Came here inspired by a recent post on r/AITAH. The gist was that a guy got romantically involved with a girl, and thought things were going very well for the first 2-3 weeks. She then broaches the subject of exclusivity, and asked if he'd been seeing anyone else. He said no, emphatically, and then got curious and asked her the same question. She then admits to seeing (and sleeping with) multiple other people during the time they'd been involved. His response was one of surprise, and he quickly ended their association over it. She then gets distraught, and several of the guy's friends pile on and shame him for being an a-hole. Hence, he comes to AITAH to ask if he really is, in fact, the bad guy in the situation.

My position: absolutely not. In my view, his position is a perfectly reasonable one, and up until fairly recently, society at large held the same value set. Apparently, and as is evident by the comments in that thread, values are shifting. Many people (mostly the younger generation, I'm guessing) seem to think the guy is definitely the a-hole, not necessarily because he holds the preferences that he does, but because he didn't disclose them up front, and thus was unfairly holding his prospective partner to standards/expectations that weren't stated clearly from square one. They also say that nobody should "assume" that a dating partner is going to be exclusive. If that is what you want - or so the story goes - you should make your desires known immediately. Otherwise, you should basically assume the other person is seeing other people and be ok with it. Otherwise, some argued, you're just being unreasonable. One person I was discussing it with even said my position was "entitled" and that I was "probably a narcissist." Jesus fuck, is this really the direction we are headed as a society? Can it really be that people who hold the view that honesty and openness should be the default setting are now viewed as "entitled narcissists?"

Well let me go ahead and call BS if that's the case. For one, while I agree that the guy in this case held undisclosed standards, so to obviously did the girl. In the same way he assumed that they wouldn't/shouldn't be entertaining multiple sexual partners simultaneously, she assumed that they would/should (and that doing so without full disclosure wouldn't be a big deal). Now granted, we all know what they say about ASSumptions, and both in this particular circumstance were guilty of making them. The question then becomes one of social norms. When it comes to the question at hand, there is no way to make an objectively moral determination. There is no factual "right" or "wrong" way to approach dating. That said, we as a society are compelled to set some kind of social standard, or else confusion will reign. If person A assumes disclosure is the basic standard, and person B assumes that the standard is to simply assume multiple sexual partners without having to disclose the matter, then person A and B are at cross purposes. Who is "right" in this respect? Answer: whoever's position is in line with the prevailing social norms of the day. That's the only metric we have, since there is no objective moral standard to appeal to.

So what are the prevailing social norms, insofar as this question is concerned? It seems to me like there is something close to a 50/50 divide, and this is obviously a recipe for disaster in the dating market. The question then becomes: which direction do you advocate for? I personally advocate for full disclosure, and think that should be our guiding social principal. Why? Because the other route encourages hookup culture, and it should be apparent by now that hookup culture isn't doing society any favors, on the whole. If we disclose honestly our intention to see multiple people at once, then we give the other party the opportunity to opt-out of the situation if they aren't into it. If this were adopted as our primary social norm, more people would think twice about engaging in hookup culture, for fear of losing out on prospective partners who frown upon it. Otherwise it can all be cloaked in secrecy. If secrecy is normalized, then there can be no accountability whatsoever, and hookup culture will only be further normalized. After all, "everyone else is doing it." This is not a path towards progress, but towards hedonistic debauchery. Don't get me wrong, I don't come at this from a place of judgement. We all have our own hedonistic impulses, and they aren't always easily curbed. Lord knows I have mine. This isn't about perfection or moral grandstanding, but about a rational discussion concerning what makes the most sense for us as a society. In this case, I argue that the "traditional" social norm of assuming one partner at a time is preferable to whatever we want to call this that's trending currently.