Fujiwara tofu rocks!

It means I can explain to you what it feels like to jump out of an airplane with a parachute but until you have actually done it you have no real clue what I am talking about.

decriminalize the medical marijuana movement.

Exactly. Hence the hobby phone. I guess you answered your own question.

Or is it like they always say,

A stiff dick doesn't have a conscious?

OR

Thinking with the little head instead of the big one?

It's easy for me to talk being single but I have to wonder if I would even be in the hobby if I was "Happily" married and yes, I did say "Happily".

There are many levels of "happily" married. Your experience with long term relationships can't compare with a man who has been married to the same woman for many years. When you first meet a new lady, it's exciting, everything is fun, and you have sex all the time. Then life happens, you both have full time jobs, kids, she's taking care of the house, and sex gets put on the back burner of what's important to her and sometimes him. You get into a routine and don't make the time for each other to keep your marriage fresh and exciting. This can go on for years, but you're both deeply in love with one another and don't want that to change, even though you don't have sex very often. For most men sex is an obsession hard wired into our genes, for most women it's something they do to show love. Once married they find other ways to show love like cooking great meals, taking care of "your" kids and cleaning the house. We love them, want to have sex all the time, and they don't very often. Is that a reason to divorce them, lose half of everything you own and see your kids every other weekend? For some guys yes, for most no.

So what do you do to keep your sanity and get laid once in a while without busting up your marriage? Do you simply accept that you're going to go without sex for as long as you're married to this woman, or do you do something that will satisfy your sexual needs so you're happy at home and can continue loving your wife and kids and remain a family?

And for you guys who think married men seeing providers is wrong, I think you've got it backwards. Single guys who can't stay in a stable relationship or have sex on a regular basis are the ones with the problem. Paying for sex because you don't have what it takes to date civilians seems pretty pathetic. The odds of starting a successful relationship with a provider are stacked against you, and there are lots of guys on RB that think paying for a woman's time is the same as dating them. IT'S NOT. I've known a number of confirmed bachelors in my life, and they died alone and never had a long term stable relationship, and providers were their primary source of sex. I'd rather risk marriage and getting caught with a provider than ending up like that.

There is a french saying that says, loosely translated, that the burdon of marriage is such that it often needs to be carried by three.

Equating the moral harm of deceiving and exploiting someone's sworn trust, and risking children's and spouse's emotional and financial well being, with a single guy's delusions and mixed feelings about commitment?

I don't think you're on sound footing with that rationalization.

IMO, there's little moral room to justify cheating, barring a few exceptions, like a psychologically or physically impaired spouse. Cheating is what it is. It's deception, it's breaking promises and violating trusts. I understand and agree with the biological justification for males to do it, and I've been a cheater myself, but i also understand the nature of promises and commitments, and I can't look myself in the mirror and say that I was doing the right thing when i cheated. I cheated because I could, and because I felt like it. Like I've said before -- if you don't think that you're crushing your spouse's expectations when you cheat, wait til she cheats on you. Yes, there are a some couples out there who have "don't ask, don't tell" policies of infidelity, but I think they are in the minority.

I also understand, fully, the man's feeling that he wants to, and can, build a fulfilling marriage, raise children, and build a hefty nestegg that is facilitated by many marriage unions, while also being sexually unfaithful. I get that, I do. But it still doesn't make it morally right.

So here's my answer to the " single guys are delusional peter pan losers." --

If a single guy avoids commitment because believes he cannot or will not be faithful in a marriage, he should not be condemned or mocked for it -- instead, he should be praised for his own personal commitment and adherence to his ethical code. If he deludes himself by hoping that a hooker will become his girlfriend, that's his burden, and no one else suffers for it. But the same cannot be said for a husband who is caught cheating.

If I marry again, and I cheat, I won't try to justify it. But I won't beat myself up either. I'll deal with it in the same way that all conflicted people deal with their choices and weaknesses.

But the way I feel now, I will not enter into another committed relationship unless I believe I will remain physically faithful. I'm long past my 20s, so I feel confident I can make that prediction with far more accuracy than I could as a young man.

Be the change
you wish to see

Hmm, I wonder if they would feel the same way if roles were reversed and it was the wife cheating?

Even with a psychologically impaired spouse when I had my 1st session I didn't fool myself into trying to 'morally justify' it.

"It is what it is" and yet it was a selfish decision I made willingly to realize that life can be rich and full and meaningful and also include an active sex life one relishes.

I was never caught and close civilian lady friends shared with me how active their own sex lives were with their husbands and I became aware that I'd been lying to myself and living out a hollow existence without a real sex life. My married lady friends all uniformly encouraged me to move forward as all of the couples and individual counseling etc. over the years hadn't helped.

Best thing I ever did was end both the phases of the near-zero sex marriage and also the 2nd phase of hobbying while married.

Single now, it's a choice to enjoy the hassle-free zero-drama of avoiding civies as I've dropped them time after time when the SO situation got wildly into the maniacal control-your-life phase scheduling up social time and placing expectations and showing their narcisstic tendencies and just generally being in it solely for themselves.

It's quite possible that there's a reasonable segment comprising those among us who aren't in the hobby because of an inability to maintain a civie SO relationship, but rather because we opt to not let the draining civie relationships we have had continue in perpetuity when they've become barriers to our happiness.

Amazingly I've learned that life doesn't end when I end an SO relationship -- or even a marriage -- and in fact it's gotten sweeter every time I have. It doesn't make me believe less in love or give up on the idea that fulfilled relationships exist. Many SO relationships, however in my experience, seem to just take some time to reach the level where incompatibility becomes apparent and it's time to realize it ain't there and neither partner will be happy in it. Actually, in several SO situations I've had, the lady was thrilled and was thought it was perfect because it was the best she'd had, yet it wasn't even close to ideal from my viewpoint.

It takes balls to realize how short life is and that even if it's good now, it can get much much better. There's a simplicity in not being in a civie relationship that puts perspective on things when the civie relationship deteriorates and you realize you want out.

Your bottom line of "But the way I feel now, I will not enter into another committed relationship unless I believe I will remain physically faithful." pretty well sums it up for me too. If I get to the point of wanting to be out of an SO type relationship, I'll get out of it and not try to juggle it and cheat simultaneously.

Your post was obviously very thought provoking, Oralio, so thanks.

Are you fucking kidding me this is this how you justify your actions by shifting the attention on others whom at best you're just generalizing about and you know nothing about them. Here's the reason your wife won't have sex with you as much as you like, the answer is in the mirror...take a good long look my pathetic friend

However that's just me and how I feel at this time. Who are we to judge other people's situations and choices? Just because you're incredibly happy and decide to get married doesn't automatically mean you'll be anywhere near as happy 10-20+ years down the line. As we age and time passes our relationships and bodies change. Menopause, a mid-life crisis, a partner's low sex drive could all be possibilities.

Also there could be complications like children involved. Some say that it's better and easier to hobby because there's no emotional attachment rather than finding a mistress to have their sexual needs taken care of. Others say, that they still love their wife, but it's simply the sexual aspect of their lives that is lacking. I've heard of providers who have "saved" marriages because of their services, whether it was helping the guy see what they were risking, or providing their services so the guy can then focus on being a good and happy husband/father.

Lastly, perhaps they're in an open relationship, or they have some kind of agreement with their wife. I'm just saying there's plenty of guys out there, who all hobby for different reasons, and have different life situations. Doesn't mean they're good or bad, right or wrong, they're simply human.

....well except for the aliens, robots, zombies and furries. But that's a whole other subject altogether.

------------------
Hope burns bright!

"Morality" - while the question of trust is a biggie, I refute the aspect of marriage having moral virtues. I agonized for a long while before I saw my first provider. I was mortified at the prospect of taking actions that would exclude me from the halo-like category of Faithful Husband while simultaneously labeling me an Adulterer. I rationalized my behavior by asking how my trust in my wife not becoming a stone-cold sexless bitch was rewarded.

I've thought of exactly what I would say if caught: "It was inevitable the moment our sex life ceased." And, yeah, anyone who is married and not an idiot has already done the math and knows what potential risk is involved in this hobby. This can be seriously heavy shit, and to my mind, oftentimes explains the need for so many of us to arduously (and hopefully lucidly) express our feelings, philosophy, observations and experiences so meticulously.

That unspoken assumption of a continuing sex life (disregarding physical/mental handicap, etc.), which is noticeably absent from any marriage vows I remember hearing during the ceremonies I've attended, is sure as hell going to be a topic of discussion before (and if) I ever pop that question again. This is an assumption I will never make in the future and I am 100% serious. I may die a single and possibly lonely man but if that's what's in the cards, so be it.

I endured 16 years of an ever-diminishing physical relationship with my wife. Eventually, after 5 years of total drought, I felt sorry enough for myself to do something about it. The first time was a revelation. A core part of my physical, mental and emotional existence and well-being re-awoke. I knew immediately, as certainly as the sun would rise tomorrow, I would not let it wither again.

[Note to wives]: Plan to use sex as a weapon? You are embracing an IED.

I've never had any desire to own/control anyone, including my sex partner. The entire concept of a monogamous relationship (from a man's perspective, at least) seems to me to be about as artificial as it gets, founded strictly upon societal pressure to produce obedient citizens from stable nuclear families. I felt this for years before I got married and may have contributed to my marrying fairly late in life.. Not that the emotional investment that we make in our sexual relationships is not real - very far from it. Ahh, and then there's the French, cited earlier. Their unselfconscious understanding and appreciation of the intricacies, fragility and beauty of the human condition subsequently gives rise to a "partitioning" solution, demonstrating infinite practicality. C'est magnifique!

Put simply, men want to engage in (seemingly) endless sexual pursuit and prefer frequent satisfaction. Women want a partner to help provide a stable environment in which to raise children, and then, once that's over, prefer to relax in comfort, possibly with sex, possibly without. Not that a single woman couldn't do that on her own (including the ones that opt for sex), and not that marriage doesn't have many positive, comforting, mutually beneficial and convenient aspects - it does.

The near-universal phenomenon that is so often celebrated within this community: the "I didn't see it coming" full-on addiction to selecting sexual partners (if only for an hour a month) from a catalog of choices is virtually undeniable and clearly hardwired in males. And once you get a taste, how you gonna stuff that genie of effervescent chemical cocktails back into your shattered vessel of an orgasm-infused brain, Sparky?

And yet.. I still may choose to deny myself a seat at the smorgasbord table of virtually effortless sexual delights that I have come to know and crave for another attempt at a monogamous relationship with a woman I feel I truly love (assuming my current marriage ends, sans bloodshed on either side) - who knows? I am not immune to conforming to our society's ideals. But somehow the odds of any future monogamous matches succeeding look a little longer now than when I was a newlywed.

Recall George Burns - "If you were married to Marilyn Monroe you'd cheat with some ugly girl."

May we all be Saints today, my son.

Be the change
you wish to see

But then, like more frequent orgasms, they'd become less special.

May we all be Saints today, my son.

Take care.