, it could look something a little more like this:
EX: “I saw you liked Danny’s picture on Instagram. I know you guys used to date and that makes me feel a little weird. Is something going on?”
“No babe, I just liked it by mistake, Danny was crazy!”
*runs to bathroom to delete texts with Danny*
How EMBARRASSING. Pieces of the puzzle are often either missing or have been haphazardly removed by the cheater. This makes for a storm of confusion and mental disarray. How can you decipher if a partner is cheating or not if you hadn’t already sat down and put a check mark next to all the endless ways that your person is able to cheat in the modern world . . . IT’S FUCKED UP.
So . . . Is Monogamy Dead?
The culture we’ve created fosters pursuing, or at least fantasizing about, countless potential partners, which isn’t necessarily or inherently bad. In fact, it can be liberating to break free from heteronormative and stereotypical confines of what constitutes a modern-day relationship, but in order for that ideal to be fully accepted and put into practice, I think a large amount of monogamous couples need to re-examine if that’s what they truly want, or rather, if that’s the truth that they’re actually living.
Plenty of people and couples would say they’re in a monogamous relationship, but have engaged in one or multiple of the examples listed above. People may want to remain within the label of ‘monogamous’ due to the stigma that is associated with polyamory, but in reality, I think plenty of couples lean closer something that looks like a polyamorous relationship, not necessarily by their own doing, but as a result of the '‘LET ME LOOK AT AND HAVE IT ALL” culture that we find ourselves in.
Now, I know I’m making incredibly broad strokes. I don’t truly believe that monogamy, as a whole, is dead. But in a general sense, are our definitions of monogamy outdated and unable to hold up with the world that we’ve created? I believe so. Would less hearts be broken and relationships become longer lasting if people embraced and discussed their polyamorous urges, or at the very least, concretely defined what constitutes cheating in the era we find ourselves in? Most likely, yes! Think about it is all I’m saying.
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