protection and women

[Tonberry]

I want my partners to care, but I'd be worried if they had only negative feelings about it. I'd want them to have mostly or only positive feelings about it.

I'm glad to have a boyfriend who can protect me if I need to be protected. But he would never do it without my asking for help. Otherwise if someone is flirting he assumed I'm fine with it (unlike some other guys who would assume he's bothering me).

I like having someone who protects me, but I would think it condescending if they assumed they know better than I do what's good for me. So letting me make my decisions and respecting them is very important to me. This being said, I take my boyfriend's opinion into account and would want him to tell me if he's got a bad feeling about someone.

[GroundedSpirit]

Originally Posted by Freedom

hey

Im more talking about her feeling that it is un natural for a man to be ok with his girlfriend having a sexual relationship with another man. however the way I look at this is that, that may be so to some degree, however we have condoms and pregnancy control now so we dont need to worry about pregnancy, STDs etc!

Yep, that's what I was referring to.
The word "natural" is where the trap is. Maybe we should say "standard or common" It's very much a cultural thing. In our current culture is probably most common (taught) that love & caring are to be expressed this way. So from that perspective/definition you probably could say it's "unnatural".
But also by that definition everything outside the majority falls to being 'unnatural'.
So I think it's admirable to be 'abnormal' in cases where the 'normal' is regressive.

I get what you're saying about the big concerns about having multiple partners. This again is a learned fear (although legit) and has been used as a crutch more often than not. So it's good you've moved beyond that. As TP mentioned, we still have to be concious of this reality, it's just that we've quit using it as a crutch.
We want to feel assured about the safety of our partners. Sometimes we take an active role in that, sometimes we have to trust them. What's important is both feeling that they are on the same page about this, i.e. that our definitions of 'safety' are the same and the guidelines we'll use are agreed upon.
So it's not that you don't 'care', it's that you've developed some respect for her judgement and the fact that you both are in agreement about what safety is and how it gets approached.
Seems like signs of a good relationship to me - at least some pieces.

GS