This was prompted by a short comic I came across on Instagram of a couple walking together, the woman was wearing pants that were low cut, not by much, but enough to start to see where her lower back started to meet her rear end. Another man walking past started looking at her butt, and in response the man with the woman, without saying anything, pulled up her trousers to make them a little less revealing.

The response in the comments from most was that this was toxic, controlling, evil, red flags, etc.

This prompted me to research this behavior and I came across the concept of mate guarding, which was something I instinctively knew but didn't know it had a name. Now while I certainly can see why some types of mate guarding (accusations, secretly going through your SO's devices, physical conflict, etc.) could be seen as toxic, it surprised me that even the more subtle, natural ones were seen as toxic.

Examples of more subtle forms of mate guarding include: giving your SO your jacket/hoodie to wear in public, public intimate physical contact in response to perceived advances from others (i.e. hand holding, putting arm over shoulders, kissing in public, etc.), and ensuring close physical proximity at public gatherings.

I've also noticed that there seems to be public resistance to having any sort of reasonable boundaries in a relationship at all. Things such as requests not to have prolonged private communications with those of the opposite sex, or to be alone with them, are all seen as toxic by modern society.

as for me personally, so long as it does not cross the line into abusive behavior, I've always thought of mate guarding by both parties as something to be expected in a healthy relationship, even encouraged. People are not perfect, and more predatory people are very capable of playing the mind games necessary to convince someone to cheat on their partner, this is not limited to either sex. I've also found, as a dude, that I very much enjoy being mate guarded by girlfriends. I'm oblivious to flirting generally, but whenever my girlfriend notices another woman flirting with me she will do things like come and hug me from behind, put her hands in my jacket pocket, and generally discourage the woman from continuing to speak to me. It gives me the warm fuzzies because its a small reminder to me that she sees me as valuable and something she doesn't want to lose (it also turns me tf on, I mean bricked up like the Washington monument turned on), and she's made similar comments in the past when I've made similar gestures in response to dudes hitting on her or oogling her, although my typical tactic is to put my hand on her waist and shoot a death stare at the dude. We also have mutually respected boundaries that we don't spend time alone with others (me with women, her with men) and generally I've seen our relationship grow and remain strong as a result. it's because of this that I really don't understand why these things are considered toxic by many, both in TRP and in TBP, although they give different justifications (TRP takes a hands-off "Just leave em" approach where TBP takes a "you need to be a doormat and let your SO do whatever they want and you're not allowed to criticize them at all" approach)

so please, try to help someone like me understand why society sees things like this as negative, although I'm not likely to agree with the points I would at least like to have the perspective so that I can understand better.